MODERN ESKIMO

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 381, 16 November 1932, Page 3

MODERN ESKIMO

CHANGING CONDITIONS SLOWLY ADOPTING WHITE MAN'S WAYS AND CUSTOMS. HEALTHY AND HAPPY PEOPLE. The Eskimo, according to dispatches from the Far North, is slowly changing. Each year more and more of these remote guardians of the last frontier are adopting whi'te man's ways. In Alaska and Western Canada many Eskimos have , broken away from hunting and fishing to meet person al food and clothing wants and have beeome trappers and traders. In Greenland and Northern Labrador the Eskimo has clustered around the mission stations, adopting the white man's style of house, rather than sod huts, igloos, and skin tents, and bartering skins for the white man's canned foods, firearms, clothing, and photographs. "The Eskimos prohahly were the first people met by Europeans on American shores, but they are still among the least known, and certainly the least seen, of all native American tribes," says a bulletin from the American National Geographic Society. "Scandiavians came in contact with Eskimos in Greenland and in Labrador in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Since that time the Eskimos' main contact with the white man have been through explorers, missionaries, police officers, and occasional trappers and prospectors. "The name Eskimo is said to have been given by Biard in 1611 (in the form 'Excomminquois'). It means 'eaters of raw fish.' Considering their limited numhers, the Eskimos cover a tremendous range. The total Eskimo population of the world has been estimated at only 35,000, but Eskimo villages can be found here and there throughout the coasts of Arctic America from eastern Greenland and northern Labrador to the festernmost parts of Alaska and even on the tip of Asia across the Bering Straits. "Throughout this, distance, more than 5000 miles, the Eskimo speaks one language, a strange tongue, which requires a vocabulary of 10,000 words. As in Chinese, infiection is very important. Few outsiders learn it, although a 'pidgin English' has sprung up which some explorers and missionaries mistake for the Eskimo language. "Nearly all Eskimos live on or near the> coast, hecause they get most of their food from the sea. They raise no vegetables, supplementing their meat diet in summer with wild berries and roots. In summer they hunt land animals and birds, as a rule, and in the winter they live on sea mammals and fish. "Where least affeeted by the white man s civilisation — along the Arctic coast of Canada and in the islands north of Hudson Bay — the Eskimo is perhaps the wealthiest and happiest person on •earth. The village is the largest social unit. There are no chiefs or rulers. 'Leading men' have influence, but no authority. Large animals caught are shared with others, and personal property is secure, for on-e tribe never makes war against another. Along many of the inlets of the North-west Territories in Canada the Eskimo still hunts with bows and arrows, and - harpoons, in little skin boats or kayaks. "While snow houses, or igloos, are always associated with Eskimos, about half the Eskimo world does not know them at all. Igloos are almost never used in Labrador or in Alaska. Where the white man's frame house is not obtainable the native Eskimo lives in a dugout covered with sod, the roof being supported by poles on animal bones. In the summer the skin tent, or tupdc, is used, particularly while on hunting forays. "The igloo, perhaps the most unusual/of all dwellings, is made of blocks of snow, with a clear piece of ice for a window. Beds and benches are of ice, with warm furs on top. "A shallow pan made of stone or iron, shaped somewhat like a dustpan. is used for a( lamp or stove. AJong the flat side is a dry moss for a wick. Inside the pan is seal oil. . The cooking kettle is suspended above the pan. "Iron kettles and pans are of recent use, and are acquired from the white man, because the Eskimo has no iron and very little wood. "In Greenland and Labrador Eskimos have known white men for nearly 900 years, but there are still, in some parts of the Arctic, Eskimos who have seen only an occasional explorer. White men's diseases have killed more than two-thirds of all Eskimos since the first contacts with them, but' the population is now about stationary. "Except in Alaska, Eskimos do not live along regular steamship or tourist routes. Th'e Esldmos seldom can be induced to leave his northland, and the few who have been lured away have returned as quickly as possible."