Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition

INTRODUCTION

IT is early morning on the summit of East Cape, the steep headland that forms the eastern extremity of Siberia.

The first snow has already settled on the heights, giving one's thoughts the first cool touch of autumn. The air is keen and clear; not a breeze ruffles the waters of Bering Strait, where the pack ice glides slowly northward with the current.

The landscape has a calm grandeur all its own ; far away in the sun-haze of the horizon rises Great Diomede Island, here forming the boundary between America and Asia.

From where I stand, I look from one continent to another; for beyond Great Diomede lies, like a bank of blue fog, another island, the Little Diomede, which belongs to Alaska.

All before me lies bathed in the strong light of sun and sea, forming a dazzling contrast to the land behind me. Here lies the flat, marshy tundra, apparently a land of dead monotony, but in reality a plain-realm, with the life of the plain in game and sounds; a lowland which, unbroken by any range of hills, extends through a world of rivers and lakes to places with a distant ring, to the Lena Delta, and, farther, farther on, beyond Cape Chelyushkin, to regions that lie not far from my own land.

At the foot of the hill I have just ascended I see a crowd of Tchukchi women on foot, dressed in skins of curious cut; they have on their backs bags made of reindeer skin which they are filling with berries and herbs. They fit, iv INTRODUCTION

as an item of detail, so picturesquely into the great expanse that I continue to gaze at them until they are lost to sight among the green slopes of the valley.

On a narrow spit of land, with pack ice to the one side and the smooth waters of the lagoon on the other, lies the village or township of Wahlen. It is only now beginning to wake; and one by one the cooking-fires are lighted in the dome-shaped tents of walrus hide.

Not far from the coast town, clearly silhouetted on the skyline, a flock of tame reindeer move slowly along the crest of a hill, nibbling the moss as they go, while herdsmen, uttering quaint far-sounding cries, surround them and drive them down to the new feeding grounds.

To all these people, this is an ordinary day, a part of their everyday life; to me, an adventure in which I hardly dare believe. For this landscape and these people mean, to me, that I am in Siberia, west of the last Eskimo tribe, and that the Expedition has now been carried to its close.

The height on which I stand, and the pure air which surrounds me, give me a wide outlook, and I see our sledge tracks in the white snow out over the edge of the earth's circumference, through the uttermost lands of men to the North. I see, as in a mirage, the thousand little native villages which gave substance to the journey. And I am filled with a great joy; we have met the great adventure which always awaits him who knows how to grasp it, and that adventure was made up of all our manifold experiences among the most remarkable people in the world!

Slowly we have worked our way forward by unbeaten tracks, and everywhere we have increased our knowledge.

How long have those sledge journeys been? — counting our road straight ahead together with the side excursions up inland and out over frozen seas, now hunting game,

I

DOGS WHICH MADE THE WHOLE JOURNEY FROM HUDSON BAY TO POINT HOPE,

ALASKA

INTRODUCTION v and now seeking out some isolated and remote people? Say, 20,000 miles; more or less, — nearly the circumference of the earth. Yet how little that matters, for it was not the distances that meant anything to us! One forgets to count miles after three and a half years of constant go, go, go, — and tries only to keep in mind the accumulating experiences.

In my joy in having been permitted to take this long sledge journey, my thoughts turn involuntarily to a contrasting enterprise ending also in Alaska, where last Spring, people were awaiting the visit of daring aviators from the other side of the globe. And from my heart I bless the fate that allowed me to be born at a time when Arctic exploration by dog sledge was not yet a thing of the past. In this sudden retrospect, kindled by the great backward view from East Cape, indeed, I bless the whole journey, forgetting hardship and chance misfortune by the way, in the exultation I feel in the successful conclusion of a high adventure!

A calmer and more deliberate mental review of that long journey brings almost as much regret as pleasure. For I find that to tell of my observations on the trip, in a book of proper length, compels me to omit more than I can include; and, often, things of great interest.

Particularly painful is it to leave out a statement of the accomplishments of my associates on the Expedition. At the beginning I was merely the leader of a whole group, which included some Danish scientists of note. During the first year, we worked together out of a base on the eastern coast of Canada, going out in small parties to various stations, and returning from time to time to collate our material. Our work had mainly to do with ethnography; my associates were concerned also with vi INTRODUCTION

archeology, geology, botany and cartography. They did notable work in mapping territory known before only in a vague way. We did much excavating in ruins of former Eskimo cultures. The work of my colleagues in this field, especially, contributed much to knowledge of the past. Full reports of their findings have been published in books, monographs, and papers under their own names before learned societies. This allusion here must stand as the chief acknowledgment, in the present book, of their work. They enter hereafter only in passing.

For, here, I am constrained by limitations of subject to confine myself to a portion of the material I gathered personally, both while I was with them, and later, when I set out on my visit alone to all the tribes of Arctic North America.

It was my privilege, as one born in Greenland, and speaking the Eskimo language as my native tongue, to know these people in an intimate way. My life's course led inevitably toward Arctic exploration, for my father, a missionary among the Eskimos, married one who was proud of some portion of Eskimo blood. From the very nature of things, I was endowed with attributes for Polar work which outlanders have to acquire through painful experience. My playmates were native Greenlanders; from the earliest boyhood I played and worked with the hunters, so that even the hardships of the most strenuous sledge-trips became pleasant routine for me.

I was eight years old when I drove my own team of dogs, and at ten I had a rifle of my own. No wonder, therefore, that the expeditions of later years were like happy continuations of the experiences of my childhood and youth.

Later, when I became aware of the interest which the culture and history of the Eskimo hold for science, I was able to spend eighteen years in Greenland again, laying

INTRODUCTION vii down the foundation, by the long study of one tribe, for a more comprehensive study of all the tribes.

In 1902, I began my active ethnographical and geographical work with the Eskimos, which has continued pretty steadily since. In 1910 I established, in collaboration with M. Ib Nyeboe, a station for trading and for study in North Greenland, and to it I gave the name of "Thule," because it was the most northerly post in the world, — literally, the Ultima Thule. This became the base of my subsequent expeditions, four major efforts in ten years, and all called " Thule Expeditions. "

By 1920 I had completed my program of work in Greenland, and the time had come to attack the great primary problem of the origin of the Eskimo race. The latter enterprise took definite shape in the summer of 1921, in the organization of an expedition which went from Greenland all the way to the Pacific. At the beginning we worked from a headquarters on Danish Island, west of Baffinland, excavating among the ruins of a former Eskimo civilization, and studying the primitive inland Eskimo of what are known as the Barren Grounds.

Later, with two Eskimo companions, I travelled by dog sledge clear across the continent to the Bering Sea. I visited all the tribes on the way, living on the country, and sharing the life of the people. What I observed on that trip constitutes my story.

The Eskimo is the hero of this book. His history, his present culture, his daily hardships, and his spiritual life constitute the theme and the narrative. Only in form of telling, and as a means of binding together the various incidents is it even a record of my long trip by dog sledge. Whatever is merely personal in my adventures must be cut out, along with the record of the scientific achievements of my associates.

viii INTRODUCTION

Even the Eskimo will suffer some omissions, — for it is obvious that only a portion of the story can be told, when the selection has to be made from thirty note-books, and 20,000 items of illustrative material.

Yet I think it due my companions, before so summarily disposing of them, to point out that the first year of joint effort with them helped greatly to shape my own work and to spur me to enthusiasm sufficient to carry over the long pull alone. In enumerating the rest of the party, I am in one sense naming co-authors.

With me, then, were Peter Preuchen, cartographer and naturalist; Therkel Mathiassen, archeologist and cartographer; Kaj Birket-Smith, ethnographer and geographer; Helge Bangsted, scientific assistant; Jacob Olsen, assistant and interpreter; and Peder Pedersen, Captain of the Expedition's motor schooner, Sea-King.

The official title of the Expedition was: 'The Fifth Thule Expedition, — Danish Ethnographical Expedition to Arctic North America, 1921-24."

It was honored by the patronage of King Christian X. of Denmark, and advised by a committee consisting of M. Ib Nyeboe, chairman, and Chr. Erichssen, Col, J. P. Koch, Professors 0. B. Boeggild, Ad Jensen, C. H. Ostenfeld, of Copenhagen University, and Th. Thomsen, Inspector of the National Museum at Copenhagen*

Hardly less important to the comfort and success of the Expedition than the work of these scientists was the contribution of our Eskimo assistants from Greenland, and those we added locally from time to time. We brought with us Iggianguaq and his wife, Anarulunguaq; Arqioq and his wife Anaranguaq; Nasaitordluarsuk, hereinafter known as " Bosun, " together with his wife, Aqatsaq; and finally, a young man, known as Miteq,- cousin of Anarulunguaq.

INTRODUCTION ix

Iggianguaq died of influenza after we were far from home, and his wife continued with me to the end of the long trip, along with Miteq. It was her duty, as that of the other women, to keep the fur clothing mended, to cook, and, on the journey, to help drive the dogs. The men drove, hunted food for men and dogs, and built snow huts wherever we set up new camps.

Anarulunguaq is the first Eskimo woman to travel widely, and along with Miteq, the only one to visit all the tribes of her kinsmen. She has received a medal from the King of Denmark for her fine work. After the first y ear, I struck out with one team of dogs and these two Eskimos for the trip across to Nome. Considering the rigors they endured, I don't know which is the more remarkable, that I came through the three and a half years with the same team of dogs, or with the same Eskimos. Surely, however, it is no mere sentimental gesture to point out that they had a bigger share in the outcome of the trip than I have space to show.

One omission likely to be welcomed, at least by the reader, is the almost total excision of theories about the origins of the Eskimos. This being one of the chief assignments of our research, I think it a mark of strict literary discipline to have succeeded in keeping it so nearly completely out of the story, — at least in the manner approved by scientists. As an outlet to suppressed dogmatizing, therefore, I am going to make a compact little statement, at this point, of some of our conclusions, and hereaf ter allow the facts to point to their own conclusions.

The Eskimos are widely scattered from Greenland to Siberia, along the Arctic Circle, about one-third of the way around the globe. They total in all no more thatx 33,000 souls, which represents, perhaps, the outside x INTRODUCTION

number of persons who can gain their Evelihood by hunting in a country so forbidding. They have a wide range in following the seasonal movement of game, but in so vast a territory the different tribes are scattered and isolated from each other. Good evidence leads us to believe that a period of at least 1500 years has elapsed since the various tribes broke off from one original stock.

In so prolonged a separation, it would be natural for the language and traditions of the various tribes to have lost all homogeneity. Yet the remarkable thing I found was that my Greenland dialect served to get me into complete understanding with all the tribes. Two great divisions appeared in the customs, — a land culture and a coastal culture. The most primitive Eskimos, a nomadic tribe who lived in the interior and hunted caribou, had almost no knowledge of the sea, and their customs and tabus were limited accordingly. Nothing in their traditions or implements indicated that they had ever been acquainted with marine pursuits. But the folklore of the sea-people, in addition to being unique in its references to ocean life, was in many other respects identical with that of the tribes that had never been down to sea. The conclusion was inevitable that originally all the Eskimos were land hunters, and that a portion of them later turned to hunting sea-mammals. The latter people retained all their old vocabulary and myths, and added thereto a nomenclature and a folklore growing out of their experience on the water.

As for what happened before that, in the remote past, the theory 1 came to accept was that long, long ago, the Eskimos and the Indians were of common root. But different conditions developed different customs, to such a degree that now there seems to be no resemblance between the Indians and the Eskimos. But the like-

INTRODUCTION xi nesses are there, not obvious to the wayfarer, but sufficiently plain to the microscopic eye of the scientist. The aboriginal Eskimos developed a special culture around the big rivers and lakes of the northernmost part of Canada. From here, they moved down to the coast, either because they were driven by hostile tribes or because they had to follow the caribou in their migrations. They developed the first phases of a coastal culture at the Arctic Coast of Canada, most probably between Coronation Gulf and the Magnetic North Pole.

From here they wandered over to Labrador, Baffinland, and Greenland, to the east, and westward, reached Alaska and the Bering Sea. Around the Bering, with its abundance of sea-animals, they had their Golden Age, as a coastal people.

From here a new migration took place, for what reason we cannot know, but this time from the West to the East, and here we find the explanation for all the ruins of permanent winter houses we discovered along the Arctic Coast between Greenland and Alaska. The present Eskimos do not construct such houses, which were built in rather recent times by people known as the Tunit The Greenlanders, however, do, and they are undoubtedly the original Tunit.

During all these years of migration, some tribes kept to their old places in the interior, which explains why we were able to find aboriginal Eskimos in the Barren Grounds. These facts, together, explain why the spiritual culture exhibited a certain continuity between all the tribes.

The foregoing was the theory advanced by Prof. H, P. Steensby, of the University of Copenhagen, and all of our researches lent support to it.

There is another general theory with regard to the xii INTRODUCTION

Eskimos which has but slight relation to the question of American origins, for it goes back to much more ancient times, — not less than 25,000 years ago. This theory traces the Eskimo back to a time when our own ancestors of the Glacial Period lived under similar arctic conditions, and, presumably, resembled the Eskimo of today. All remains of the material culture of the Glacial, or Stone Age are exactly comparable with that of the Arctic dwellers, and the theory assumes that a similar spiritual resemblance can be inferred. This grows naturally out of the discovery that the Eskimos, intimately studied, are much more spiritual-minded, much more intelligent, much more likeable than the average man has been led to expect. They prove to be human beings just like ourselves, — so like, indeed, that we cannot avoid drawing them into the fold, and saying, "These people belong to our race!"

For they do, certainly, react to the suffering, the sacrifices, the hardships and the mysteries of evil which they face, much as we do. Their philosophy, even when untouched by any influences of civilization, has many curiously modern slants, including such ideas as auto-suggestion, spirit seances, and cataleptcy. Their poetry has many resemblances to ours, their religion and folklore often resemble, even in phrasing, as well as in content, our earlier religious literature.

Some archeologists have made bold to assert that the Eskimos are surviving remnants of the Stone Age we know, and are, therefore, our contemporary ancestors. We don't have to go so far to claim kinship with them, however, for we recognize them as brothers. , I believe that the following pages will bear out this statement. Even so, I do not dare to feel that the whole story of the Eskimo, or his whole appeal to our sympathies will be found here.

INTRODUCTION xiii

I have not sounded all the depths. One can never finish exploring a people.

The Expedition started from Copenhagen on the of June, 1921, and proceeded via Greenland, in order to pick up additional members of the party, and arctic equipment. The vessel employed was one built especially for the trip, — the schooner Sea-King, of something over 100 tons.

Since the scientific members of the Expedition would be so occupied with their tasks that they would hardly have time for hunting, and procuring food for the dogs, this important task was to be entrusted to the Greenlanders from Thule, who are at once skilful travellers and notable hunters.

After a favorable passage across the dreaded and icefilled Melville Bay, we arrived at Thule on the 3rd of August, and engaged our native assistants. Leaving Greenland through Pox Channel in mid-September, forcing a passage through heavy ice around to the north of Southampton Island, we found a harbor on a little, unknown and uninhabited island. A whole month was spent in building a house for our winter quarters, — we called it the "Blow-hole," by reason of the prevalent winds — and in sledge trips in various directions with a view to ascertaining our position. Our observations gave this as 65° 54' N, 85° 50' W, but the old maps were so inadequate that we could not at first mark the locality on any existing chart.

The place was afterward called Danish Island. Here in a smiling valley opening seaward upon a shelving beach, and landward, sheltered by a great crescent of guardian hills, we erected what was to be our home for months to come.

xiv INTRODUCTION

Scarcely were we ashore when we found fresh bear tracks in the sand immediately below the location we had chosen for our home. On our first brief reconnaissance to the top of a neighboring hill, we encountered a hare so amazingly tame that we were tempted actually to essay his capture with our bare hands. Soon afterward we spied a lonely caribou who at once was all curiosity and came running toward us to investigate these strange visitors. The confidence of the game showed well enough ho,w little disturbed the region had been. Never before had I encountered from animals such a friendly greeting.

From the top of the hills we had a fine view of a neighboring fjord, and out in the open water were seen glistening dark backs of walrus curving along the surface as they fed. Such was our first impression of this new country, truly a land hospitable in its promise of game.

By October, the ground was covered with snow, and a narrow channel behind the house frozen over. The first thing now was to get into touch with the nearest natives as soon as possible; but as the mouth of Gore Bay was open water we were unable to travel far, and by the end of October all we had found was a few old cairns and rough stone shelters built by the Eskimo of earlier days for the purpose of caribou hunting with bow and arrow* The first meeting with the Eskimos of the new world was yet before us.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION iii

CHAPTER I

OLD FRIENDS IN NEW SKINS

I HAD halted to thaw my frozen cheeks when a sottnd and a sudden movement among the dogs made me start.

There could be no mistake as to the sound, — it was a shot. I glanced round along the way we had come, fancying for a moment that it might be the party behind signalling for assistance; but I saw them coming along in fine style. Then I turned to look ahead.

I had often imagined the first meeting with the Eskimos of the American Continent, and wondered what it would be like. With a calmness that surprised myself, I realized that it had come.

Three or four miles ahead a line of black objects stood out against the ice of the fjord. I got out my glass; it might, after all, be only a reef of rock. But the glass showed plainly: a whole line of sledges with their teams, halted to watch the traveller approaching from the South. One man detached himself from the party and came running across the ice

in a direction that would bring him athwart my course. Evidently, they intended to stop me, whether I would or no. From time to time, a shot was fired by the party with the sledges.

Whether the shots fired and the messenger hurrying toward me with his harpoon were evidence or not of hostile intent, I did not stop to think. These were the men I had come so far to seek from Denmark and from my familiar haunts in Greenland. Without waiting for my companions to come up, I sprang to the sledge, and urged on the dogs, pointing out the runner as one would a quarry in the chase. The beasts made straight for him, tearing along at top speed. When we came up with him, their excitement increased; his clothes were of unfamiliar cut, the very smell of him was strange to them; and his antics in endeavoring to avoid their twelve gaping maws only made them worse.

"Stand still!" I cried; and, taking a flying leap out among the dogs, embraced the stranger after the Eskimo fashion. At this evidence of friendship the animals were quiet in a moment, and sneaked off shamefacedly behind the sledge.

I had yelled at the dogs in the language of the Greenland Eskimo. And, from the expression of the stranger's face, in a flash I realized that he had understood what I said.

He was a tall, well-built fellow, with face and hair covered with rime, and large, gleaming white teeth showing, as he stood smiling and gasping, still breathless with exertion and excitement. It had all come about in a moment, — and here we were!

THE FIRST MAN TO GREET US IN THESE NEW LANDS His face and hair were thick with icicles.

As soon as my comrades behind had come within hail, we moved on toward the party ahead, who had been watching us all the time. Our new friend informed me that his name was Papik and that he had come from the neighborhood of Lyon Inlet, — the next large inlet to the North of our recently established headquarters camp on Danish Island. There was not time for much talk, before we came up with the others; and I was anxious this time to check the dogs before they became too excited. As we approached, the men caine out to meet us, the women and children remaining with the sledges.

These men, then, were the Akilinenmtrt, — the "men from behind the Great Sea/' of whom I had heard in my earliest youth in Greenland, when I first began to study the Eskimo legends. The meeting could hardly be more effectively staged; a whole caravan of them suddenly appearing out of the desert of ice, men, women and children, dressed up in their fantastic costumes, like living illustrations of the Greenland stories of the famous "inland-dwellers." They were dad throughout in caribou skin; the fine short haired animals shot in the early autumn. The women wore great fur hoods and long, flapping ' l coattails" falling down over the breeches back and front. The curious dress of the men was as if designed especially for running; cut short in front, but with a long tail out behind. All was so unlike the fashions I had previously met with that I felt myself transported to another age; an age of legends of the past, yet with abundant promise for the future, so far as my own task of comparing the various tribes of Eskimos was concerned. I was delighted to find that the difference in language was so slight that we had not the least difficulty in understanding one another. Indeed, they took us at first for tribesmen of kindred race from somewhere up in Baffin Island.

So far as I thought they would understand, I explained our purposes to my new friends. The white men, Peter Freuchen and myself, were part of a larger party who had come out of the white man's country to study all the tribes of the Eskimo, — how they lived , what language they talked, how they hunted, how they amused themselves, what things they feared, and believed about the future life — every manner of thing. We were going to buy and carry back to our own country souvenirs of the daily life of the Eskimo, in order that the white man might better understand, from these objects, the different way the people of the northern ice country had to live. And we were going to make maps and pictures of parts of this country in which no white man had ever been.

I introduced, then, my Eskimo companion (Bosun) , — a man from Greenland who was almost as strange to the Akilinermiut as I, He had come along to hunt and to drive sledges, and do other work for the white man, while we gave our time to these studies.

My new friends were greatly pleased and impressed. They had just set out for their autumn camp up country at the back of Lyon Inlet, taking with them all their worldly goods. Being, however,

like Eskimos generally, creatures of the moment, they at once abandoned the journey on meeting us, and we decided to set off all together for some big snowdrifts close at hand, where we could build snow huts and celebrate the meeting.

Accustomed as we were ourselves to making snow huts, we were astonished at the ease and rapidity with which these natives worked. The Cape York Eskimos, in Greenland, reckon two men to the task of erecting a hut ; one cutting the blocks and handing them to the other, who builds them up. Here, however, it was a one-man job; the builder starts with a few cuts in the drift where he proposes to site his house, and then proceeds to slice out the blocks and lay them in place, all with a speed that left us staring open-mouthed. Meantime one of the women brought out a remarkable type of snowshovel, with an extra handle on the blade, or business end, and strewed a layer of fine snow over the waH as it rose, thus caulking any chinks or crevices, and making all thoroughly weather-proof. Two technical points which particularly impressed our Cape York man, as an expert, were firstly the way these men managed to build with loose snow — some degree of firmness being generally considered essential — and further, the very slight arch of the roof, which has ordinarily to be domed pretty roundly for the blocks to hold, whereas here, it was almost flat* In less than three quarters of an hour, three large huts were ready for occupation; then, while the finishing touches were given to the interior, the blubber lamps were lighted and the whole made warm and cosy.

I and my two companions distributed ourselves among the three huts, so as to make the most of our new acquaintances. Caribou meat was put on to boil; but we found also, that our hosts had both tea and flour among their stores, which they had purchased from a white man down at Repulse Bay, not far from the camp. This was news of importance to us, for it meant we might have a chance of sending letters home in the spring.

In the course of the meal, I obtained some valuable information as to the neighborhood and neighbors. There were native villages, it appeared, in almost every direction round about our headquarters. They were not numerous, but the more interesting in their varied composition. There were the Igdlulik from Fury and Hecla Strait, the Aivilik between Repulse Bay and Lyon Inlet, and a party of Netsilik from the region of the North-west Passage. Only half a day's journey from the camp there was a family from Ponds Inlet, on the north coast of Baffin Land.

Conversation was for the most part general, as it mostly is on first acquaintance. Speaking the same tongue, however, we were not regarded .altogether as strangers, and I was able even to touch on questions of religion. And I soon learned that these people, despite their tea and flour and incipient enamel-ware culture, were, as regards their view of life and habit of thought, still but little changed from their ancestors of ages past.

Plainly, here was work for us in plenty, and an interesting task it promised to be. We had, moreover, been well received, and I anticipated little

difficulty in gathering information. First of all, however, we must go on to seek the nearest Hudson's Bay Company station, and find out whether there really would be any opportunity of postal communication in the spring.

We started accordingly, on the following morning. On the 5th of December, while it was still daylight, we reached the spot where, according to the Eskimo accounts, the white man had his quarters. At the base of a little creek, behind huge piles of twisted and tumbled ice, stood a modest looking building, dark against the colony of snow huts which surrounded it. This, we found, was the extreme advanced post of the Hudson's Bay Company of Adventurers, one of the oldest and greatest trading companies in the world.

We had hardly drawn up in front of the house before the station manager, Captain Cleveland, came out and greeted us with the most cordial welcome. He proved, also, to be a remarkably quick and efficient cook, and had a meal ready for us in no time; a steaming dish of juicy caribou steaks and a Californian bouquet of canned fruit in all varieties.

George Washington Cleveland was an old whaler who had been stranded on the coast here over a generation before, and made himself so comfortable among the Eskimos that he had never been able to tear himself away. Nevertheless, he was more of an American than one would expect from his isolated life, and was proud of having been born on the very shore where the Mayflower had first landed, He had been through all manner of adventures, but

ID ACROSS ARCTIC AMERICA

neither shipwreck nor starvation, not to speak of the other forms of adversity that had fallen to his lot, could sour his cheery temper or impair his steady, seaman-like assurance of manner.

We knew really very little about this arctic region of Canada, and Captain Cleveland's information was most valuable to us later on. We learned now that one of the Hudson's Bay Company's schooners, commanded by a French Canadian, Captain Jean Berthie, was wintering at Wager Bay, five days' journey farther to the south* There was a chance that we might be able to send letters home in the course of the winter by this route, and it was at once decided that Freuchen should set out for the spot and bring bade news.

Tfcere was a dance that evening, to celebrate the visitors' arrival. The Eskimo men and women had learned, from the whalers, American country dances. Music was provided by the inevitable gramophone which seems to follow on the heels of the white man to most parts of the world. And the women were decked out in ball dresses hastily contrived for the occasion from material supplied by Captain Cleveland.

Later on, we made a round of the huts, which were refreshingly cool after the heat of the ballroom. We were anxious to get more information as to the country round, but being unacquainted with the Eskimo names of places near, we could only go by the old English maps, and were rather at a deadlock when aid arrived frona an unexpected quarter. An old fellow With a long wMte beard, and eyes reddened with the strain of many a blizzard, revealed himself as a geographical expert.

We brought out paper and pencil, and to my astonishment, this "savage" drew, without hesitation, a map of the coastline for a distance of some hundreds of miles, from Repulse Bay right up to Baffin Land. The map completed, he told me all the Eskimo place names, and at last we are able to get a real idea as to the population of the district and the position of the settlements. I was elated here to note that the majority of these names; Naujarmiut, Pitorqermiut, Nagssugtormiut and many others, were identical with some of the familiar place names from that part of Greenland where I was born. And when I began telling of the Greenland folk tales to the company here, it turned out that they knew them already; and were, moreover, themselves astonished to find that a stranger should be acquainted with what they regarded as their own particular legends.

I was looking forward to closer acquaintance with these people and their history and traditions; Ivaluartjuk, who had drawn the map, wottH, I foresaw, be particularly useful as a source of MoimatkHi. But we could not now remain longer than the one whole day, and on the 7th of December, we took leave of our new friends, Freuchen going down as arranged to meet Captain Berthie at Wager Bay, while Bosun and I drove back to our winter quarters. After passing Haviland Bay, however, we came upon some old sledge tracks, and decided to follow and see whither they led*

CHAPTER II

TAKORNAOQ ENTERTAINS GENTLEMEN FRIENDS

IN the middle of a big lake an old Eskimo woman

• stood fishing for trout. In spite of the fact that the winter was yet young the ice had already become so thick that all her strength must have been needed in cutting the hole for her line. Now and then she took a piece of drift-wood shaped like a shovel and pushed away the fragments of ice that were in her way. Then stretching out on her stomach she thrust half her body so far into the hole that all that remained visible was a pair of bent, skin-covered legs waving in the air.

Suddenly a puppy that had lain buried in the snow scrambled to his feet and started to bark wildly. Tumbling out of the hole, the old woman crouched, bewildered &t peeing Bostua and myself so near her. At f^ft;spp<| o$tr 4©g§ dashed down on the odd pair.

*?fae seized the pup by the mi& a&d set out in the direction of the .fist as later ancient legs would carry her. B of her flight only served to increase the, c£ ouar dogs, already excited by the scent of tite ¥lfi3ge, aad such was their speed that, in passffif the fugitive, I had barely time to seke her and tog her on top of the flying sledge. There she lay

with horror in her eyes, while I burst out laughing at the absurdity of the scene* At length, through her tears of fright, she started to smile, too, realizing that I was a human, and a friendly human being, at that.

It was old Takomaoq. She now sat with arms convulsively clutching the whimpering pup. Then above the noise of the frightened dog I suddenly heard a sound that startled me in turn. Bending over her and cautiously lifting her skin kolitah I discovered far down inside her peltry clothing a small infant clinging to her naked back and whimpering in unison with the mother and the terrified puppy.

Such was my meeting with Takornaoq. Soon we were friends. We raced merrily along to her village, which consisted of three snow huts. Here we were introduced to the notables of the place.

Inernerunassuaq was an old angakoq, or wizard, from the neighborhood of the Magnetic Pole. He screwed up his eyes to a couple of slits cm being introduced, and was careful to draw my attention to his magic belt, which was httng about with zoological preparations. His wife was a simple soul, fat and comfortable, as befits one married to a specialist in the secret arts. They had a large family of small children who hung about getting in the way; none of them had reached the age when a child is reckoned worthy of a name, and their parents simply pointed at this one or that when telling them to be quiet.

Thai there was Talerortalik, son-in-law to the foregoing, having married Uvtukitsoq,, the wizard's daughter. They looked an insignificant pair; but

I4 A CROSS ARCTIC AMERICA

we found out afterwards that it was they who made ends meet for the wizard and his flock. Finally, there was Peqingassoq, the cripple, who was said to be specially clever at catching trout. Others were briefly introduced, and Takornaoq carried me off to her own hut. It was clean and decent as such places go, but chilly, until we got the blubber lamp well alight.

Bosun and I settled down comfortably on the sleeping place among the cosy caribou skins. And as soon as the meat was put on to boil, Takoraaoq sat down between us with the unexpected observation that she was "married to both of us now," her husband, whom she loved, being away on a journey. Then taking a tiny infant from her aniaut, she laid it proudly in a hareskin bag. The child was named Qasitsoq, after a mountain spirit, the mother explained. It was not her own child, but one of twins born to a certain Nagsuk; she had bought it for a dog and a frying pan. It was too much really, for such a pitiful little creature, nothing but skin and bone; Takornaoq complained bitterly that Nagsuk had cheated, and given her the poorer of the two.

Our hostess told us a great deal about herself and her family. She was of the Igdlulik, from Fury and Hecla Strait, a tribe noted for clever hunters and good women; and she was proud of her origin, as being superior to that of her fellow-villagers here. Our visit was most welcome, she assured us, and even went to the length of voicing her appreciation in an improvised song, which she delivered sitting between us on the bench. Her voice, it is true, was somewhat

over-mellowed by her sixty odd winters, but its quavering earnestness fitted the kindly, frank, simplicity of the words:

Aya iya, aya ya-iya,

The lands about my dwelling

Are grown fairer this day

Since it was given me to see

The face of strangers never seen.

All is fairer,

All is fairer,

And life is thankfulness itself*

Aya, these guests of mine Bring greatness to my house, Aya iya, aya ya-iya.

Immediately after the song, dinner was served. Our hostess, however, did not join us at the meal; a sacrifice enjoined by consideration for the welfare of the child. Among her tribe, it appeared, women with infant children were not allowed to share cooking utensils with others, but had their own, which were kept strictly apart.

Not content with feeding us, however, she then opened a small storehouse at the side of the hut, and dragged forth the whole carcase of a caribou. This, the good old soul explained, was for our dogs. And with rare tact, she tried to make the gift appear as a matter of course. " It is only what my husband would do if he were at home. Take it, and feed them." And she smiled at us with her honest old eyes as if really glad to be of use.

Bosun and I agreed that it was the first time in our lives a woman had given us food for our dogs.

We enquired politely after her husband, Patdloq, and learned that she had been married several times before. One of her former husbands, a certain Quivapik, was a wizard of great reputation, and a notable fighter* On one occasion, at Southampton Island, he was struck by a harpoon in the eye, while another pierced his thigh, ''But he was so great a wizard that he did not die of it after all." He was an expert at finding lost property, and had a recipe of his own for catching fish.

"Once we were out fishing for salmon, but I caught nothing. Then came Quivapik and taking the Kne from me, swallowed it himself, hook and all, and pulled it out through his navel. After that I caught

Another of Takornaoq's adventures shows something of the dreadful reality of life in these regions.

"I c»ce met a woman who saved her own life by eating her husband and her children.

"My husband and I were on a journey from Igdiulik to Ponds Inlet. On the way he had a dream ; in which it seemed that a friend of his was being eaten by his own kin. Two days after, we came to a spot where strange sottnds hovered in the air. At first w^ocmld not make out what it was, but coming nearer it was like the ghost of words; as it were one trying to speak without a voice. And at last it said :

"'I am one who can no longer live among humankvm, for I have eaten my own kin.9

41 We could hear now that it was a woman. And we looked at each other, and spoke in a whisper

WOMAN'S DRESS, FRONT VIEW

The sleeves are made so loose in the shoulder that when travelling in a blizzard the arms can be drawn up out of the sleeves altogether, and crossed on the breast inside to warm them. The band across the forehead, a woman's principal ornament, is here made from a piece of brass that had formed part of a telescope. The woman here shown, Ataguvtaluk, is one of the survivors of a f axnine, when she lived on the bodies of her husband and children'. Blue veins show up prominently round her mouth, said to be due to her having eaten her own flesh and blood.

fearing what might happen to us now. Then searching round, we found a little shelter built of snow and a fragment of caribou skin. Close by was a thing standing up ; we thought at first it was a human being, but saw it was only a rifle stuck in the snow. But all this time the voice was muttering. And going nearer again we found a human head, with the flesh gnawed away. And at last, entering into the shelter, we found the woman seated on the floor. Her face was turned towards us and we saw that blood was trickling from the corners of her eyes; so greatly had she wept.

"'Kikaq' (a gnawed bone) she said, 'I have eaten my husband and my children! '

"She was but skin and bone herself, and seemed to have no life in her. And she was almost naked, having eaten most of her clothing. My husband bent down over her, and she said:

"'I have eaten him who was your comrade when he lived/

"And my httsband answered: * You had the will to live, and so you are still alive/

"Then we put tap our tent close by, cutting c€ a piece of the fore-curtain to maJbg a shelter for the wo3daa; for she was ttndeaa, aaad might not fee in the same tent with us. And we gave her frozen caribou meat to eat, but when she had eaten a mouthful or so, she fell to trembling all over, and could eat no more.

"We ceased from our journey then, and turned back to Igdlulik, taking her with us, for she had a brother there. She is still alive to this day and martied to a great hunter, named Igtussarssua, and she is his favorite wife, though he had one before.

" But that is the most terrible thing I have known in all my life/'

CHAPTER III

A WIZARD AND HIS HOUSEHOLD

T RETURNED to headquarters on Danish Island 1 full of excitement over the promise of my first reconnoitring expedition. Contact with these shore tribes convinced me that farther back, in the "Barren Grounds" of the American Continent I should find people still more interesting, and that our expedition would be able not only to bear to the world the first intimate picture of the life of a little known people, but also to produce evidence of the origin and migrations of all the Eskimo Tribes.

The key to these mysteries would be found in hitherto unexplored ruins of former civilizations on the shores adjacent to the Barren Grounds, and in the present-day customs of isolated aborigines who were themselves strangers alike to the white man and to the Greenland Eskimos I knew so well.

The "Barren Grounds," as they have long been cailed, are great tracts of bare, untimbered land between Hudson Bay and the Arctic Coast. Though f coming part of the great continent of America, they are among the most isolated and inaccessible portions of ^ the globe. It is for this reason that the most primitive and uncivilized tribes are still to be found there. Despite the zeal with which hunters and traders ever seek to penetrate into unknown regions, the natural obstacles here have hitherto proved an effective barrier, and the territory is known only in the barest outline. On the north, there are the ramifications of the Arctic Ocean, permanently filled with ice, to bar the way. On the south, and to some extent also on the west, lie great trackless forests, where travelling is slow and difficult, the only practicable route being along the little known rivers. Only from Hudson Bay has the east coast of the Barren Grounds been accessible for modern forms of transport. And even here the waters are so hampered with ice that they are reckoned to be navigable for only two or three months a year. These natural obstacles, however, which have kept others away, were all to our advantage, because they have kept the tribes of Eskimos I intended to visit uncontaminated by white civilization, imprisoned within their swampy tundras, unaltered in all their primitive character.

We were now able to plan <mr first year's work in these regions. Near our headquarters we found a few old cairns and rough stone shelters built by the Eskimos of earlier days for the purpose of hunting caribou with bow and arrow. We were convinced that the excavation of these ruins would be well worth while. The natives we had now met explained that these ruins originated with a mysterious race of "giants," called Tunit.

We divided up our work as follows; Mathiassen, with Kaj Birket-Smith was first to visit Captain Cleveland, to acquire preliminary information, and then Birket-Smith would travel on south, to investigate the problem of the early relations between the Indians and the Eskimos. Mathiassen's first assignment was to go with Peter Freuchen to the north, to map shores of Baffin! arid, and study people on whom no reliable information existed. Then, on his return, he was to excavate among the ruins we had found.

I was to study the inland Eskimos, with special reference to the spiritual side of their culture. The Eskimo members of the party were divided among the several sub-expeditions as needed, and two of them would remain on guard at the headquarters camp.

We had a pretty good supply of pemmican, both for ourselves and for the dogs, as well as canned goods, which would form the basis of our provisions. We had to supplement it, however, with fresh meat. We were told that Cape Elizabeth, toward the north, was a good spot for walrus at this time of year, and I therefore went off with Miteq and two of the local natives to try our luck. We set out on the nth of January. Despite some difficulty, owing to snow, which drifted thickly at times, we had some exciting caribou hunting on the ice during the first two days. The thermometer stood at about minus 50 C. (63 P.) and every time we picked up our guns with the naked hand the cold steel took the skin off.

We purchased some stores of meat at Lyon Inlet, and devoted a few days to fetching these, after winch we set out again to the Northward to find the village . None of us knew exactly where it was, as the natives had not yet moved down to the coast, but were encamped some way inland where they had been engaged on their autumn caribou hunting*

The 27th of January was fine, but cold; it was bright starlight towards the dose of the journey, but we had had a long and tiring day, and wished for nothing better than to find shelter without having to build it ourselves.

Suddenly out of the darkness ahead shot a long sledge with the wildest team I have ever seen. Fifteen white dogs racing down at full speed, with six men on the sledge. They came down on us at such a pace that we felt the wind of them as they drew alongside. A little man with a large beard, completely covered with ice, leapt out and came towards me, holding out his hand white man's fashion. Then halting, he pointed inland to some snow huts. His keen eyes Were alight with vitality as he uttered the ringing greeting: "Qujangnamik" (thanks to the coming guests).

This was Aua, the aogakoq.

Observing that my dogs were tired after their day's run, he invited me to change over to his sledge, and quietly, but with authority, told off one of the young men in his party to attend to mine, Aua's dogs gave tongue violently, eager to be off again and get home to their meal; and soon we were racing away towards the village. A brief dash at breakneck speed, and we arrived at the verge of a big lake, where snow huts with gut windows sent out a warm glow of welcome.

The women came out to greet us, and Aua's wife,

Orulo, led me into the house. It was, indeed, a group of houses, cleverly built together, a real piece of architecture in snow, such as I had never yet seen. Five huts, boldly arched, joined in a long passage with numerous storehouses built out separately, minor passages uniting one chamber with another, so that one could go all over the place without exposure to the weather. The various huts thus united served to house sixteen people in all. Orulo took me from one to another, introducing the occupants. They had been living here for some time now, and the heat had thawed the inner surface of the walls, forming icicles that hung down gleaming in the soft light of the blubber lamp. It looked more like a cave of stalactites than an ordinary snow hut, and would have looked chilly but for the masses of thick, heavy caribou skin spread about.

Through these winding passages, all lit with tiny blubber lamps, we went from room to room, shaking hands with one after another of the whole large family. There was Aua's eldest son Nataq, with his wife, and the youngest son Ijarak who lived with his fifteen-year-old sweetheart; there was Aua's aged sister Natseq with her son, son-in-law and a flock of children; and finally, out in the farthest end of the main passage, the genial Kuvdlo with his wife and a newborn infant.

It was the first time I had visited so large a household, and I was much impressed by the patriarchal aspect of the whole. < Aua was unquestioned master in his own house, ordering the comiags and goings aad doings of aH, but he and his wife addressed each other and the rest with the greatest kindness, and not a little fun; an atmosphere of genial good humor was evident throughout.

Hot tea, in unlimited quantity, was welcome after our long hours in the cold, and this being followed by a large, fat freshly cooked hare, it was not long before appetite gave way to ease, and we settled ourselves comfortably among the soft and pleasant smelling caribou skins.

We explained that we had come down to hunt walrus, and the news was greeted with acclamation by our host and his party. They had been thinking of doing the same themselves, and it was now suggested that the whole village should move down to some snowdrifts on the lowlying land at Cape Elizabeth. They had been hunting inland all the summer, and there were numerous good meat depots established in the neighborhood. There was oil enough to warm up the houses for a while, but the last bag of blubber faad already been opened. We decided therefore to go titrating on the ice, It was necessary first of all, however, to spe®& ooie day in fetching in stores of caribou meat from the depots, as there was no saying how long it might be before we procured any other.

On the day of the final move, all were up betimes and busily at work. Pots and dishes and kitchen utensils generally were trundled out through the passages, with great bales of caribou skins, some new and untouched, others more or less prepared, and huge unwieldly bundles of clothing, men's, women's and children's, The things had not seemed to take up much room within doors, where everything had its place and use, but the whole collection stacked outside in the open air looked as cumbrous and chaotic, as unmistakably "moving" as the worldly goods of any city and surburban family waiting on the pavement for the furniture van.

Just at the last moment, when the sledges were loaded up to the full, and the teams ready to start, I had the good fortune to witness a characteristic little ceremony; the initiation of an infant setting out on its first journey into the world.

An opening appeared somewhere at the back of Kuvdlo's house, and through it came crawling Mrs. Kuvdlo with the little new-born infant in her arms. She planted herself in front of the hut and stood waiting until Aua appeared. Aua, of course, was the spiritual shepherd of the flock. He stepped forward towards the child, bared its head, and placing his lips close to its face, uttered the following heathen equivalent of a morning prayer:

"I rise up from rest,

Moving swiftly as the raven's wing

I rise up to meet the day—

Wa-wa.

"My face is turned from the dark of night My gaze toward the dawn, Toward the whitening dawn."

It was the child's first journey, and the morning hymn was a magic formula to bring it luck through life.

The winter ice extends some miles out from the shore, to all intents and purposes as firm as land. Then comes the water, with pack ice drifting this way and that according to wind and current. When the wind is blowing off shore, holes appear in the ice just at the edge, and the walrus follow these, diving down to the bottom to feed.

Aua and I had settled ourselves, like the others, in comparative shelter behind a hummock of ice, with a good view all round. The vigil was by no means monotonous; there was something going cm all the time, calling up memories of past hunting. The pack ice was in constant movement, surging and straining and groaning at every check. Now and thai a gap would appear, and the naked water sent up a freezing mist like blue smoke, through which we could just discern the black shapes of the walrus rising to breathe. We could hear their long, slow gasp — and thai down they went to their feeding grounds below.

We had both experienced it aS many a time before; and the familiar sights and sotmds loosened our tongues in recollection.

"Men and the beasts are much alike," said Aua sagely. "And so it was our fathers believed that men could be animals for a time, then men again." So he told the story of a bear he had once observed, hunting walrus like a human being, creeping up and taking cover, till it got within range, when it flung a huge block of ice that struck its victim senseless.

Then suddenly Aua himself gave a start— he had been keeping a good look out all the time — and pointed to where Miteq was standing with his harpoon raised. Just ahead of him was a tiny gap in the ice, the merest puddle, with barely room for the broad back of a walrus that now appeared. Miteq waited till the head came up, and then, before the creature had time to breathe, drove his harpoon deep into the blubber of its flank. There was a gurgle of salt water, a fountain of spray flung out over the ice, and the walrus disappeared. But Miteq had already thrust his ice-axe through the loop at the end of his harpoon line, and the walrus was held.

We hurried up and helped to haul it in, despatched it, and set about the work of cutting up. This was ccmpleted before dark, and when we drove in that night to the new snow palace at Itibleriang, I was proud to feel that one of my own party had given these professionals a lead on their own ground.

There was great rejoicing at our arrival; a fullgrown walrus means meat and blubber for many days, and this was the first day we had been out. There was no longer any need to stint the blubber for the lamps, and there was food in plenty for ourselves and the dogs.

A well-stocked larder sets one's mind at rest, and me feds more at liberty to consider higher things. Also, our surroundings generally were comfortable enough. The new snow hut was not quite as large as the former, and lacked the fantastic icicle adornment within; but it was easier to make it warm and cosy. The main portion, the residence of Aua and his wife, was large enough to sleep twenty with ease. Opening out of this, through a lofty portal, was a kind of entrance hall, where you brush off the snow before coming in to the warmth of the inner apartment. On the opposite side again was a large, light annex, accommodating two families. As long as there was blubber enough, seven or eight lamps were kept burning, and the place was so warm that one could go about half naked and enjoy it.

Which shows what can be made out of a snowdrift when you know how to go about it.

Au§i gave me leave to ask questions, and promised to answer them. And I questioned him accordingly, chiefly upon matters of religion, having already perceived that the religious ideas of these people must be in the main identical with those of the Greenland Eskimo.

A prominent character in the Greenland mythology is the Mistress of the Sea, who lives on the floor of the ocean. I asked Aua to tell me all he could about her. Nothjng loath, he settled himself to the task, and with eloquent gestures and a voice that rose and fell in accord with the tenor of his theme, he told the story of the goddess of meat from the sea.

Briefly, it is as follows: There was once a girl who refused all offers of marriage, until at last she was enticed away by a petrel disguised as a handsome young man. After living with him for some time, she was rescued by her father, but the petrel, setting out in pursuit, raised a violent storm, and the father, in terror, threw the girl overboard to lighten the boat. She dung to the side, and he chopped off, first the tips of her fingers, then the other joints, and finally the wrists. And the joints turned into seal and walrus as they fell into the sea* But the girl sank to the bottom, and lives there now, and rules over all the creatures of the sea. She is called Takanaluk Arnaluk; and it is her father who is charged with the punishment of those who have sinned on earth, and are not yet allowed to enter the land of the dead.

I enquired then as to this land of the dead, and the general arrangements for their after-life. This falls mainly into two parts.

When a human being dies, the soul leaves the earth, and goes to one or the other of two distinct regions. Some souls go up into heaven and become Uvdlormiut, the People of Day. Their country lies over towards the dawn. Others again go clown under the sea, where there is a narrow belt of kind with water on either side. These are called Qimiujarmiut, the People of the Narrow Lund, But in either place they are happy and at case, and there is always plenty to eat.

Those who pass to the Land of Day arc people who have been drowned, or murdered. It is said that the Land of Day is the land of glad and happy souls. It is a great country, with many caribou, and the people there live only for pleasure, They play ball most of the time, playing at football with the skull of a walrus, and laughing and singing as they play* It is this game of the souls playing at ball that we can see in the sky as the northern lights.

The greater among the angakoqs, or wizards, often go up on a visit to the People of Day, just fur pleasure* Such are called Pavungnartut, which means, those who rise up to heaven. The wizard preparing to set out on such a journey is placed at the back of the bench in his hut, with a curtain of skin to hide him from view. His hands must be tied behind his back, and his head lashed fast to his knees; he wears breeches, but nothing more, the upper part of his body being bare. When he is thus tied up, the men who have tied him take fire from the lamp on the point of a knife and pass it over his head, drawing rings in the air, and saying at the same time: "Niorruarniartoq aifale" (Let him who is going on a visit now be carried away).

Then all the lamps are extinquished, and all those present close their eyes. So they sit for a long while in deep silence. But after a time strange sounds are heard about the place; throbbing and whispering sounds; and then suddenly comes the voice of the wizard himself crying loudly : " Halala— halaiale halala— halalale! " And those present then must answer "ale— aleale." Then there is a rushing sound, and all know that an opening has been made, like the blowhole of a seal, through which the soul of the wizard can fly up into heaven, aided by all the stars that once were men.

Often the wizard will remain away for some time, and in that case, the guests will entertain themselves meanwhile by singing old songs, but keeping their eyes closed all the time. It is said that there is great rejoicing in the Land of Day when a wizard comes on a visit. The people there come rushing out of their houses all at once; but the houses have no doors for going in or out, the souls just pass through the walls where they please, or through the roof, coming out without making even a hole* And though they can be seen, yet they are as if made of nothing. They hurry towards the newcomer, glad to greet him and make him welcome, thinking that it is the soul of a dead man that comes, and one of themselves. But when he says "Putdlaliuvunga" (I am still a creature of flesh and blood) they turn sorrowfully away.

He stays there awhile, and then returns to earth, where his fellows are awaiting him, and tells of all he has seen.

The souls that pass to the Narrow Land are those of people who died of sickness in house or tent. They are not allowed to go straight up into the land of souls, because they have not been purified by violent death; they must first go down to Takanalukarnaluk under the sea, and do penance for their sins. When all their penance is completed, then they go either to the Land of Day or stay in the Narrow Land, and live there as happily as those who are without sin.

The Narrow Land is not like the Land of Day; it is a coast land, with all manner of sea creatures in abundance, and there is much hunting, and all delight in it.

I enquired whether the wizards did not make other excursions into the supernatural, for some special purpose. Aua informed me that this was the case, and kindly gave me further details.

Should the hunting fail at any season, causing a dearth of meat, then it is the business of the Angakoq to seek out the Mistress of the Sea and persuade her to release some of the creatures she is holding back. The preparations for such a journey are exactly the same as in the case of a visit to the Land of Day, already described. The wizard sits, if in winter, on the bare snow, in summer, on the bare earth. He remains in meditation for a while, and then invokes his helping spirits, crying again and again:

' ' Tagf a arqutinilerpoq — tagf a neruvtulerpoq ! " (The way is made ready for me; the way is opening before me.)

Whereupon all those present answer in chorus: "Taimalilerdle" (let it be so).

Then, when the helping spirits have arrived, the earth opens beneath the wizard where he sits; often, however, only to close again; and he may have to strive long with hidden forces before he can finally cry that the way is open. When this is announced, those present cry together: Let the way be open, let there be way for into! Then oomes a voice close under the ground: "halala— fee — he — he" aad again farther off under the passage, and again stffi farther and ever farther away until at last it is no longer heard; and then all know that the wizard is on his way to the Mistress of the Sea.

Meantime, those in the house sing spirit songs in chorus to pass the time, It may happen that the clothes which the wizard has taken off come to life of themselves, and fly about over the heads of the singers, who must keep their eyes closed all the time. And one can hear the sighing and breathing of sotds long dead. All the lamps have been put out, and tibe sighing and breathing of the departed souls is as the voice of spirits moving deep in the sea ; like the breathing of sea-beasts far below.

One of the songs is a standing item on these occasions; it is only to be sung by the elders of the tribe, and the text runs thus :

"We stretch forth our hands

To lift thee up.

We are without food,

Without fruits of our hunting.

Come up then from below,

From the hollow place

Force a way through.

We are without food,

And here we lie down

We stretch forth our hands

To lift thee up."

Great wizards find a passage opening of itself for their journey down under the earth to the sea, and m§et with no obstacles on the way. On reaching the house of Takanalukarnaluk, they find a wall has been built in front of the entrance; this shows that she is hostile towards men for the time being. The wizard must then break down the wall and level it to the earth. The house itself is like an. ordinary human dwelling, but without a roof, being open at the top so that the woman seated by h^fllamp can keep an eye on the dwellings of men, The only other difficulty which the wizard has to encounter is a big dog which lies stretched across the passage, barring the way. It shows its teeth and growls, impatient at being disttirbed at its meal— for it will often be found gnawing the bones of a still living human being. The wizard must show no sign of fear or hesitation, but thrust the dog aside and hurry into the house. Here he meets the guardian of the souls in purgatory, who endeavors to seize him and place him with the rest, but on stating that he is still alive: "I atn flesh and blood," he is allowed to pass. The Mother of the Sea is then discovered seated with her bade to the lamp and to the animals gathered round it— this being a sign of anger— her hair falls loose and dishevelled over her face. The wizard must at onee take her by the shoulder and turn her face the other way, at the some time, stroking her hair and smoothing it out* He then says:

11 Those above can no longer help the seal up out of the sea/'

To which she replies; "It is your own sins and ill doing that bar the way,"

The wizard then exerts aU his powers of peisuasion, and when at last her anger is appeased, she takes the animals one by one and drops them on the floor. And now a violent commotion arises! and the disappear out into the sea; this is a sign of rich hunting and plenty to come.

AH soon as the wizard returns to earth, all those in the house are called upon to confess any breach of tabu which they may have committed.

All cry out in chorus, each eager to confess his fault lost it should be the cause of famine and disaster to all And in this way "much is made known which had otherwise been hidden; many secrets are told." But when the sinners come forward weeping and confess, then all is well, for in confession lies forgiveness. All rejoice that disaster has been averted, and a plentiful supply of food assured; 11 there is even something like a feeling of gratitude towards the "sinners" added Ana naively.

I enquired whether all wizards were able to accomplish such an errand, and was informed that only the greatest of them could do so. One of the greatest angakoqs Aua had known was a woman. And he told us the story of Uvavnuk, the woman who was filled with magic power all in a moment. A ball of fire came down from the sky and struck her senseless ; but when she came to herself again, the spirit of light was within her. And all her power was used to help her fellows. When she sang, all those present were loosed from their burden of sin and wrong; evil and deceit vanished as a speck of dust blown from the hand.

And this was her song:

"The great sea has set me in motion,

Set me adrift,

Moving me as the weed moves in a river.

The arch of sky and mightiness of storms Have moved the spirit within me, Till I am carried away Trembling with joy."

All had listened so intently to Aua's stories of the supernatural that none noticed the women had ne^ glected their duty, and the la&rps were almost out. It was indeed an impressive scene; men and women sat in silence, hushed and overwhelmed by the glimpses of a spirit world revealed by one of its priests*

By the I4th of February, our whole party was assembled at Itibleriang. The Baffin Land party were to stay on for a few days more, walrus hunting; the rest of us, who were going south, split up into detachments ; Miteq and Anarulunguaq went with me. Birket-Smith and Bangsted were also with us most of the way*

On a fine sunny morning then — February 16 — we waved goodbye to our comrades and set off homewards. This is the first time since leaving Denmark that we have been separated for any long or indefinite period, and there is much important work to be done in the eight months which must elapse before we meet again.

After three cold days on the road, and warm nights in comfortable snow huts, we reached home in a gale of wind that is no discredit to this windy region. So dense was the whirling snow that the whole of the last day's journey was accomplished with bent backs and bowed heads; we had literally to creep along, following the well-wo£n sledge track ^ith <mr noses almost to the ground. It was the only way we could be sure of crossing Gore Bay from Qajugfit without missing the little island that was our goal. When at last we got in, our faces were completely coated with ice, all save two small gaps round the eyes that just enabled us to see. Oddly enough, however, we had no feeling of cold; possibly the exertion, with our heavy skin garments, had kept us warm, or perhaps the Eskimos are right in declaring that "heat comes out of the earth" in a blizzard*

CHAPTER IV

FINGER-TIPS OF CIVILIZATION

/~\UR route lay southward, to the country of the ^^ inland Eskimos of the Barren Grounds, with Chesterfield, the "Capital" of Hudson Bay, as our first objective.

A last farewell, and off we went, the dogs giving tongue gaily as they raced away. We followed the old familiar high road down to Repulse Bay. We were anxious to make the most of each day's run while the dogs were still fresh, and intended therefore to make but a short stay at Captain Cleveland's. Actually, however, matters turned out otherwise. A blizzard from the north-west whirled us down to his place, and kept on for three days in a flurry of snow that made it impossible to see an arm's length ahead.

At last, when the storm had thrashed itself out, we made ready to push on. Our loads weighed something like 500 kilos per sledge, and ran heavily. We had reckoned, at starting, to make do with the iron runners, as generally used in Greenland, but the first day's journey showed that they dragged in the snow to such a degree that the pace was of the slowest, and would soon spoil the temper of the dogs. We had therefore, while at Cleveland's, had recourse to ice-shoeing, a great improvement on the naked iron, and a triumph of Eskimo invention. The process is complicated, and should be described in detail.

As long as the snow is moist, and the air not too cold, iron or steel rttnners make quite good going. But as soon as the thermometer falls below 20° C, they begin to stick, and the colder it gets, the worse it is. The cold makes the snow dry and powdery, until it is like driving through sand, the runners screeching and whining with the friction, so that even light loads are troublesome to move. The Eskimos of earlier days of course knew nothing of iron runners, but made shift with a patchwork of walrus tooth, whalebone or horn, cut and smoothed to fit, and lashed under the sledge. These runners acted then exactly as does the iron.

It had, of course, been observed that ice ran easiest over snow, and obviously it would be an advantage to give the runners a coatnig o£ fee* . Btffc this was not so easy to begia with. Ice mfflid not hold on iron or steel, bone or wood Uliimately, scmetee hit on the idea of coating the runners first of aH with a paste made from peat softened in water, and laying a thin coat of ice on after. This method at once proved eminently successful, and has remained unsurpassed for rapid running with heavy loads, despite numerous experiments made with other materials by various expeditions. It has, however, the disadvantage of being a lengthy and difficult process in its application.

The first requisite is to find the peat; or failing this, lichen or moss. The mass should in any case be entirely free from sand or grit. It has then to be thawed, crumbled in the hands, mixed with tepid water and kneaded to a thick paste which is spread on the runners in the form of a ski, broadest in front just where the runners curve upward. Even in very severe cold it requires a day to freeze thoroughly on, and not until then can the coating of ice be applied. This is done by smearing it with water, using a brush or a piece of hide. The water must be lukewarm, as the sudden cooling gives a harder and more durable form of ice. With this shoeing, even a heavily laden sledge will take quite considerable obstacles, as long >as the movements are kept fairly smooth, avoiding any sudden drop that might crack the coating of ice. Should this occur, it is a troublesome business to repair it. In the course of a long day's journey, the ice gets worn through, and has to be renewed once or twice; it is therefore necessary to carry water, in order to save the loss of time occasioned by first melting snow or ice.

With a good ice shoeing and reasonably level ground, even heavy loads will run as smoothly as in a slide, without fatiguing the teams.

It was hopeless, of course, to go out in the blizzard himting for peat, so we had recourse to another means in this case. Mr. Cleveland had plenty of flour at the store; we purchased some of this, and worked it up with water into a dough which proved excellent for the purpose. And lest any shouJS consider it a sinful waste of foodstuffs in, a region ill provided with the same, I may reassure my readers

YOUTH AND BEAUTY A girl from Repulse Bay, with the big fur hood falling down over one shoulder.

with the information that the flour thtis used still fulfilled its proper mission in the end. As soon as the weather grew milder and ice shoeing was no longer needed, the dough was scraped off and given to the dogs, who regarded it as a delicacy of the highest order.

We were rather late in starting, and got no farther that day than a camp of snow huts on the western side of Repulse Bay. Here we were kindly received by an old couple who had settled down on the spot with their children and nearest of kin. On entering their hut, we found, to our astonishment, rosaries hung above the blubber lamps and crucifixes stuck into the snow walls. Our host, divining the question in our minds, explained at once that he had met a Roman Catholic missionary far to the south some time before, and had been converted with all his family. He had formerly been an angakoq himself; and it was plain to see ;that he was an honest man, earnestly believing in his pow^s aad those he had invoked. But,?ke inforaaed tis, frdoa the moment he first listened to the worfs of t&e stranger prfesst* his helping spirits seemed to have deserted him; doubt entered into his mind, he felt himself alone and forsaken, helpless in face of the tasks which had called forth his strength in earlier days. At last he was baptized, and since then, his mind had been at rest. All his nearer relatives had followed his example, and all now seemed anxious to make us understand that they were different from the ordi heathen we had met. The others of their tribe given them the name of Majulasut, which they who crawl upward, as indicating that they had already relinquished their foothold upon earth, and sought only to find release from the existence to which they were born.

We started early the next morning, there was a broad spit of land to cross at Beach Point, and we were eager to see how our ice shoeing took it. The pace was good enough; but we had hardly begun to congratulate ourselves on this before we discovered that what we had gained for the dogs we had lost for ourselves. Travelling overland in Greenland is quite good fun for the most part, and little obstacles need not be taken too seriously; the iron runners will take no harm from an occasional stone or point of rock. Here, however, we have to leap off at the first sight of any such hindrance ahead, and guide the sledge carefully to avoid damage to the fragile covering of ice. Save for this, however, the general result is admirable. The sledges glide as if their heavy loads were feather light, and we can keep at a sharp trot all day, despite the hilly going. It is a pleasure to see how little exertion is required on the part of the dogs; the sledges run almost by themselves, with just a momentary pull every now and again.

We halted that night on the edge of a lake, and bmlt a snow hut for shelter.

It was a cheerless country we were driving through. Everything one saw was like everything else; today's jofrney was just yesterday's over again; no mountalfas, only small hills, lakes and level plain.

Next afternoon, to our great surprise, we met a fellow traveller on the road. A sledge appeared in the distance, coming straight towards its, and shortly after we had the pleasure of a first encounter with the famous Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Both sledges halted as we came together, and a tall, fair young man came forward and introduced himself as Constable Packett, of the Mounted Police Headquarters at Chesterfield Inlet, on his way out to inspect our station,

It was strange to us to meet with police in these regions; and we were at once impressed by the energy with which Canada seeks to maintain kw and order in the northern lands. The mounted police, a service popular throughout the country, has here to relinquish its splendid horses and travel by dog sledge, making regular visits of inspection over a wide extent of territory. Originally, the headquarters here was at Cape Fullertan, a couple of days* journey northeast of Chesterfield; tibe whaling vessels used to winter there, and the somefwfaat najfoad society of the whakr's camp required a good deal of k>o&g after* Tbe whaling has now ceased, but the Mcrarbed Pofioe remains as a permanent institution in the Canadian Arctic, representing the Government of the eodirtry and its laws, in regard to white men and Eskimos alike.

I explained to Constable Packett that he would find Bosun's wife and some of our Eskimos at the station; and recognizing that I could not go back with him myself without giving up the journey I had planned, he very kindly agreed to make do with a report, which I promised to hand in at Chesterfield, instead of reqttiring my personal attendance. He himself, however, would have to go on to our headquarters, in accordance with his instructions.

I confess to being somewhat impressed by the Canadian Mounted Police as undaunted travellers. Our friend here, for instance, was out for a little run of some two thousand kilometres. He reckoned to be two and a half months on the way, and during the whole of that time, he would have no shelter but a snow hut, save for the few days at Captain Cleveland's and our station. We bade him a hearty farewell, and were soon out of sight.

At noon on the 3rd of April we came up with the icebound vessel Fort Chesterfield at Berthie Harbor, a little to the north of Wager Bay. Despite all good resolutions as to not breaking the journey while it was light enough to see, we found it impossible to pass by these cheery seamen's door without a halt. Captain Berthie himself was away, investigating the possibilities of some new harbor works. I had met him before, and spent some days with him on the road. Berthie had all the good qualities of the French Canadian, and in addition, was thoroughly familiar with all forms of travel in the Arctic, and speaks Eskimo fluently. His crew, consisting exclusively of young men from Newfoundland, were full of praise for their captain; and entertained us in his absence with cheerful hospitality.

A little village of immigrant Netsilik natives had spna&g tip about the vessel, and I took the opporfrBiity of paying them a visit* The oldest inhabitant was an ag^d veteran from the region of the North

Pole, named Manilaq. He had been a great fighter in his day, but was now reduced to resting on his laurels. He lived in a big snow hut with his children and grandchildren, who still regarded him with great respect, treating him indeed, as if he were their chief. He was an excellent story-teller, and always sure of a large audience* Unfortunately, I had not time myself to draw upon his stock of folk lore and personal recollections. It was essential to my plans that we should get as far on into the Barren Grounds as possible while the winter lasted. I hoped, however, to have an opportunity of meeting the old fellow later. As it turned out, this was not to be. A little while after we had left, he committed suicide, in the presence of his family, preferring to move to the eternal hunting grounds rather than live on growing feebler under the burden of days.

The time passed rapdly BOW, and our sole object was to get <m as far ES p6ssibl& W^ took short cuts Tfrlierever we could, though tmveffing ov^fend was always an anxious business, trnacccistomecl as we were at first to the use of this delicate ice-shoeing. Thus we cut across the flat country from Berthie Harbor due west down to Wager Inlet; the mouth of the great fjord here is never frozen over, owing to the strength of the current. From here we came up on land again, and at last, on the loth of April, reached Roe's Welcome, at a bay called Iterdlak. We could now follow the coast right down to Chesterfield, and though the country itself was very monotonous, there was plenty to interest us here. Every time we rounded a headland we eame upon the ruins of some old settlement, which were eagerly investigated. They were not the work of the present population, but of some earlier inhabitants, evidently of a high degree of culture and well up in stone architecture. The ruins consisted of fallen house walls, store-chambers, and tent rings — all of stone — with frameworks for kayaks and umiaks, such as one finds in Greenland, where the boats are set up to keep the skins from being eaten by the dogs. There was evidence of abundant hunting by sea, in the form of numerous bones scattered about wherever the groiind lay free from snow. Meat cellars were also frequently found, and to judge from their size, there should have been no lack of food* Every little headland was fenced in by stone cairns placed so close together that they looked from a distance like human beings assembled to bid us welcome. They were set out along definite lines across the ground, and had once been decked with fluttering rags of skin on top, serving to scare the caribou when driven down to the coast, where the hunters lay in wait in their kayaks, ready to spear them as soon as they took to the water*

All these ruins were the work of the "Tunit"; and from all that we could see, this highly developed coastal race with their kayaks end umiaks, must have been identical with the Eskimos that came into Greenland from these regions a thousand years ago. Both Miteq and Arnarultik felt thoroughly at home ia these surroun<fingsl Much of what they had met with among the living natives of the present day was strange to them, but these relics of the dead from a bygone age were such as they knew from their own everyday life at home.

We followed the coast southward, keeping close in to shore, as the ice here was good and level. On the 1 6th of April we passed Cape Fullerton, where some empty buildings still remain from the great days of the whaling camps, It was late in the afternoon, and the sun shone warmly over the spit of land, as if in welcome. It was tempting; here we could find shelter in a real house if we wished; but we had heard that there were natives at Depot Island, and our eagerness to meet them outweighed considerations of mere creature comfort. We drove on, therefore, until the twilight forced us to camp on the site of a famous rain, known as Inugssivik. It had evidently been a big village at one time, and the huge stones that had been placed in position showed that the folk who Eved there were **ot afraid of hard work. Our guide, lattjaq, Informed us that in the olden days, there was always war between these people here and the tribes from Repulse Bay; hostilities had continued throughout a number of years, until the villagers here had been entirely exterminated.

Next morning, as soon as it was fully light, we perceived a small hillock far to the south amid the ice. This was Depot Island, which juts up out of the great white expanse like the head of a seal come up to breathe. It was some distance away, but we hoped to reach it before dark. We have given the dogs an easy time lately, and it would do them no harm to let them know we were in a hurry. A good driver should have the power of communicating his feelings to his team, so that the animals feel his own eagerness to get forward in case of need. And it was not long before our dogs realized that the old steady jogtrot would not do today; something more was needed. And accordingly, they were soon at full gallop; the sledges, lightened of all the dog-feed we had used up since leaving Repulse Bay, flew over the ice at such a pace that the occasional jerks at the traces threw them sideways on, and us nearly off. A little after noon we reached the island, having covered the distance at an average speed of ten kilometres an hour.

It was not long before we came upon fresh sledge tracks, and following them down to the coast, drove across a little headland without sighting any human being. Then suddenly we almost fell down a steep incline, and dashed full into a cluster of snow huts half buried in loose snow. Wooden frames stood up here and there, with skins and inner garments hung out to dry or bleach; two fat dogs came out and started barking— here evidently was the place we had been seeking, Miteq ran up to the window and shouted down to those within: "Here we are; here we are at last," a piece of mischievous fun that brought out the inmates at once. There was a confusion of cries and shouting, as of women in a flutter, a sound of rapid steps along the passage way, and out among us tumbled— a black girl. A little negro lady as black as one could wish to see*

This was perhaps the most surprising encounter we have experienced up to date. I noticed also, that the sight was almost too much for Miteq, who started back and stood with wide eyes fixed in wonder on the unexpected figure. Here we were come all the way from Greenland to seek out other peoples of the farthest northern lands; and all of a sudden we found ourselves face to face with a child of the tropic South; a creature of the sun leaping up out of the snow!

The girl herself was no less astonished at our appearance. She retreated hastily into the hut, and we stood there waiting in eager anticipation until steps once more were heard within, and the girl reappeared, this time in company with three older women of normal Eskimo type.

It is often almost a pity to have mysteries explained; the whole thisg seems so natural once you know how it came about, that there is nothing marveHotis or tariffing afcont it afterward.. The oldest of the wotneii carae tip <te tis at -om® aad asfced who we were. When we had mtoodte^a ourselves as lucidly as possible, she explained thai her husband and those of the other two women were out hunting, but should be back in the course of the day. She named her companions one by one, and when it came to the dark young lady's turn, informed us that this was her daughter by a stranger, a man who had come to them from a land where it was always summer. A remarkable man, she explained, one who never went but hunting himself, but devoted his life to the task of preparing rare feasts and luscious dishes tor his fellows. He iad come to their country on a great ship, and had spent the winter in their huts.

It was all simple enough after this. The girl's father had been a negro cook on one of the American whalers.

The dwelling place consisted of three large roomy huts, built together. The party here had spent the summer and autumn inland, caribou hunting, and had moved out in the course of the winter for the walrus hunting on the edge of the ice. They had done very well, it appeared, at any rate, there was an abundance of food of all kinds. A series of storechambers had been built side by side with the living rooms, so that by shifting a block of snow, one gained access to the larder, the different kinds of meat being stored in separate compartments; seal meat, caribou meat and salmon, with piles of walrus meat in a shed at one side of the passage. We were at once invited to take as much meat as we liked for our dogs, and while we were feeding them, three pots were set on to boil, that we might have our choice of meats when it came to our turn.

In the course of the afternoon, the master of the house returned. His name was Inugpasugssuk, and he belonged to the Netsilik, as did the rest of the party. It was not long before we became firm friends. This ready frankness and lack of all reserve on the part of the natives was a great asset to me in my work. Where else in the world could one come tumbling into people's houses without ceremony, merely saying that one comes from a country they do not know, and forthwith begin to question them on matters which are generally held sacred — all without the least offence?

We were now but one dayfs journey from Chesterfield Inlet, and as there seemed to be excellent walrus hunting in the neighborhood, I decided to stay here for a while. Inugpasugssuk was too valuable a find to be dropped all at once. I stayed eight days, in the course of which time we went all through the folklore and legends of the people, without the slightest sign of impatience on his part. After we had done a hundred of the stories, we agreed that he should go with us to Chesterfield, where it would be more convenient to write them down.

We had arrived at Depot Island nearly out of provisions, as our arrangements had been made to include re-stocking at Chesterfield, and we had not reckoned oa making any stay here. As it was, however, these good folk, whom we had never seen before* pjxwicfed tas with food for the whole party — five m&n and tw&af^Mbar dpgsr— %mgbw& cmr stay, aad seemed to regajl it qtdte 3s a siatfer of course.

We were all busily occupied meantime* Araaraltik was making new spring jackets for us, as the hard aad heavy winter furs would soon be too hot. Miteq was out walrus hunting all day with the men of the place. At last, when he had got two walrus on his own account, I decided to set out for Chesterfield. Two sledges belonging to the party here helped us to carry our loads of meat, and oap. the 22nd of April, a calm, warm sunny day, we started for the white men's settlement of which we had heard so

A couple of hours' journey away, however, we were overtaken by a blizzard which came down on us so suddenly that we lost sight of the others. It was hopeless to go searching about in the dark and the driving snow; we camped, therefore, in three separate parties, none knowing where the others were, and waited for the morning.

Waking up in fine weather after camping hurriedly in a blizzard the night before is always full of surprises. One sees now, from the tangled tracks, how the sledges had been driven this way and that in the darkness and the gale, seeming to pick out the very worst spots. The last part of our journey on the previous night had led us in among a host of little reefs and islets, pressure ridges and fissures, till we brought up finally on a low point of land where a snowdrift offered the site and material for a hut.

Now, all was bathed in the morning sunlight, and the fresh April weather gave a brightness to every hummock and hill; beyond the farthest flat point to the south lay the settlement we had failed to reach. Without waiting for the other sledges, we started off, making our way slowly across the bay, which was deep under snow. Just as we were coming up on to the land again, we found ourselves driving in our own tracks of yesterday, and realized to our surprise that we had been almost in to Chesterfield the night before, but with the wind lashing our faces had turned off a little from the straight and come round in a wide curve.

The ascent from the bay was thick with sledge as fc 'S

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H 3-tf tracks, and before long the dogs got scent of human dwellings. We raced at full speed over some low hills, and at last, reaching the main ridge of the peninsula, came in sight of the little group of houses that form the colony. We opened our eyes at the sight; for after our long sojourn among little snow hut encampments, this was a city by comparison. On the extreme east lay some neat white-painted houses belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, forming a kind of suburb in themselves. Then a roughly built warehouse — a perfect skyscraper it seemed to us — and then a yellow wooden edifice entirely surrounded by snow huts, the open entrances to which gave the whole the appearance of a rabbit warren. Now too we perceived the barracks of the Canadian Mounted Police, in lordly isolation on the farther side of a creek which divided the town into twb parts.

Btit t&e otefr tMsig wliicli most of all impressed us as civiHzed and city-See was a wooden ckttrch on the shore of & tiny lake. It faad a slender tower rising above the rest of the buildings, and just as we came out on to the lake, the deep, full tones of a bell rang out, as if to greet us. The sound of a church bell made a deep impression on our minds ; it was as if we had passed a thousand years in heathen wilds, and now returned to Christendom and peace.

The bell was ringing for service; and there was something affecting in the mere sight of so many people moving, in the old accustomed way of a congregation, slowly, all towards the open doors.

We drove up to the Hudson's Bay Company's offices and were hospitably received by the Station manager, Mr. Phillips. He very kindly invited me to stay with him, but this I declined, as it was essential that I should live as much as possible among the natives in their own free and easy fashion. He then at once placed an empty house at our disposal; we moved in at once, and revelled in the unaccustomed luxury of ample room, coal fires and comfort generally. Anarulunguaq kept house for us, and we decided to live Eskimo fashion on the stores of walrus meat we had brought down with us.

At the Mounted Police barracks I found only a Corporal at home; Sergeant Douglas, who was in charge of the station was away up country investigating a dual murder committed by an Eskimo. The last reports from his patrol stated that travelling was most difficult; deep snow, shortage of food for the dogs, and starving Eskimos all round. This was poor encouragement to us, who were to follow the same route, and farther up country.

The little church whose bell had greeted us so prettily on our arrival belonged to a Roman Catholic Mission, under Father Turquetil and two younger priests, all Jesuits, highly cultured and most interesting to talk to. They opened their house to us with the greatest hospitality, and I spent many an instructive evening in their company. Father Turquetil, a learned man who spoke Eskimo and Latin with equal fluency, had lived in these parts for a generation, and was greatly looked up to by the natives. Converts were not numerous, but the church was full every Sunday.

On the 3rd of May we said goodbye and drove our separate ways.

The mild weather brought with it all the advantages we had been waiting for so long. The snow was moist underfoot, and the stout iron runners made as easy going as the troublesome ice shoeing, We had already decided to follow the narrow gut of Chesterfield Inlet right up to Baker Lake, instead of trying short cuts over hilly and unknown country.

On the morning of the 4th of May we halted to camp; the weather fine and calm, temperature a little over i degree. For the first time during the whole trip we could pitch a tent and call it summer.

All about we found puddles of dean fresh water from the newly melted snow; it was pleasant to kneel and drink from these. Along the slopes, the snow had vanished already, and we could lie down on a Imtjrimts carpet of heather and herbage, eating ctimfyerms aad^wfeor^eb^ries by the handful, :dmttering ptaiBiigsa twm%$@& about our

But we had now to mafee tfa0 3®fcsl of tfee little snow that remained for travelling, and pushed oa therefore with all speed, and on the I2th of May we arrived at the little island in Baker Lake where Birket-Smith had been waiting impatiently for our coming. This is the most westerly outpost of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the centre of trade for all the Barren Grounds Eskimos right out to Hikoligjuaq, the Kasan River and the region of the Back or Great Fish River.

We were at once greeted with the good news that there was excellent going on the overland route as long as one travelled by night. And, another point of equal importance to our progress; the caribou were moving up from the south. This was as encouraging as could be wished.

The principal difficulty we had to face was that of getting into touch with our fellow men at all. The only definite information we could gather on this head was, that if we followed the course of the Great Kazan River far enough up, we should meet with two inland tribes. The nearer of the two was called the Harvaqtormiut, or the people of the eddies; farther inland, near Lake Yathkied, or Hikoligjuaq, were the Padlermiut, or Willow-folk. Where the various families were now to be found, no one could say; they followed the moving caribou up in the interior.

We saw no reason to spend any time among the people in the neighborhood of Baker Lake, as these, the Qaernermiut, had for a long time past had dealings with the whalers, and much of their original character had been lost. We therefore transferred our attention without delay to the unknown interior.

I

ii l!

CHAPTER V

A PEOPLE BEYOND THE TOUCH

way lay through, a flat, wild, desolate ootmtry, with little to guide the stranger. Although it was the latter part of May, the snow still covered such landmarks as there were, even the rivers were indistinguishable from the plains. All was white save the southern slopes of the hills where the sun had thawed a few bare patches of earth. Hour after hour we travelled on, never seeming to get any farther, and with an uncomfortable feeling all the time that we might be going wrong; as if the- sense of c^ee^c^w^eatfaidt. But as a matter of fact, it Ottered little wMdb^rectioa we took, for from the d&y we left the coast .we had realised that BO iafocnftation could be gleaned even from a&& setttemeiit as to the position of another, since the various parties were always on the move, taking up their quarters here or there according to the movements of the game. On the i8th of May we camped on the top of a ridge of hills, looking- out over a wide landscape which, while still under snow, resembles in many ways the inland ice of Greenland, save that moraine takes the place of ice. Isolated masses of rock rising up here and there amid the iimumerable lakes and streams, remind one of the Greenland nunataks:

mountain tops thrust up above the submerging flood of ice. There are ridges and ranges of hills here, too, as in Greenland, at intervals on the way, until one reaches farther into the interior, when all is merged into one vast level plain.

Standing outside the tent one feels the country like a desert. There is not a sign of life; all game seems to be extinct at this season of the year. No white man ever comes here; unless some crime or other calls for the presence of the ubiquitous Mounted Police. Only a few days back we had heard about Sergeant Douglas' last excursion in quest of a local murderer. He had been up in the coldest season, when the prevalent north-west winds give a degree of cold that few places in the world can surpass. Everywhere he had met with starving natives, moving vainly from place to place in search of food. The caribou had disappeared, the salmon had left the rivers and lakes, and all their hunting failed to yield the barest means of livelihood. The police patrol itself had found the greatest difficulty in getting through to the coast, the dogs being ready to drop with weakness and fatigue; and Douglas himself was known as a clever and experienced traveller.

Toward evening the desolate landscape was tinged with beauty. Light and shade stood out sharply contrasted; but as the sun went down, and all melted and merged into white billows of snow, one was again reminded of the inland ice. Following Chesterfield Inlet, and afterwards Baker Lake, we had not this impression of a vast expanse, but here, with nothing

but land to see on every side, we began to realize that these are indeed the Barren Grounds.

Geologically speaking, these are the ruins of what was once a mountainous country, the mountains having been gradually worn away in the course of -millions of years. The disintegrating force of alternating heat and cold, action of water, and the rest, have done their work. In the glacial period, a great ice-cap, the Keewatin Glacier, covered all the land. The ice has rounded off all projecting summits, worn away all softer parts, and strewn boulders, great and small, over the whole, until we have now a tract of primitive rock, buried beneath a thick layer of moraine deposit; day sand and gravel, with only a solitary peak, or its worn remains, jutting up here and there,

On tfee I9tfa of May, we passed the first settlement of the Harvaqtomitit, the People of the Eddies. We have decided, however, to t&e the gen&rai term, Caribou Eskimos, for all thesa inland tribes, the caribou being the principal factor in their Hfe*

We had made excellent going up to now, the snow firm as a dancing floor under the night's frost. Being, however, four men to one sledge, and that with a heavy load, I preferred to go ahead on ski. We had just topped a rise when to our surprise we discovered a village down by the shore of a tiny lake, with people running in and out of their snow huts in confusion; alarmed, it would seem, at our appearance on the scene. When we reached the huts, all the women and children had disappeared, and only two men remained outside, seated on a block of snow, back to back, ready to receive us. Evidently, they were not sure we came as friends. Our whole equipment, with the Greenland sledges and dogs, would be strange to them; they might take us perhaps for a party of the Kitdlinermiut from the shores of the Arctic, or Indians from somewhere up country. Both these they regarded as enemies, the Indians especially, as we learned later on, being looked upon with dread. For centuries past, the Eskimos and the Indians had been at feud, and the atrocities on both sides were not yet forgotten.

While at Baker Lake, I had met a man from the shores of the Arctic, who informed me that there was a special form of greeting used when encountering any of the inland Eskimo. The natives from the coast often went all the way down from the region of the North-west Passage to the timber belt, in quest of wood. And it was their custom on meeting the inland folk, to say at once: Ilorrainik tikitunga, which means: "I come from the right side" i.e., from the proper, friendly, quarter.

I shouted the conventional greeting accordingly, at the top of my voice; and hardly were the words out of nay mouth when the two men sprang up with loud cries and came running towards us, while the remainder of the party came tumbling out from thenhuts.

We now learned that the place was called Tugdliuvartaliik, the Lake of Many Loons, They had had a very severe winter, and numbers of men and dogs aEke had died of hunger in various parts. They

PUKERDLUK, CHIEF OF THE PEOPLE OF THE EDDIES

had camped throughout the winter on the eastern side of the Kazan River, and had now moved west to meet the caribou coming from the south. Two sledges had been sent out to a neighboring settlement on the Kazan River, at Nahigtartorvik, or The Outlook; from here the caribou could be seen as soon as their advance guard appeared. This being duly reported to the camp, the whole party would move off and shift their quarters to fresh hunting grounds.

Despite the fact that we were but a few days journey from the trading station at Baker Lake, we found that some of the women and children here had never seen white men before. Our cameras were regarded with the greatest astonishment, and a peep through the finder seemed a marvel beyond words. The people here were anxious to trade, and brought along their stores of fox skins, asking in return, however, our most Indispensable pots and pans. When we dedmed to barter these, aM explained that we did not care for fox skins, but Would rather have old clothes, hunting implements aad other curios of ethnographical interest, it was plain to see that we had fallen in their estimation.

We halted for a few hours, made some tea aad some pancakes, and on this simple menu stood treat to the whole village. While the impromptu banquet was in progress, in came the two sledges which had been sent out reconnoitring. Long before they reached us we could hear the men shouting: "The caribou are coming; the caribou are coming "; and in a moment the entire assembly was in a turmoil of extravagant rejoicing. Here was the end of winter; the caribou were come, and with them summer and its abundance. And one can imagine what this means to people who have struggled through a whole long winter in the merciless cold of their snow huts, with barely food enough to keep them alive.

On leaving Baker Lake, we had laid our course over land in a curve to the south-east of the Kazan River, having learned that it was inadvisable to follow the lower reaches of the river itself. Now, however, we had to move down to the river in order to get into touch with the natives. One of the young men who had just come in offered to go with us to the next village as a guide, and with his aid, we soon reached the river, which was fairly broad at this point. We crossed over to the spot where the village had been, but found the place deserted; the party had gone off after the caribou, We then sent our guide back at once, and went farther up country, in the hope that we might again manage unaided to get into touch with people here.

The Barren Grounds were now so thick with game that it was hard to make any progress by sledge with dogs used to hunting. Herds of caribou came trotting by, great and small, one after another, numbering from fifteen or twenty-five to fifty, sometimes over two hundred head*

Although it was late in June, we again had winter for a spell. The snow had frozen hard again, caking over everything, and we cotild make better going now. We followed the winding river through the low-lying country, where the stream itself repeatedly spread out to great width. Here and there the water had begun to eat its way up through the ice, and we had to be very careful in. the neighborhood of these eddies. Towards evening we came upon a deserted snow hut, a sure sign that there were people not very far away. But where? There was a confusion of sledge tracks to choose from, but most of them pointed in a direction opposite to that we were inclined to take.

We had left the river now and had reached a lake of such extent that it could hardly be any but Hikoligjuaq itself where the Padlermiut were supposed to have their summer camp. We had followed the eastern bank of the river, as advised, and now at last a man appeared on the summit of a hill, watching us intently. We stopped and waved to him; he answered by stretching out both arms, a sign which said he is a friend. We drove forward accordingly, and soon arrived at his catojx

Here at last we found we &a4 reached our goal. We were among the Padleranat, the W2k>w-Fofe^ the head tribe of the Caribou Eskimos.

It was a tiny camp, consisting for the moment erf but three tents. Igjugarjuk, the head of the party, unlike the majority of his fellows, greeted us with fearless cordiality, and his jovial smile won our hearts at the outset. I knew a good deal about him, already, from his neighbors on the Kazan River, and had heard the story of how he procured his first wife. It was, to say the least, somewhat drastic, even by Eskimo standards, He had been refused permission to marry her, and therefore went out one day with his brother and lay in wait at the entrance to the lady's hut, and from there shot down her father, mother, brothers and sisters — seven or -eight persons in all, until only his chosen herself was left. I was somewhat surprised then, to find a man of his temper and antecedents introducing himself immediately on our arrival as the accredited representative of law and order. He handed me a document with the seal of the Canadian Government, dated from his camp in April, 1921, when the police had visited there in search .of a criminal. Briefly, it set forth that the bearer, one Ed-joa-juk (Igjugarjuk) of She-ko-lig-jou-ak, was by the undersigned, Albert E. Reames, His Majesty's Justice of the Peace in and for the North-west Territory, hereby appointed Special Constable in and for the said territory for the purpose of bringing to justice one Quaugvak, of the Padlermiut, the said Quaugvak being accused of two murders . , .

I read through the document with due solemnity, and handed him in return a bit of old newspaper from a parcel. He took it with great dignity, and studied it with the same attention I had given to his. And from that moment we were friends, with perfect confidence in each other.

As a matter of fact, Igjujarjuk was no humbug; and when I run over in my mind the many different characters I met with on that long journey from Greenland to Siberia, he takes a prominent place. He was clever, independent, intelligent, and a man of great authority among his fellows.

He invited us at once into one of his tents; and we

IGJUGARJUK, CHIEF OF THE WILLOW FOLK AND A NOTABLE WIZARD

He fell in love with our Greenland dress at first sight, and we had to present him with a costume. He would never consent to be photographed in his own caribou-skin dress.

found that as befitted Ms position, he had two wives. The elder of the two, Kivkarjuk, the cause of the massacre above mentioned, was now dethroned by a younger beauty named Atqaralaq, and it was to her tent we were now invited.

To my great relief, the famine we had expected to encounter was already a thing of the past. In front of the tents lay a pile of dead caribou, so many indeed that it was difficult to count them. A month before, the people here had been on the verge of starvation, but now all was changed. Igjugarjuk at once gave orders for an extravagant banquet in our honor, and two large caribou were put on to boil in huge zinc cauldrons.

I had expected to find these people living in quite a primitive state, and in this respect, was disappointed beyond measure. What we did find was the worst kind of tinpot store and canned provision culture; a product of trading expeditions to the distant Hudson's Bay Company's Sfcaticms. And when a powerful gramophone struck up, and Caruso's mighty voice rang out from Igjugarjuk's tent, I felt that we had missed our market, as far as the study of these people was concerned. We were about a hundred years too late. Save for their appearance, which was of pronounced Eskimo type, they were more like Indians than Eskimos. Their tents were of the pointed Indian pattern, made of caribou skins with a smoke hole at the top, and in each, on the left hand side, burned the Uvkak, or tent fire. All the women wore colored shawls over their skin dresses, just as the Indian women do; and to my astonishment

I found that they wore watches, hung round their necks. These ornaments, however, were divided up among the party, some wearing the case, others going shares in the works.

The only unadulterated Eskimo element we had to work on was the language; and to the satisfaction of both parties, we found that our Greenland tongue was understood immediately, though there was naturally some difference in pronunciation and idiom. Igjugarjuk, who was not beyond flattering a guest, declared that I was the first white man he had ever seen who was also an Eskimo.

The banquet took some time to prepare, and while it was being got ready, we went out to feed our dogs. This gave rise to astonishment not unmixed with horror among our hosts. We had still some of the walrus meat we had brought up from the coast, and this we now brought out. But no such meat had ever been seen on Lake Yathkied, and strange meat was strictly tabu. Here was a difficulty. Igjugarjuk, however, whose travels had made him somewhat a man of the world, met the situation with tact. The young men of his party, he declared, must on no account touch the strange meat, but there would be no harm in our cutting it up ourselves, and feeding ouj own team with it, as long as we used our own knives.

This little episode showed that our friends were not so hopelessly civilized after all. And when one of the young men, named Pingoaq, came up and asked me whether seal had horns like the caribou, I forgot my disappointment altogether. True, tango

melodies were now welling forth from the gramophone, and the meat for our dinner was seething in genuine imported ironmongery; yet these people were plainly different in manners and habit of mind from the ordinary type of Eskimo to whom seal and walrus are the main factor in everyday life. And though I was aware that white men had visited these regions before, I knew also that no one had yet made a thorough study of the people here.

My meditations were interrupted by a shout informing the whole camp that dinner was ready. I have sat down to many a barbaric feast among Eskimos in my time, but I have never seen anything to equal this. Only the elders used knives, the younger members of the party simply tore the meat from the bones in the same voracious fashion which we may imagine to have been the custom of our earliest ancestors. Besides 1&e two caribou, a number of heads had b^^opkse*!, and one was served OH£ to eadi meaaBer ofcte* party, *Hie Jfeads weare an extra, aad we were allowed to Is6&p tfoeto tii after, to eat in our own tent, on condition that none of the leavings should under any circumstances be touched by women or dogs. The muzzle especially was regarded as sacred meat, which must not be defiled.

Then came dessert; but this was literally more than we could swallow. It consisted of the larvae of the caribou fly, great fat maggoty things served up raw just as they had been picked out from the sVm of the beasts when shot. They lay squirming on a platter like a tin of huge gentles, and gave a nasty little crunch under the teeth, like crushing a blackbeetle.

Igjugarjuk, ever watchful, noted my embarrassment and observed kindly : "No one will be offended if you do not understand our food; we all have our different customs/ ' But he added a trifle maliciously: "After all, you have just been eating caribou meat; and what are these but a sort of little eggs nourished on the juices of that meat?"

That same afternoon a whole party of sledges came in from an island out in the lake. It was a remarkable procession to any accustomed to the Eskimos of the coast and their swift teams. Here were six heavily laden sledges, fastened three and three, each section drawn by two dogs only, men and women aiding. The only person allowed to travel as a passenger was an old woman, a mummy-like figure, very aged, and generally looked up to among the Padlermiut on account of her knowledge of tabu and wisdom generally. The fact that she was Igjugarjuk's mother-in-law doubtless counted for something as well.

By the time we had been there one day we began to feel ourselves at our ease among these strange folk. They treated us, apparently, with entire confidence, and endeavored in every way to satisfy our curiosity, In the evening, I ventured to touch on my special subject, and explained to Igjugarjuk, who was famous as an angakoq throughout the whole of the Barren Grounds, that I was most anxious to learn something of their ideas about life, their religion and their folklore. But here I was brought up short. He antf i

CO

K

I

swered abruptly that he was an ignorant man, knowing nothing of his people and its past; if any had said he was an angakoq, they lied.

I realized that I was going too fast, and had not yet gained the confidence of my host in full- It was well on in the forenoon before we turned out on the following morning, and Igjugarjuk at once volunteered to show me the country round.

Just behind the camp was a high range of hills, and from here one had an excellent view of the surroundings. The lake, I found, was enormous, the low-lying coasts vanishing away into the horizon; it looked more like the sea than an inland water. The Indians call it Lake Yathkied, but the Eskimo name is Hikoligjuaq, . which means the great water with ice that never melts. The name is justified by the fact that the ice in the middle of the lake rarely if ever thaws away completely.

Igjugarjuk drew for me with surprising readiness a chart of the lake and its shores, noting the names of all the different settJeaamts. A g^oaratioii or so earlier, there had been some 600 people Ifcre; now there were hardly 100. The introduction of firearms has affected the movements of the caribou, and the animals have begun to avoid their old routes and crossings; and when the caribou hunting fails, it means famine to the Eskimo.

The weather was wonderful; the brutal change on change with snow, storm and rain was gone, and everything was at peace. The ice of the lake had melted close to the mouth of the river, and the heavy tumbled winter ice made way in its midst for a smooth sheet of water with a veil of warm mist above. Hosts of swimming birds had found a playground here, and laughed and chattered as new flocks alighted*

On land, one heard all around the little singing sound of melting snow; and the daylight beat so fiercely on the whiteness of the lake that one had to shade one's eyes. Spring had come to the Barren Grounds, and soon earth and flowers would realise out of the snow.

Small herds of caribou on the move approached within easy distance; but today we were friendly observers only, and felt nothing of the hunter's quickened pulse on seeing them at close range. We had meat enough for the present.

Here again we found the stone barriers, shelters and clumsy figures built to represent a human form, with a lump of peat for a head — relics of the days when caribou hunting was carried on systematically by driving the animals down to the water, where the kayak men were ready to f all upon them with the spear.

With the introduction of firearms, this method of hunting has gone out of fashion, and there will soon be hardly a kayak left in the Barren Grounds. But not mapy years ago, these inland people were as bold and skilful in the management of a kayak as any of the natives on the coast.

Igjugarjuk and I walked down towards the camp. Far out on the horizon one could see the extreme fringe of the forest, but the sunlight was deceptive, and I could hardly make out for certain whether it were trees

or hill. I asked Igjugarjtik, and he answered at once: "Napartut" (the ones that stand up). "Not the true forest where we fetch wood for our long sledges; that is farther still. It is our belief that the trees in a forest are living beings, only that they cannot speak; and for that reason we are loth to spend the night among them. And those who have at some time had to do so, say that at night, one can hear a whispering and groaning among the trees, in a language beyond our understanding."

All the wild creatures were greeting the spring in their mute, humble fashion. We could see hares and lemmings, ermine and marmot snuggling up in the tall grass, with never a thought of feeding, but only enjoying the light and warmth. They were dreaming of an eternal summer, and gave themselves up to the delight of the moment, forgetting all their mortal enemies. Even the wolves, forever lying in wait at other seasons, BOW resdfted to thedr old den and gave themselves tip to domestic bliss. In a fortnight there would be a litter of cubs to look after, and the parents then must take turns to go abroad, for the foxes are quick to scent out anything in the shape of young, even when the sun is at its hottest.

But by the open waters of the lake there was an incessant chattering among the gulls and terns and duck who cannot make out why the loon should always utter such a mournful cry in its happiest moments. There was a blessedness of life and growth here in the spring, when the long-frozen earth at last breathed warm and soft and moist, and plants could stretch their roots in the soil and their branches above. The sand by the river bank gleamed white; showing clearly the footprints of the cranes as they moved. All the birds were talking at once, heedless of what was going on around them, until a flock of wild geese came swooping down, raising a mighty commotion in the water as they alighted. And in face of these, the smaller fry were silent and abashed. But who can paint the sounds of spring? The nature lover will not attempt it, but will be content to breathe its fragrance with rejoicing.

The sun was low on the horizon, the sky and the land all kround aglow with flaming color.

"A youth is dead and gone up into the sky," said Igjugarjuk. "And the Great Spirit colors earth and sky with a joyful red to receive his soul."

CHAPTER VI

NOMAD'S LIFE IN THE BARREN GROUNDS

A FTER our first introduction here, I allowed a **^ few days to pass without pressing my actual errand, spending the time in hunting and bartering a little for ethnographical material* I realized that it would take some time to gain the complete confidence of the natives here.

We lived in our own tent. Among the natives of the coast we had always preferred as far as possible to live in the houses of tie natives as we found them, which gave us a better chance of making friends and being regarded as ffles&b^s of lie family. In the present instance, however* we kept to our own quarters, not only because we 2^,&j|QBe time, but also because our hosts here were?— 4x> ptrt tfc i&ilc8y — so uncleanly in their habits that it would have been difficult to accommodate ourselves to such conditions.

The men were leading a life of idleness just at present, but the women were busy; we were indeed astonished at the amount of work which fell to their share. It was the women who went out gathering fuel, often from a considerable distance, which meant heavy toiling through the swampy soil; they had also to skin and cut up all the caribou brought in, aqd attend to the fires and the cooking. Their hard life had set its mark upon them; it was not always age, but often simply toil, that had wrinkled their faces; their eyes were often red and rheumy from the smoke of the fires, their hands coarse and filthy, with long, coarse nails. Their womanly charm had been sacrificed on the altar of domestic utility; none the less, they were always happy and contented, with a ready laugh in return for any jest or kindly word. It suited our purpose well enough that the men were idle, as we had thus more opportunities of gathering the information we sought. In regard to all matters of everyday life they were willing enough to tell us all they knew. The thing which most of all impressed us was their entire independence of the sea. True, they had had some dealings with the natives of the coast districts, a few having made journeys for purposes of trade, but many of the men here had never even seen the sea. And this also accounted for the fact that all sea meat was strictly tabu. Old men were of opinion that their forefathers had always lived inland, their sole means of livelihood being based on caribou, salmon, and birds. Nor was there anything in their material culture to suggest any previous acquaintance with the sea. During the past generation, however, intercourse with neighboring tribes had been somewhat more general, and $here had lately been some emigration from the southern end of Hikoligjuag down over the great lakes to the coast at Eskimo Point. The country here was now inhabited by natives from the inland districts. Nevertheless, the natives with whom we

W +; ffl is

9 °

were living at present seemed for the most part to regard it as inconceivable that anyone could prefer the blubbery, evil-smelling beasts of the sea to the splendid game that was to be had on land.

Each hunter had a modern rifle, and there was no difficulty in catching foxes enough to pay for the ammunition required. But they did not seem to realize that the use of firearms was in itself largely responsible for the frequent periods of famine. In the olden days, it is true, hunting was more confined to certain definite seasons; but the ingenious methods and implements of capture gave so rich a yield as to cover also the dead seasons when no game was to be had, as long as the hunting had been fairly good and sufficient meat stored for the winter.

The first essential was to find a site for the village directly on the route followed by the caribou in their migrations, and as these routes differed for spring and autumn, the natives led a somewhat nomadic existence. They always returned, however, to the same spots, as extensive preparations were needed. Hundreds of stone cairns had to be erected covering a range of several kilometres, and the ground had to be chosen so that the caribou could be driven in exactly the direction required. Hunting in the open with bow and arrow gave but a poor return; it was necessary to work up within close range of the animals, which might be a matter of days. And one could never reckon on bringing down more than a couple of head, even where the herds were numerous.

The caribou were shy, and the bow was only effective at short range. This difficulty was met by the following arrangement:

Oblong boulders were set up, or stone cairns built, in two lines, forming an avenue. On top of each stone, or heap of stones, was set a lump of peat or tuft of grass, to look like a head. The avenue was very broad at one end, and so placed that the caribou in flight, coming over a hill, would find themselves between the two lines of figures. Behind were women and children acting as beaters, waving garments and shouting like wolves. The animals seeing themselves, as it appeared, pursued by their enemies from the rear and hemmed in by a line on either side, had no choice but to go straight ahead. As they did so, the space between the lines narrowed in, like an old-fashioned duck decoy, and at the farther end, shelters were built where the hunters lay in wait. The caribou had now to pass within dose range of the shelters, and the hunters were able to take toll of them on the way.

The same system of stone figures was employed on the lakes and rivers, at spots where the caribou were accustomed to take to the water. In this case, however, the hunters would lie in wait on the shore, ready to put out in their kayaks. Caribou do not swim very fast, and it was then an easy matter to overtake them and kill them with the spears which were specially fashioned for this form of hunting. Given a broad crossing place and numerous herds, great numbers could be slain in this manner, till the water was choked with the bodies. Some were also taken in winter, in regions where they

were to be found at that season, by a system of pitfalls.

Compared with the caribou, all other forms of game were but of minor importance. Fish were caught by spearing or with hook and line; birds, hares, lemmings and marmot taken in snares. The feathered game was mostly hunted in the autumn, when the birds are moulting and cannot rise easily. They are then pursued on the water in kayaks, and killed with small harpoons.

Unfortunately, the kayak is now being superseded altogether by the gun, and it will not be long before kayaks are a thing of the past. The gun has immediate advantages, but it is doubtful whether it pays better in the long run. Naturally, it is tempting to employ a weapon which does away with the need for elaborate preparation of dummies and shelters, and there is little difficulty on thinning out the herds with a long-range rifle. But it should be borne in mind that arrow and spear did their work silently, and without scaring the i^est, so that the caribou continued for centuries to follow the same routes from the forests to the Barren Grounds and back again. Now, since the introduction of firearms, a change seems to have taken place in this respect; the animals tend more and more to avoid the native villages, and famine has frequently resulted. In some districts, during the last few years, the inhabitants have been completely exterminated by starvation.

Another difficulty which the Caribou Eskimos have to reckon with is the fact that the moving of the caribou in summer and autumn comes just at those seasons when travelling is most difficult. The great stretches of tundra are a pathless waste, and the rivers are available only as their course lies, often tending in the wrong direction for pursuit of the caribou. It is not until late in the autumn, when the rivers and lakes are frozen over, and the country is covered with snow, that they are able to cover any distance; but under these conditions, they are splendid travellers, skilful and untiring. In the days before the trading stations were established at Baker Lake and Eskimo Point, they would go south as far as Fort Churchill, and west to the region of Schultz Lake and Aberdeen Lake, Here they had their meeting place at the famous Akilineq, a ridge of hills south of the great lakes in the neighborhood of the Thelon River. Here they procured timber for sledges, kayaks and tent poles, from Lake Tivsalik, where great tree trunks, brought down by the river from far up country, were washed ashore. One can imagine the patience required in those old days for any kind of wood work, when the only tools available were odd scraps of iron. Now, of course, the saw is generally in use; and sawn timber cut to standard sizes can be obtained at the trading stations. Akilineq was the meeting place for the natives from Baker Lake and Kazan River, who encountered here the tribes from regions so far distant as the North-west Passage, likewise coming up in search of timber. There was naturally a good deal of trading between the different tribes thus brought into contact. The inland folk traded white men's goods

TATILGAQ, WHO DESCRIBED THE NATIVE METHODS OF HUNTING

brought from Churchill, mostly knives, in exchange for seal skin thongs which were in great demand.

There were also forests by the shores of these lakes, but as the trees were regarded as living beings, they were rarely visited. There was a widely current tradition, of ancient date, that the tree-folk would not suffer any human being among them for more than ten nights.

It says much for the sfcifl and endurance of the Eskimos as travellers that these long journeys were made with very small teams, rarely more than two, and never more than five dogs, owing to the difficulty of procuring food for the animals. Both men and women, however, were hardy walkers, and would cheerfully harness themselves to the sledge and haul as well as any dog. Despite their small teams, these natives here use, curiously enough the longest sledges known to exist anywhere; tea metres in le&gth by only 43 centitnetres across are by BO means utiusttal they were easy to hatil, and tfaeir le&gtii macte steadiness and buoyancy in soft loose s&ow.

We were anxious to ascertain whether any stone houses existed up inland, such as we had found all along the coast; our informants here, however, were positive that none such had ever been seen. Houses of this type would also be inconsistent with their mode of Hf e, which involved a constant moving from place to place at certain seasons of the year.

The only form of winter dwelling known to the inland Eskimo is the snow hut; but having »o oil or blubber, they are unable to heat them, though the thermometer in the cold season may often fall below minus 50°. During the long, dark evenings, their only light is a sort of primitive tallow dip, made of moss and caribou fat. So hardy, however, are these people that they declare they never feel cold indoors, however severe the weather may be; and their houses are also protected against the blizzards by being simply smothered in snow, till they are hardly distinguishable from the drift in which they are built.

Just outside the living room proper, and connected with it by a passage is the so-called iga, or kitchen, built straight tip with steep walls, to prevent the snow from melting. Here the food is cooked, when any fuel is available; this, however, is by no means an everyday occurrence when the whole country lies deep in snow. For days in succession they may have to make do with frozen meat, and not even a mouthful of hot soup to help it down.

Water supply is ensured by building the snow hut close to the shore of a lake, and a hole is kept open in the ice all through the winter, a small snow hut being built above the opening to keep it from freezing. Like all other Eskimos living exclusively on meat, these inland folk drink enormous quantities of water.

The only serious difficulty they have to contend with is that they have no means of getting their footwear dried after a long day's hunting. If they have skins enough, the wet things are thrown away and replaced by new ones; failing this, the old wet things have to be dried at night by laying them next to the body.

In May, the snow huts begin to melt, and tents are then called into requisition, often of great size and magnificence, made on the Indian pattern, with smoke hole at the top, and of caribou skin throughout. In front of the house-wife's seat is the fireplace, and all meals are cooked here, inside the tent, the weather as a rule being very windy. One might imagine that the moving into tents meant a period of comfort and ease; this, however, is by no means the case. The cooking indoors precludes the use of a curtain at the entrance, and one has thus either to sit in a roaring draught, or in a smother of smoke from the fireplace. Often we had to jump up half stifled and hurry outside to breathe, though the rest of the inmates appeared to find no discomfort from the atmosphere.

This, roughly, is the ordinary everyday life of the inland Eskimos, probably the hardiest people in the world. Their country is such as to offer but a bare existe&ce tinder the hardest possible conditions, and yet they think it the best that could be found. What most impressed us was the constant change from one to another extreme; either they are on the verge of starvation, or wallowing in a luxury of abundance which renders them oblivious of hard times past, and heedless of those that await them in the next winter's dark.

Igjugarjuk, who had so vehemently asserted that he was no magician, and knew nothing of the past history of his people, soon changed over when he found that he could trust me, and realized that I was earnestly interested in such matters. And in the end, I learned from him a great deal about aspects of Eskimo culture which were quite new to me.

I found it impossible to get a clear and coherent account of their religious beliefs; as soon as one began to ask about matters outside the sphere of tangible reality, the views expressed were so contradictory that one could make nothing of them together. Nothing definite was known, nor did it seem to matter that the wise men of the tribe held different views one from another; the one thing certain was, that all study of such matters was attended with the greatest difficulty, and much remained beyond our knowledge. The general view of life after death is best shown in the following story, which was told to me by Kivkarjuk:

" Heaven is a great country with many holes in. These holes we call the stars. Many people live there, and whenever they upset anything, it falls down through the stars in the form of rain or snow. Up in the land of heaven live the souls of dead men and beasts, under the Lord of Heaven, Tapasum Inua,

II The souls of men and beasts are brought down to earth by the moon. This is done when the moon is not to be seen in the sky; it is then on its way to earth, bringing souls. After death, we do not always remain as we were during life; the souls of men, for instance, may turn into all kinds of animals. Pinga looks after the souls of animals, and does not like to see too many of them killed. Nothing is lost; and blood and entrails must be covered up alter a caribou has been killed.

11 So we see that life is endless ; only we do not know in what form we shall reappear after death/1

The easiest way to learn, of course, was to inquire of an angakoq, and in the course of my long conversations with Igjugarjuk I learned many interesting things. His theories, however, were so simple and straightforward that they sound strikingly modern; his whole view of life may be summed up in his own words as follows: "All true wisdom is only to be learned far from the dwellings of men, out in the great solitudes; and is only to be attained through suffering. Privation and suffering are the only things that can open the mind of man to those things which are hidden from others."

A man does not become an angakoq because he wishes it himself, but because certain mysterious powers in the universe convey to him the impression that he has been chosen, and this takes place as a revelation in a dream.

This mysterious force which plays so great a part in men's fate, is called Sila, and is very difficult to define, or even to translate. The word has three meanings: the universe; the weather, and finally, a mixture of common sense, intelligence and wisdom. In the religious sense, Sila is used to denote a power which can be invoked and applied by mankind; a power personified in Silap Inua, the Lord of Power, or literally, the one possessing power. Often also, the term Pinga is used, this being a spirit in the form of a woman, which is understood to dwell somewhere in space, and only manifests itself when specially needed. There is no definite idea as to her being the creator of mankind, or the origin of animals used for food; all fear her, however, as a stern mistress of the household, keeping watch on all the doings of men, especially as regards their dealings with the animals killed.

She is omnipresent, interfering as occasion may require. One of her principal commandments appears to be that daily food should be treated with respect, care being taken that nothing is wasted. There are certain ceremonies, for instance, to be observed on the killing of a caribou, as mentioned in the story just quoted.

All the rules of tabu are connected with Sila, and designed to maintain a balance of amicable relations with this power. The obligations imposed by Sila are not particularly burdensome, and perhaps for that very reason trespass is severely punished; as for instance by bad weather, dearth of game, sickness, and the like; in a word, all that is most to be feared.

The angakoq serves as interpreter between Sila and mankind. Sila's leading qualities are those of healing in sickness or guarding against the iUwill of others. When a sick person desires to be cured, he must give away all his possessions, and is then carried out and laid on the earth far from any dwelling; for whoever would invoke the Great Spirit must have no possessions save his breath.

Igjugarjuk himself, when a young man, was constantly visited by dreams which he could not understand. Strange unknown beings came and spoke to him, and when he awoke, he saw all the visions of his dream so distinctly that he could tell his fellows all about them. Soon it became evident to

all that he was destined to become an angakoq and an old man named Perqanaoq was appointed his instructor. In the depth of winter, when the cold was most severe, Igjugarjuk was placed on a small sledge just large enough for him to sit on, and carried far away from his home to the other side of Hikoligjuaq. On reaching the appointed spot, he remained seated on the sledge while his instructor built a tiny snow hut, with barely room for him to sit cross-legged. He was not allowed to set foot on the snow, but was lifted from the sledge and carried into the hut, where a piece of skin just large enough for him to sit on served as a carpet. No food or drink was given him; he was exhorted to think only of the Great Spirit and of the helping spirit that should presently appear— and so he was left to himself and his meditations.

After five days had elapsed, the instructor brought 'hfrrt a drink of !ukewffioi water, and with similar exhortations, left frtm as before. He fasted now for fifteen days, when he was given another drink of water and a very small piece of meat, which had to last him a further ten days. At the end of this period, his instructor came for him and fetched him home. Igjugarjuk declared that the strain of those thirty days of cold and fasting was so severe that he "sometimes died a little." During all that time he thought only of the Great Spirit, and endeavored to keep his mind free from all memory of human beings and everyday things. Towards the end of the thirty days there came to him a helping spirit in the shape of a woman. She came while he was asleep, and seemed to hover in the air above him. After that he dreamed no more of her, but she became his helping spirit. For five months following this period of trial, he was kept on the strictest diet, and required to abstain from all intercourse with women. The fasting was then repeated; for such fasts at frequent intervals are the best means of attaining to knowledge of hidden things. As a matter of fact, there is no limit to the period of study; it depends on how much one is willing to suffer and anxious to learn.

Every wizard has a belt, which often plays a great part in his invocations of the spirits. I was fortunate enough to acquire one of these belts from a woman who was herself a witch doctor, named Kinalik. It consisted of an ordinary strap of hide on which were hung or strung the following items: a splinter from the stock of a gun worn in recognition of the fact that her initiation had taken place by means of visions of death; a piece of sinew thread, which had formerly been used to fasten tent poles with, and had on some occasion or other been used for a magic demonstration; a piece of ribbon from a packet of tobacco; a piece of an old cap formerly belonging to her brother — the brother was now dead, and was one of her helping spirits — a piece of white caribou skin, some plaited withies, a model of a canoe, a caribou's tooth, a mitten and a scrap of sealskin. All these things possessed magnetic power, by virtue of their having been given to her by persons who wished her well. Any gift conveys strength. It need not be great or costly in itself; the intrinsic value of the

object is nothing, it is the thought which goes with it that gives strength.

Kitmlik was still quite a young woman, very intelligent, kind-hearted, clean and good-looking, and spoke frankly, without reserve. Igjugarjuk was her brother-in-law, and had himself been her instructor in magic. Her own initiation had been severe; she was hung up to some tent poles planted in the snow and left there for five days. It was midwinter, with intense cold and frequent blizzards, but she did not feel the cold, for the spirit protected her. When the five days were at an end, she was taken down and carried into the house, and Igjugarjuk was invited to shoot her, in order that she might attain to intimacy wi$h the supernatural by visions of death. The gun was to be loaded with real powder, but a stone was to be used instead of the leaden bullet , in order that she might still retain connection with earth. Igjugarjuk, in the presence of the assembled villagers, fired the shot, and Krnalik fell to the ground unomscious. On the following morning, just as Igjugarjuk was about to bring her to life again, she awakened from the swoon unaided. Igjugarjuk asserted that he had shot her through the heart, and that the stone had afterwards been removed and was in the possession of her old mother.

Another of the villagers, a young man named Aggjartoq, had also been initiated into the mysteries of the occult with Igjugarjuk as his teacher; and in his case, a third form of ordeal had been employed; to wit, that of drowning. He was lashed to a long pole and carried out on to a lake, a hole was cut in the ice, and the pole with its living burden thrust down through the hole, in such a fashion that Aggjartoq actually stood on the bottom of the lake with his head tinder water. He was left in this position for five days and when at last they hauled him up again, his clothes showed no sign of having been in the water at all and he himself had become a great wizard, having overcome death.

These inland Eskimos are very little concerned about the idea of death; they believe that all men are born again, the soul passing on continually from one form of life to another. Good men return to earth as men, but evildoers are re-born as beasts, and in this way the earth is replenished, for no life once given can ever be lost or destroyed.

CHAPTER VII

WITH NO EDITORS TO SPOIL

VV7E very soon realized that the culture of these W Caribou Eskimos was of inland origin. It was the most primitive we had encountered during the whole of the expedition, and all the facts tended to show that we were here well on the way to a solution of one of our most important problems.

Their religion, for instance, was of a pronounced inland type, differing essentially from that of the coast peoples, and in respect of tabu especially unlike that of the sea and shore. The ceremonies attending birth and death in particular were far simpler than those in use among the coast Eskimos, Plainly, the people who first found their way to the sea had seen in it, and in the mode of life which it involved, new and mysterious elements which had given rise to their complicated mythology and ceremonial

The fact that the sea was new to them was further confirmed by the entire absence of any implements, whether among those in use or others now obsolete, such as would be used by dwellers on the coast.

Nevertheless, we soon found that they had many traditions in common with the Greenland Eskimos; indeed, a number of their folk-tales and legends are altogether identical with Greenland stories.

Out of fifty-two stories which I wrote down among the Padlermiut at Hikoligjuaq, no fewer than thirty were identical with ones I had already heard in Greenland, and this despite the fact that for thousands of years past, no intercourse had taken place between the two groups of people.

An unquestionable connection exists between the Greenlanders_~ and their Canadian kinsfolk in the matter of story and legend. These stories moreover show that the poor Eskimo can at times find room for thought of things beyond the mere material needs of the day; many of them show a forceful simplicity, a touch of epic strength, and a poetic sense, which command our admiration.

Here are several of the shorter ones:

THE OWL THAT WOOED A SNOW BUNTING

There was once a little snow bunting; it sat on a tuft and wept because its husband was dead. Then came a big fat Owl and sang:

Foolish one, weeping For a miserable husband With a spear Made of grass. I— I will be Your husband.

The little bird answered:

Who would ever Have you for a husband? With your lumpy, clumsy And that ugly-fashioned beak, Podgy legs, and fat round face And a head without a neck !

But the owl was so angry at this, that it swooped down on the little snow bunting, and struck it in the breast and then, when it cried in pain, the owl jeered at it, saying: "Ho, what a woman, that can feel pain in the breast and yet have such a sharp tongue!"

Told by KIVKARJTJK, of Hikoligjuaq. (Known throughout the whole of Greenland.)

How THE WHITE MEN AND THE INDIANS CAME

There was once a maiden who refused all men who wished to marry her. At last her father was so annoyed at this that he rowed off with her and his dog to an island out in the lake of Haningajoq, not far from Hikoligjuaq, and left her there with the dog. Then the dog took her to wife, and she gave birth to many whelps. And her father brought meat to the island, that they might not die of hunger. One day when they were grown up, their mother said to them: "Next time your grandfather comes out to the island, swim out to meet "him, and upset his kayak/'

The dogs did so and the girl's father was drowned. Thus she took vengeance upon her father for having married her to a dog. But now that he was dead, there was no one to bring the dogs meat, so the girl cut the soles out of her kamiks, and placed them in the water, and worked magic over them. Then she set some of the dogs on one sole, and said: "Go out into the world and become skilful in aH manner of work!"

And the dogs drifted out away from the island and when they had gone a little way, the sole turned into a ship, and they sailed away to the white men's country and became white men.. And from them, it is said, all white men are descended.

But the rest of the dogs were set on the other sole, and as it floated away, the girl said: "Take vengeance for all the wrong your grandfather did to me, and show yourselves henceforward thirsty for blood as often as you meet one of the Inuit."

And the dogs sailed away to a strange land, and went ashore there and became the ItqigdKt. Prom these are descended all those Indians whom our forefathers dreaded, for they slew the Inuit wherever they could find them. And this they continued to do until their brothers, the white men from the island of Anarnigtoq, took land in their country and taught them gentler ways.

Told by IGJUGARJUK, (This story is known in Greenland.)

THE RAVEN AND THE LOON

In the olden days, all birds were white. And then one day the raven and the loon fell to drawing patterns on each others feathers. The raven began, and when it had finished, the loon was so displeased with the pattern that it spat all over the raven and made it black all over. And since that day all ravens have been black. But the raven was so angry that it fell upon the loon and beat it so about the legs that it could hardly walk. And that is why the loon is such an awkward creature on land.

(There is a Greenland version of this.)

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING

In the olden days, nobody ever stole anything. But then one day when a great song festival was being held, two children were left alone in a house. Here they found a caribou skin with the hair off,

and a firestone, and desired to have these things for their own. But hardly had they taken them when a great fear came upon them.

"What shall we do," cried one, "to get away from people?"

"Let us turn ourselves into caribou," answered the other."

"No; for then they will catch us; let us turn into wolves."

"No; for then they will kill us. Let us turn into foxes."

And so they went on, naming all the ^nfm^fes there were, but always fearing that men should kill them. Then at last one said: Let us be thunder and Eghtning. For then men could not reach them. And so it came about; they went up into the sky and became thunder and lightning. And now when we hear the thunder it is one of them rattling the dry skin, and when we see the lightning it is the other one striking sparks from the stone.

Told by Arnarqik, of Nahigtartorvik, Kazan River.

(Also known in Greenland)

THE OWL AND THE MARMOT

There was once an owl who went out hunting, and seeing a marmot outside its house, it flew towards it and sitting down in front of the entrance, sang:

" 1 have barred the way of a land beast to its home. Come and fetch it, and bring two sledges."

But the marmot answered: " 0 mighty owl, spread your legs a little wider apart, and show me that powerful chest,"

And the owl hearing this was proud of its broad chest, and spread its legs wider apart.

Then the marmot cried: "Wider, wider still."

And the owl feeling even prouder than before spread its legs a little wider still, and stretched its chest as far as it could.

But then the marmot slipped between its legs and and ran off into its hole.

Told by Kivkarjuk.

I was told that there should be a larger settlement on the southern shore of Hikoligjuaq, and I determined to cross and pay a visit to the natives there. On the day before our departure, a grand song festival was arranged, to be held in Igjugarjuk's tent. In the afternoon the guests arrived, as many as the tent would hold. The singer stood in the middle with closed eyes, accompanying his song with a swaying movement of the hips, while the women, seated in a group on the bench, joined in the chorus every now and then, their voices contrasting pleasantly with the deeper tones of the men.

Here are the words of some of the songs:

IGJUGARJUK'S SONG

Yai — yai — yai

Ya — ayai — ya

I ran with all speed

And met them on the plain,

The great Musk Ox with brilliant black hair —

Hayai — ya — haya.

It was the first time I had seen them, Grazing on the flowers of the plain, Far from the hill where I stood, And ignorantly I thought They were but small and slight . . .

QINGARUVDLIAQ, THE WOMAN WHO KNEW ALL THE MEN'S SONGS AND PROMPTED THEM WHEN THEY FORGOT THE WORDS

But they grew up out of the earth

As I came within shot,

Great black giant beasts

Far from our dwellings

In the regions of happy summer hunting.

AVANE'S SONG

Lo, alas, I look and seek All impatient, eagerly, For the caribou in the hills; Am I old and worthless now, Since I hunt in vain? I who once could stand and shoot Swiftly without aiming Striking down with sudden arrow Bulls with spreading horn; Saw the great beast fall and lie With muzzle deep in mire.

Women do not as a rule sing their own songs. No woman is expected to sing ttoless expressly invited by an angakoq. As a rule, they sing songs made by the men. Should it happen, however, that a woman feels a spirit impelling her to sing, she may step forth from the chorus and follow her own inspiration. Among the women here, only two were thus favored by the spirits; one was Igjugarjuk's first wife, Kivkarjuk, now dethroned, and the other Akjartoq, the mother of KinaKk.

KIVKARJUK'S SONG

I am but a little woman Very willing to toil,

Very willing and happy

To work and slave . . .

And in my eagerness

To be of use,

I pluck the furry buds of willow

Buds like beard of wolf.

I love to go walking far and far away,

And my soles are worn through

As I pluck the buds of willow,

That are furry like the great wolf's beard.

AKJARTOQ'S SONG

I draw a deep breath,

But my breath comes heavily

As I call forth the song . . .

There are ill rumors abroad,

Of some who starve in the far places,

And can find no meat,

I call forth the song From above, H ayaya — haya.

And now I forget

How hard it was to breathe,

Remembering old times,

When I had strength

To cut and flay great beasts*

Three great beasts could I cut up

While the sun slowly went his way

Across the sky.

In addition to ordinary hunting songs and lyrics there are songs of derision, satires with a mercilessly personal address; two men will stand up in turn and accuse each other before the assembled neighbors. These accusations, even when well founded, are received with surprising calmness, whereas "evil or angry words" may have far more serious effects.

I give here Utahania's impeachment of one Kanaijuaq who had quarrelled with his wife and attempted to desert her, leaving her to her fate out in the wilds; the woman, however, had proved not only able *to stand up for herself in a rough-and-tumble, but left her husband of her own accord and went to shift for herself, taking her son with her.

Something was whispered

Of man and wife

Who could not agree.

And what was it aft abo&t?

A wife who in rightful anger

Tore her husband's ftirs across,

Took their canoe

And rowed away with her son.

Ay — ay, all who listen,

What do you think of him,

Poor sort of man?

Is he to be envied,

Who is great in his anger

But faint in strength,

Blubbering helplessly

Properly chastised?

Though it was he who foolishly proud

Started the quarrel with stupid words.

Kanaijuaq retorted with a song accusing Utahatiia of improper behavior at home; his hard words however, seemed to make no difference to their friendship. Far more serious was the effect of malicious words in the case of Utahania's foster-son who was once upbraided by his foster-father as follows:

"I wish you were dead! You are not worth the food you eat." And the young man took the words so deeply to heart that he declared he would never eat again. To make his sufferings as brief as possible, he lay down the same night stark naked on the bare snow, and was frozen to death.

Halfway through the festival it was announced that Kinalik, the woman angakoq, would invoke her helping spirits and clear the way of all dangers ahead. Sila was to be called in to aid one who could not help himself. All the singing now ceased, and Kinalik stood forth alone with her eyes tightly closed. She uttered no incantation, but stood trembling all over, and her face twitched from time to time as if in pain. This was her way of " looking inward," and penetrating the veil of the future; the great thing was to concentrate all one's force intently on the one idea, of calling forth good for those about to set out on their journey.

Igjugarjuk, who never let slip an opportunity of exalting his own tribe at the expense of the "salt water Eskimo," informed me at this juncture that their angakoqs never danced about doing tricks, nor did they have recourse to particular forms of speech; the one essential was truth and earnestness— all the rest wasmere trickwork designed to impress the vulgar.

When Kinalik had reached the utmost limit of her concentration, I was requested to go outside the tent and stand on a spot where there were no footmarks, remaining there until I was called in. Here, on the untrodden snow, I was to present myself before Sila, standing silent and humble, and desiring sky and air and all the forces of nature to look upon me and show me goodwill.

It was a peculiar form of worship or devotion, which I now encountered for the first time; it was the first time, also, that I had seen Sila represented as a benign power.

After I had stood thus for a time, I was calkd in again. Kirialik had now resumed her natural expression, and was beaming all over. . She assured me that the Great Spirit had heard her prayer, and that all dangers should be removed from our path; also, that we should have success in our hunting whenever we needed meat.

This prophecy was greeted with applause and general satisfaction; it was plain to see that these good folk, in their simple, innocent fashion, gave us their blessing and had done all they could to render it effective. There was no doubting the sincerity of their goodwill.

On the following night we were racing at full speed over the wintry surface of Lake Hikoligjuaq. The firm ice was spread with a thin layer of soft, moist snow, acting as a soft carpet to the dogs' paws, and the long rest in complete idleness with plenty of fresh caribou meat had given them a degree of vitality that made it a pleasure to be out once more.

We had two lads with us as guides, who had borrowed Igjugarjuk's dogs, but it was not long before they were hopelessly out-distanced, and we had to content ourselves with a guess at our direction.

Early in the morning, before the sun was fairly warm, we reached the southern shore of the lake and camped in a pleasant little valley, fastening the dogs in a thicket of young willow that stood bursting in bud to greet the spring.

In the course of the day we went out to reconnoitre. And it was not long before we came upon a solitary caribou hunter observing us from a little hill. He was just taking to flight when the two lads from the last village, who had now come up, recognized him and called him by name, when he walked up smiling to meet them. He informed us that there was a village of five tents a couple of hours' journey farther inland, and that we could reach the place without difficulty, although the ground was bare. We tried to persuade him to come back with us to the camp, but he preferred to go on ahead and tell his comrades of the strange meeting. And before we had gone far, the whole party came down and overtook us, they had been too impatient to wait for our arrival. It was hard work for the dogs to get the sledge over the numerous hills, and even the level grotmd was difficult going, sodden as it was with water and broken by tussocks and pools. There were plenty of willing hands, however, and we made our way, albeit slowly, with a great deal of merriment. Miteq and I had to face an endless rain of questions. These inland folk look upon the sea as something wonderful

and mysterious, far beyond their ken; and when we explained that we had had to cross many seas in coming from our own land to theirs, they regarded our coming in itself as something of a marvel. And we agreed with them in their surprise at our being able to understand one another's speech.

Suddenly speech and laughter died away; the dogs pricked up their ears, and a strange silence fell upon all. There, full in our way, lay the body of a woman prone on the ground* We stood for a moment at a loss. Then the men wait forward, while we held back our dogs* The figure still lay motionless* A loud wailing came from the party ahead, and Miteq and I stood vaguely horrified, not knowing what it meant. Then one of the men came back and explained that we had found the corpse of a woman who had been, lost in a blizzard the winter before — and he pointed to one of those bending over her; that was her husband.

It had been a hard winter, and just when the cold was most severe, six of those in the village had died of hunger. A man named Atangagjuaq then determined to set out for a neighboring village in search of aid, and his wife, fearing lest, weak as he was, he might be unable to complete the journey, had followed after him. She herself, however, had been lost in the snow before coming up with him. They had searched for her that winter, and in the following spring, but without result; and now here she lay, discovered by the merest accident right athwart our course,

I walked forward to view the body of this woman who had lost her life in a vain attempt to help her husband. There was nothing repulsive in the sight; she just lay there, with limbs extended, and an expression of unspeakable weariness on her face. It was plain to see that she had walked on and on, struggling against the blizzard till she could go no farther, and sank exhausted, while the snow swiftly covered her, leaving no trace.

The body was left lying as it was; no one touched it. We drove on, and in an hour's time reached the Eskimo camp.

These people are quick to change from one extreme of feeling to another. We had not gone far on our way before the dead woman, to all seeming, was forgotten, and the merriment that had met with so sudden a check broke out afresh. As soon as we had put up our tent, the men got hold of our ski, and went off to try them in a good deep snowdrift that still lay in a gap. They had never seen ski before, and great shouts of laughter greeted the first attempts of those venturesome enough to try them. One of the gayest of the party was Atangagjuaq, who but a few minutes earlier had stood weeping beside the body of his wife,

By the 2 ist of June, we were once more on the ice of Lake Hikoligjuaq, and on the morning of the 22nd, just at stinrise, we reached the spot where the others of our party were encamped. That sunrise was, I think, the most remarkable I have ever seen. To the north, on the horizon, was a dense white mass of cloud, like a reflection from the lake itself, but with a narrow belt of delicate green below. The country

YOUNG WOMEN

They were always happy and smiling, and handsome as well.

round was outlined in masses of black. Then suddenly there was a glow of fire, a tongue of flame broke through the pale green below the cloud, lighting up all the sky; light, fragile veils of rosy cloud-stuff floated by overhead, and the ice below was tinged with the palest mauve. The contours of shore and hill stood out now darker than before, while flowers of fire appeared on the horizon Eke fairy-lamps Ht one after another, gradually merging into a®& great conflagration. Then up came the stm iteelf, and all the varied colors were lost ixi oae stark fed glow reflected in our faces as we looked.

It was like driving into a burning city; and we remained spellbound ttntil the barking of dogs and shouts of welcome from our companions brought us back to reality and busy freshness of a new day. * . *

CHAPTER VIII

BETWEEN TWO WINTERS

IGJUGARJUK had for some time past been talking

• of making a trip down to Baker Lake, and was now getting ready for the journey. Then one day a canoe came up from the south, in charge of a young man, Equmeq, by name. It was decided that Birket- Smith and Bangsted, with the greater part of our ethnographical collections, should start with this party for Baker Lake, Igjugarjuk taking the rest, and Miteq and I going by sledge — a plan which caused much head-shaking among the natives, who regarded sledging as dangerous or impossible at this season.

Certainly, our journey turned out worse than we had expected. The ground was soft and wet, and very uneven, at the best, added to which we came every now and then to swollen streams, often so deep that we had to follow them some distance up to find a practicable crossing among the ice of the lakes. The constant detours, again, took up so much time that we had little left for hunting, and had to reduce our rations and those of the dogs accordingly. Igjugarjuk and the lake party had simply to follow the river and we were supposed to come up with them every evening. Actually we often failed to make their camp in time, but Igjugarjuk always waited

1 02

faithfully till we did come up, and gave us directions for the next day's route. On one occasion we came within a hair's breadth of losing the canoe with its precious load. We had just got in to camp, on the bank of a stream flowing into the main river, and found that our companions had laid out some newly slain carcases on the other side. Crossing in the canoe, we suddenly perceived the dogs making straight for the meat, and in hurrying to save it, we omitted to pull the canoe far enough up sliore; when we turned, it was floating rapidly away down to the main channel. Guns, ammunition* cameras, diaries, and everything of value was on board; in addition to .which, the canoe itself was our only practicable means of transport.

The feverish chase that followed was beyond description. Igjugarjuk, — who, by the way, could not swimr— jobbed me in a mad obstacle raoe in and out of water, each of tis witfa one end of a line fastened roimdtliebody. Tfiet% w&e masses of looseiceia the fairway, aadl tna&aged toswimfrom floe to fioe, hatdingup Igjugarjtik to each before making for the next. So we went on, clambering and struggling desperately in pursuit. Fortunately, the canoe itself was checked in its progress by these same masses of ice; nevertheless, we dared not relax our efforts. Our hands were torn and bleeding from the sharp ice crystals; and when at last we reached the canoe itself and dragged it into safety, we were so exhausted that we sank down helplessly beside it. Another few yards and it would have been carried into the main river, to certain destruction— and ourselves with it.

It is difficult for a Greenlander to understand how these natives here can give up and lie down to die in a country so rich in game. But it is not laziness, I fancy the wretched footwear they use in summer has a great deal to do with it. They have not the thick stout sealskin or walrus hide, but only light caribou skin, pleasant enough in winter on the cold dry snow, but miserably inadequate in the swampy tundra during summer, and with no sort of wear in it over rocky ground; a couple of days will wear through perfectly new soles.

Late that night we reached the river Kunuag. After a difficult crossing, we took leave of our companions, who with their kayaks on their heads hurried back to their own people. We built a great fire, and roasted steaks of freshly killed meat on flat stones. All was clear ahead now, down to Baker Lake; the weather was fine, and as sleep is not so essential in summer, we were soon on our way once more.

It was slow going over the swampy tundra, that squelched underfoot at every step. By six the next morning we reached a group of three tents, and were surprised to find the inmates here also on the verge of starvation. We had the better part of two caribou carcases with us, and seeing no reason to carry a heavier load than needed, we invited the village to a feast. The fine fresh meat was disposed of with remarkable celerity, and I had once more an opportunity of witnessing the feats of which an Eskimo is capable in this direction. Hunger however, had by no means impaired the spirits qf these

good folk; they smiled as they showed us their cooking pots, scraped dean and empty for the past week. And they broke up their tobacco pipes to get a taste of tobacco after the heavy meal.

We were past astonishment when a gramophone was produced, and kept going for the rest of the afternoon. The natives declared, in sober earnest, that jazz tunes were no less comforting to an empty stomach than soothing to a full one.

We had hoped to push on from here without further delay, but many obstacles lay between us and our return to Chesterfield, — too maay to recount* The partial break-up of winter ice meant for us that progress by boat and progress by dog sledge were alternately barred. Once, native kayaks which we hired were crushed in the rocky narrows of a swollen river. Again, we had to cross a lake on a block of ice, with, our dogs drawing the whole mass across by swimmftig in harness. And wiaen, after days of soggy going, we finally' readied Baker Lake, we could not rouse the people of the trading post oat cm the island, though we burned signal fires for eight hours continuously. So we finally ferried across on an ice floe, using our skis as paddles.

We found Birket-Smith and Helge Bangsted at the island, but they wished to continue their botanical studies, so we pushed on to Chesterfield without them. We met with more delays on the way down to the Inlet, — chiefly from ice jams, — and not until July 31 did we reach our destination.

We had first visited Chesterfield in winter, and passed it in a blizzard, when everything was as arctic io8 ACROSS ARCTIC AMERICA

as could be; when one's nostrils froze in the icy blast and the blood fairly hardened in one's cheeks. Our own experience had taught us to appreciate the natives' power of adapting themselves to their surroundings. Their extraordinary clothing, of soft caribou skin from head to foot, inside and out, enabled not only the men, but also women and children, to move abroad in all manner of weather; as long as they could manage to procure food enough, the cold of winter seemed hardly to affect them at all.

Coming back now, in the summer, we found all changed to a surprising degree. The handsome dresses of caribou skin, so admirably suited to the racial type of the wearers, and to their surroundings, had given place to the cheap and vulgar products of the trading station. The men went about in jerseys and readymade slacks, their flowing locks surmounted by a cheap cloth cap, while the women had exchanged their quaint swallow-tailed furs, long boots and baggy breeches, for shapeless European dresses of machine-made stuff, in which grace and character alike were utterly obliterated.

So also with their dwellings; the wonderful snow huts, fashioned, as it were, of the cold itself as a protection from the cold, were now replaced by big white canvas tents, which made the place look more like a holiday camp than an Eskimo settlement* And one could not go near them without finding one's ears assailed by the noise of some modern mechanical contrivance, either a gramophone or a sewing machine.

I noted now for the first time how oddly these

quondam inland folk — they were mainly from the neighborhood of Baker Lake — felt lost and out of their element here on the shore of the open sea. Just outside Chesterfield Inlet was a veritable highroad for the seal; and all round the adjacent Marble Island the walrus might be seen blowing and steaming at the surface of the water; yet never a man in all the settlement went out hunting either. The natives here, despite their astonishing agility and skill with kayak and spears among the turbulent waters of tlie rivers, were content now to let all this meat go by, while they themselves lived on tea and pancakes. The most they ever attempted in the way of hunting wastolayouta net in the bay just outside their tents and catch a few fish.

This indifference to the abundance offered them by the sea was not due to laziness however, but rather a peculiarity of their inland culture itself. They could not <ispeese with their caribou; and it was a principle handed down through gesemt&oes that OIK could not mingle sea bunting with tfaat of the laad without losing the latter altogether.

After a pleasant two-weeks stay at CSiesterfidd, during which Bkket-Smith and Bangsted rejoined us, and during which we received and sent off letters by the Hudson's Bay steamer, Nascopie, we set off on the long journey back to headquarters at Danish Island. It was already later in the summer than I wished, and plans whidi we had hopefully made for spending the summer in useful work together began to grow impracticable. I was anxious to see what the rest had been doing, — Mathiassen and Freuchen no ACROSS ARCTIC AMERICA

in their investigation of ancient culture, particularlye We were fortunate in getting passage by motorschooner as far as Repulse Bay, which we made in three days. Here we should, by agreement, have found Peter Freuchen encamped waiting for us with the motor boat we had built especially for summer work. The migratory ice, however, had kept him from getting out with it.

We accordingly hired a whaleboat belonging to an Eskimo from Southampton Island, who was known to the traders as "John Ell." As it turned out, we needed him for various errands during most of the winter following, so we grew to know and admire John Ell.

He was a man in many ways unlike the average type of native, having been educated to begin with on board a whaler, thus learning not only to speak English fluently, but also to manage a boat with remarkable skill, especially among the ice. He was looked up to as a leader by his fellows, and was also a man of property, having a fine team of dogs and a range of sledges designed for work at different seasons, a well-equipped whaleboat, and furthermore, a motor boat of his own. This last is uncommon among the Eskimos; John Ell had bought it for 75 fox skins. He carried on an extensive correspondence with people in the neighborhood, using the sign language invented by a missionary named Peck, which is here generally employed. And he kept a regular account of his income and expenditure throughout the year. It was the more remarkable, seeing how much he had lived and learned among

BETWEEN TWO WINTERS m white men, to find that lie was a distinguished angakoq, with a faith in native magic eqtial to his reputation.

Winter weather on land and ice in the channel held us at Repulse Bay till September i , and then we crossed in a day as far as Kurd Channel, Here again we were held up for twelve days. We used the interval in hunting meat for our dogs, and other employments. Then we crossed at a favorable moment to Vansittart Island, and three <Jays later got through to headquarters.

We found an empty house. Whereas we fead expected a rousing welcome after our long absence, there wasn't even a letter to tell us where our other comrades were.

However, Freuchen and the Eskimos were only out at the hunting grounds, and they hadn't believed that we could get through the broken ice. We went out and found them* and our reunion was as joyous as any meeting in the Arctic is likely to be between Ioi3g separated.

MatMassen, with Jacob Olsen, was still at Southampton Island studying the traces of former Eskimo culture. It was not until February 1 8, and only after causing us anxiety for his safety, that he finally returned, and completed the final retanion of our party.

Meantime, the rest of us were held at Danish Island, or nearby, for most of the winter, Freuchen, who started out in January for Baffinland, to begin studies later to be carried out in cxx^eration with Mathiassen, was quickly brought back with a bad

H2 ACROSS ARCTIC AMERICA

case of frostbite which made him temporarily an invalid. Birket-Smith and Bangsted were held at headquarters looking after him.

I was occupied during the winter with two main tasks, — completing my study and comparison of the various ethnographical collections, and rounding them out with materials secured on another visit to the natives around Lyon Inlet.

With regard to one item of our study, I felt that we had already secured satisfactory data; namely, the investigation of the culture of the Tunit. Therkel Mathiassen's work1 here proved to be of greatest importance to our study of the people and their history as a whole.

There are no written sources for the early history of the Eskimo people; it is to the spade that we must turn if we would learn something of their life in ages past. We have to dig and delve among the ruins of their dwellings, in the kitchen middens of their settlements, for proof of how they lived and hunted, how they were housed and clad. It is often a laborious task, but not less interesting on that account. And it was one of the principal tasks of the Fifth Thule Expedition to investigate, by means of archaeological excavations, the history and development of the Eskimo people, and their migrations into Greenland. Our work in this field has brought to light some six or seven thousand items which afford a good

1 Space forbids the inclusion here of my companions1 reports in full, and I can give but the briefest indication of their main features. Both Freuchen's and Therkel Mathiassen's reports are published— or shortly to be published — in English elsewhere. The pages here following are taken from Therkel Mathiassen's own text.

idea as to the mode of life prevailing among the Central Eskimos here in those distant ages.

Naujan lies on the northern shore of Repulse Bay, a little to the east of the trading station. The name, which means "the place of the young seamews," is taken from a steep bird cliff on the banks of a small lake. From the lake, a valley runs down towards the shore, where it opens out into a bay, and it is in this valley, just south of the lake, that the great settlement of Naujan existed in ancient times.

The Eskimos of the present day in these regions use only snow huts in winter; it was the more surprising therefore to come upon remains of quite a different type of house. We found at Naujan a whole little township of these houses, constructed of stone, turf, and the bones of whales. They were built so as to be partly underground and must have been far more substantial and warm, though less hygienic perhaps, than the light, cool, healthy snow huts of today. Various features placed it beyond question that at the time when these houses wene built, the land must have lain some ten metres lower than it does now; and this, too, explains why the settlement was found at some distance from what is now the beach, instead of practically on it as is customary. Similarly, in confirmation of our theory, we found, on a little island near by, a pair of kayak stands — pillars of stone on which the skirt kayaks are laid to be out of reach of the dogs — some 15 metres up from sea;, actually, of course, they would have been built at the water's edge, to save hauling, up and down.

The houses themselves had fallen to pieces long since, and the remains were scattered, weatherworn and overgrown with grass and moss to such an extent that our excavations gave but a poor idea of their original appearance. The implements and objects found among the ruins, however, gave an excellent view of the culture of the period from which they were derived. The materials comprised bone, walrus tusk and caribou antler, flint, slate and soapstone, whalebone, some wood, and occasionally metal, this last in the form of cold hammered copper (probably obtained by barter from the Eskimos of the west), with a single fragment of meteoric iron forming the point of a harpoon.

It is of course impossible to mention more than a very few of the finds here; often, too, the most insignificant objects to all outward seeming prove most important from the scientific point of view. Among our most valuable finds, for instance, were three odd broken fragments of rough earthenware vessels. These are only known to exist among the Alaskan Eskimos, and the finding of them here was of importance; few, however, would have attached any value to those three dirty scraps of pottery.

And now as to the age of this Naujan material. We may at once assert that nothing was found which could suggest any intercourse with Europeans. There were no glass beads — which are ordinarily the first thing the Eskimos procure, and always found in their villages — and the only fragment of iron found was of meteoric origin. This at once carries us back 300 years. Beyond this, we have only the alteration in the level of the land to fall back upon. It takes a considerable period, of course, for the land to rise ten metres, but there is no definite standard by which to measure the lapse of time involved. In the north of Sweden, for instance, the land rises i metre in a hundred years; allowing the same rate of progress here, this would give us an age of 1000 years — but this is, of course, mere guesswork.

As to the people who lived here in those days, they were beyond doubt genuine Eskimos; they lived on the shore in regular winter dwellings, drove dog sledges, and hunted whale, seal and walrus, besides bear and caribou; they trapped foxes, and caught salmon. They had at any rate no lack of meat, to judge from the enormous quantities of bones, which indeed, almost smothered the remains of the houses themselves* If we ask the present inhabitants of these regions, the Aivilik, as to the folk who dwelt in these now ruined houses, they will say, it was the TttBit. These Tunit were a mce of big, strong men who Eved in permanent dwellings and hunted whale and walrus; the men wore bearskin breeches and the women long sealskin boots just like the Polar Eskimos of today. When the Aivilik settled on the coast, the Tunit moved away to the northward; only on the inaccessible Southampton Island did a party remain, and the Sadlermiut, who died out here in 1903, were the last descendants of the Tunit in the country. Thus the Aivilik tradition, and it agrees in all essentials with the results of our investigations.

For on comparing these Tunit of ancient Naujan with the present inhabitants, we find a great differ-

Ii6 ACROSS ARCTIC AMERICA

ence between them. The Naujan Eskimos lived on the shore, hunted the whale, and built their houses from the skeletons. The Aivilik live in snow huts, and spend most of the year hunting caribou up in the interior. Many of the implements and utensils in use among the Naujan folk, such as the bola, the bird dart, and earthenware vessels, are unknown among the Aivilik; the latter, on the other hand, have others unknown to the ancients, such as combs, big ladles made of musk ox horn, and toggles for dog harness. And on examining the types of implement in use among the two peoples, many distinct points of difference are found.

Where did the Naujan Eskimos come from, and what became of them?

It soon becomes apparent that they link up in two directions across the Eskimo region; with Alaska on the one hand and Greenland on the other. At Thule, in northern Greenland, a find has been made, the oldest of any extent from the whole of Greenland, which points to precisely the same type of culture as that which we found at Naujan; and we have therefore called it the Thule type. Similar finds have been made both in west and north Greenland, and the Polar Eskimos of the present day are very much like these Thule folk in many respects. The Greenland Eskimos, then, must have passed through these central regions at a time when they were still inhabited by the Thule folk.

Looking now to the westward, we find in Alaska a race of big men, who hunt the whale, live in permanent dwellings on the coast, use the bola, make

earthenware, and have almost the same types of implements generally as those we found at Naujan; old finds from Alaska also exhibit even more marked resemblance to the Naujan type. The Thule folk then, must have come from Alaska, this is beyond question. They spread in a mighty wave from west to east, reaching right across to Greenland. At some time now far distant there was a more or less uniform type of culture prevailing throughout the whole of the Eskimo region; that which we now call the Thule type; then, in the central districts, an advance took place of people from the interior represented by the present-day Central Eskimo: the Aivilik, Netsilik, Copper Eskimos and Baffinlanders. These people, with their culture based on snow huts and caribou hunting, made their way down to the coast, where their mode of life was gradually adapted to some extent, so as to include the hunting of marine anfmals, while the ancient Thule culture disappeared from the central regions where now only the numerous ruins of stone and bone houses remain as evidence of the culture of earlier times. Thus too we have an explanation of many otherwise inexplicable similarities between the two topographical extremities of Eskimo culture; Alaska and Greenland; features found in the extreme east and in the extreme west, but lacking in the central region.

CHAPTER IX

FAITH OUT OF FEAR

Y the middle of January, I had the ethnographical collections in shape so that I could leave Danish Island for good. But we still needed a few items. I wanted a few more skin dresses to round out the collection, and I wished to make a final study of the spiritual beliefs of the Eskimos of the region. Accordingly, I set oS for the hunting camp at the mouth of Lyon Inlet, to visit my old friend Aua.

Aua's hunting camp lay midway out in Lyon Inlet; I reached it late one afternoon, just as the setting sun was gilding the domes of the snow huts.

It was known that I was on the way, and above each hut waved a little white flag — a sign that the inmates had relinquished their old heathen faith and become Christians. As I drove up, men, women and children trooped out and formed up in line outside Aua's hut, and as soon as I had reined in my team, the whole party began singing a hymn. The tune was so unlike what they were accustomed to in their own pagan chants that they bungled it a little, but there was no mistaking the earnestness and pious feeling which inspired it. There was something very touching in such a greeting; these poor folk had plainly found in the new faith a refuge that meant a great deal in their lives.

When it was over, they stepped forward one by one and shook hands* And here I could not but recall my first meeting with these same people a year ago, at Cape Elizabeth. Then, they had come leaping and capering round me in an outburst of unrestrained natural feeling ; now, all was ceremonial, and solemn to an almost painful degree. It was not long, however, before this wore off, and the old easy merriment showed forth again. The carcase of a seal was brought out and thrown to the dogs, and while they were busy with it, I was regaled with the latest news. Then my sledge was hoisted up onto a stand built of blocks of snow, and I myself invited indoors to thaw. Aua's wife, Orulo, good friendly soul, had a fine big bowl of steaming hot tea for me, and when this had driven out some of the cold I could settle down at ease among my old frie&ds.

It was the most difficult time of the year just now; the stores o£ meat accumulated during summer had been used up, and it was a question of pixxnaring fresh supplies for men and dogs, from day to day. Seal were hunted now either at the breathing holes or in the open water beyond the edge of the ice. The weather was rough and stormy, snow falling every day, and the thermometer rarely above minus 5O°C. The days were short, and in order to make the most of them, the hunters set off before daylight and returned after dark. All meat brought in was cut up and distributed at once throughout the camp, and as there was generally no more than would suffice for one day, the arrival of the next instalment was looked forward to with anxiety literally equal to that with which hungry folk look forward to a meal.

The men had little rest these days. It is a weary business to be out for ten hours at a stretch, first searching about to find the blowhole of a seal, and having found it, to stand motionless in the driving snow waiting for the seal to come up to breathe. A seal has always a number of blowholes open at once, and it might often be hours before it appeared at the one actually under observation. No wonder then, that the hunters were stiff and sore by the time they returned. Throwing off all but their innermost clothing, they threw themselves down on the bench in the warmth of the hut, while the women busied themselves cutting up the carcases into juicy red fillets edged with rich yellowish blubber. Then, when the pots began to boil, came the reward of the day's toil, in the shape of a steaming cup of thick blood-soup. The next course was meat, speared up from the cauldron on long bone skewers, and dumped down upon a wooden tray enriched with the juices of many a former meal. A sense of warmth and comfort spread and grew, the little triumphs or disappointments of the day were recounted with good humor; material wants were satisfied for the time being, and peace and plenty reigned.

These evenings, when we lay stretched at ease after a hearty meal, and the most taciturn had thawed into some degree of geniality, were the times I most looked forward to for converse with my hosts.

In the collecting of folk lore, one is altogether

MTTEQ CUTTING UP A NEWLY CAPTURED SEAL

dependent upon the character and temper of one's sources; it is essential to have native authorities not only qualified in regard to knowledge of their subject but also gifted with the right appreciation of it themselves. They must be reliable, so that one can listen without criticising all the time, and one should if possible be on friendly terms with them throughout. Aua and his wife Orulo eminently fulfilled these conditions; we were excellent friends, and the two old folk, pooling the experience and learning of their respective lives, combined to furnish a mine of information. What one did not know the other did. The reader will recollect Aua from a previous chapter, and the account of his snow palace at Cape Elizabeth; it was he who then gave me the accounts of native belief as to the life after death, and the methods of native wizards in their spirit flights and the like. In addition to Aua himself, there were three other wizards in the camp, differing considerably in type and character. I endeavored throughout as far as possible to get them to take part in the conversation, in order to obtain as varied a general view as possible. One of them was a young man named Anarqaoq. He was not particularly skilful as a hunter, and had been more or less of a vagabond all his life. He had come originally from one of the Netsilik tribes in the neighborhood of King William's Land, where his first introduction to the practice of magic had taken place. He was a man of a very nervous temperament, easily influenced, and his speciality, as one might say, consisted mainly in the remarkable visions which came to him as soon as he was out alone caribou hunting in the interior. His imagination peopled the whole of nature with fantastic spirit creatures that came to him either while he slept, or even when fully awake and engaged on his normal occupations. In some way he could not explain, these spirits gave him an enhanced power of penetrating into the realms of mystery; and though his own accounts of such experiences often appeared naive to say the least, they sufficed to impress his fellows with a sense of his importance as one familiar with the unknown powers. I gave htm a pencil and paper one day and asked him to draw some of these " visions." After some hesitation he complied. And I could not but feel that he was himself convinced of their reality; he did not simply sit down and draw the things at once, but would remain for some time manifestly under the influence of strong emotion, trembling often to such a degree that he could hardly draw at all.

It is difficult indeed for the ordinary civilized mentality to appreciate the complexity of the native mind in its relations with the supernatural; a "wizard" may resort to the most transparent trickwork and yet be thoroughly in earnest. Anarqaoq himself, afforded an instance of this. One evening a child came in crying, but unable to say what was the matter — a not uncommon happening with children; as everyone knows. Our wizard, however, grasped and utilized the opportunity. He dashed out into the darkness and returned some time later covered with blood and with great rents in his clothing, having fought and defeated the "evil Spirits" that were seeking to harm the child. No one suspected that he had snatched up a lump of half frozen seal's blood from the kitchen, and with this, and a few self-inflicted wounds upon his garments, supplied the needful evidence to impress his fellow villagers with the truth of his story.

Another wizard was Unaleq, also a Netsilik. I chose out these two in particular for occasional interrogation because the Igdlulik, to which tribe Aua himself belonged, regarded the Netsilik as their inferiors, and Aua was thus impelled to be more communicative himself.

Unaleq was, I think, the most trustful and optimistic soul I have ever met. Actually one of the poorest and most unskilful hunters for some distance round, he was nevertheless convinced that his "helping spirits " had endowed him with supernatural powers enabling him to assist his fellows. I got him to draw these spirits for me, as A&arqaoq had done, though again, not without considerable difficulty, despite the tempting nature of the prize offered — a knife bigger and brighter and sharper than he had ever owned in his life. When he had finished, I assured him that he would be successful in his hunting on the following day, as I had dreamt I saw him catching a seal. Whether due to laziness or lack of skill, he had caught not a single seal all that winter. But on the following day he did. The confidence with which my dream inspired him had, perhaps, encouraged him to effort beyond his usual capacity; at any rate, he brought home a seal.

And finally, there was Aua's brother, Ivaluartjuk, whose contribution to our stock of legends and myths was of the greatest value. We met him for the first time at Repulse Bay. He was a duly qualified wizard, but rarely practised his art, his speciality being folk tales, of which over fifty were written down from his dictation. Space forbids the inclusion of further stories at length, but there is one important point in this connection which must be noted, to wit, the similarity, or indeed, identity of many of the Canadian Eskimo folk tales with those already known from the Eskimos of Greenland. A few instances have been noted in the foregoing; and the further evidence afforded by this later material places the question of kinship beyond all doubt. The following are a few of the themes in the stories told by Ivaluartjuk having counterparts or very close variants in different parts of Greenland:

The coming of men: at the very beginning of the world, women went out and found children sprawling among the bushes. Later, they grew to be many throughout the world.

Day and night. In earliest times, all was dark; the fox wished it to be dark that it might steal from the dwellings of men. But the raven could not see to find food in the dark, and wished for light. And there was light.

The raven that married a goose, and was drowned when the birds flew over the sea.

The fatherless boy who was ill-used by his fellows, till a spirit (the moon) took pity on him and made him a strong man, when he returned and took vengeance.

Igimarajugjuk, who ate his wives.

The soul that lived in the bodies of all beasts.

Sun and moon — brother and sister who loved each other, till the sister, ashamed, fled away by night, the brother in pursuit. Both carried torches, but the one went out, hence the faint glow of the moon compared with the sun.

The man disturbed in liis hunting by children at play; he shuts them up in a mountain where they starve to death.1

There are, of course, numerous themes common to the folklore of many different countries and races, so that the subject itself does not always count for much. But in the case of these stories we often find, not only dose resemblance in points of detail, but precisely identical words in the dialogue.

Aua of course, as a wizard himself, was an authority not wily on folklore and customs generally, but more especially on all matters connected with the supernatural, as well as the complicated rites and observances coming under the head of tabu. His account of the origin of his own profession is worth noting. Briefly, it was as follows:

In very early times there were no wizards, and people generally were ignorant of many things pertaining to their welfare. Then it came about that there was great famine at Igdlulik, and many died of starvation. One day, many being assembled in one house, a man there present declared that he would go down to the Mother of the Sea. None of those present knew what he meant by that. But he

XA representative collection of these Greenland stories is given in Eskimo Folk Tales, by Enud Rasmussen and W. Worster, London, GyldendaL

insisted, and begged to be allowed to hide behind the skins, as he was about to undertake something for the good of all. They allowed him to do so, and presently, pulling the skins aside, they saw that he was already almost gone, only the soles of his feet remaining above ground. It is not known what inspired him to do this thing, but some say he was visited by spirits that came to him out in the great solitude. And he went down to the Mother of the Sea, and brought back her good will and the grant of game for the hunters, so that thenceforward there was no longer dearth, but great abundance of food, and all were happy once more. Since then, the angakoqs, have learned much more about hidden things, and aided their fellows in many ways. They have too their own sacred speech, which is not to be used for common things.

A young man wishing to become an angakoq must first handover some of his possessions to his instructor. At Igdlulik it was customary to give a tent pole, wood being scarce in these regions. A gull's wing was attached to the pole, as a sign that the novice wished to learn to fly. He had further to confess any breach of tabu which he might have committed, and then, retiring behind a curtain withhis instructor submitted to the extraction of the "soul" from his eyes, heart and vitals, which would then be brought by magic means into contact with those beings destined to become his helping spirits, to the end that he might later meet them without fear. The ultimate initiation always took place far from all human dwelling ; only in the great solitude was it possible to approach the spirits. Furthermore, it was essential that the novice should start young; some, indeed, were entered to the profession before they were born. Aua himself was one of these, his mother declaring that her coming child was one that should be different from his fellows. His birth was attended by various remarkable features, special rites were observed, and strict discipline imposed on him during childhood and early youth; " nevertheless, though all was thus prepared for me, I tried in vain to become an angakoq by the ordinary methods of instruction." Famous wizards were approached and propitiated with gifts, but all in vain. At last, without knowing how, he perceived that a change had come over him, a great glow as of intense light pervaded all his being (this is a recurrent feature in the process) and a feeling of inexpressible joy cameover him, andheburst into song.

"But now/' he went on, "I am a Christian, and so I have sent away all my helping spirits; sent them up to my sister in Baffin Land."

Occasionally, the spirits themselves lay hold of a man aad of their own accord invest him with supersati&al powers; this is generally reckoned as a painful process, attended by terrifying phenomena.

It is the business of an angakoq to heal the sick, to protect the souls of his fellows against the machinations of hostile wizards, to intercede with the Mother of the Sea when seal are scarce, and to see that traditional customs are properly observed. Infantile diseases, for instance, are generally reckoned as due to some breach of tabu on the part of the mother; famine may likewise be sent as a punishment for similar neglect, and the angakoq has then to find and persuade the culprit to confession.

Such manifestations as I had an opportunity of witnessing myself were, I must confess, disappointing to the critical observer. Acquainted as he would be with his neighbors' life and doings, it was not difficult for the angakoq to hit upon something done or left undone by one or another. The trance-like state into which he cast himself was not impressive in itself, and as for the spirits supposed to be present, one can only say they did not make their presence felt. The wizard stood in the middle of the hut with his eyes closed, talking in a strained, unnatural voice; the rushing of mighty wings, which in the old stories accompanies such spiritual visitations, was conspicuous by its absence,

I had frequently brought the conversation round to the subject of tabu with a view to ascertaining the purpose of these highly complicated and apparently meaningless observances; this thing insisted on, and that strictly forbidden. But here lay the difficulty. Everyone knew, and all were unanimously agreed, as to what must be done or avoided in any given situation, but as to the why and the wherefore, none could advance any explanation whatever. They seemed, indeed, to regard it as unreasonable on my part to demand, not only a statement, but a justification, of their religious rites and ceremonies, Aua was as usual the one I mainly questioned, and one evening, when I had been endeavoring to extract some more positive information on this head, he suddenly rose to his feet and invited me to step outside.

It was twilight, the brief day was almost at an end, but the moon was up, and one could see the stormriven clouds racing over the sky; every now and then a gust of snow came whirling down. Aua pointed out over the ice, where the snow swept this way and that in whirling clouds. "Look," he said impressively, "snow and stonn; ill weather for hunting* And yet we must hunt for our daily food; why? Why must there be storms to hinder us when we are seeking meat for ourselves and those we love? "

Why?

Two of the hunters were just coming in after a hard day's watching on the ice; they walked wearily, stopping or stooping every now and then in the wind and the snow. Neither had made any catch that day; their watching had been in vain.

Why?

I could only shake my head. Aua led me again, this time to the bouse of Kttvdlo, next to our own. The lamp bttmad with the tmiesk glow, giving out no heat at all; a couple of chfldrea cowered shivering in a copier, huddled together tmder a skin rug. AndAua re&ewed his merciless interrogation: "Why should aH be chill and comfortless in this little home? Kuvdlo has been out hunting since early morning; if he had caught a seal, as he surely deserved, for his pains, the lamp would be burning bright and warm, his wife would be sitting smiling beside it, without fear of scarcity for the morrow; the children would be playing merrily in the warmth and light, glad to be alive. Why should it not be so? "

Why?

Again I could make no answer. And Aua took me

I3o A CROSS ARCTIC A MERICA

to a little hut apart, where his aged sister, Natseq, who was ill, lay all alone. She looked thin and worn, and too weak even to brighten up at our coming. For days past she had suffered from a painful cough that seemed to come from deep down in the lungs; it was evident she had not long to live.

And for the third time Aua looked me in the face and said: "Why should it be so? Why should we human beings suffer pain and sickness? All fear it, all would avoid it if they could. Here is this old sister of mine, she has done no wrong that we can see, but lived her many years and given birth to good strong children, yet now she must suffer pain at the ending of her days? "

Why? Why?

After this striking object lesson, we returned to the hut, and renewed our interrupted conversation with the others.

"You see/' observed Aua, "even you cannot answer when we ask you why life is as it is. And so it must be. Our customs all come from life and are directed towards life; we cannot explain, we do not believe in this or that; but the answer lies in what I have just shown you.

"We fear!

"We fear the elements with which we have to fight HI their fury to wrest out food from land and sea.

"We fear cold and famine in our snow huts.

"We fear the sickness that is daily to be seen amongst us. Not death, but the suffering.

"We fear the souls of the dead, of human animal alike.

fi o

H

B

B

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J*

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"We fear the spirits of earth and air.

"And therefore our fathers, taught by their fathers before them, guarded themselves about with all these old rules and customs, which are built upon the experience and knowledge of generations. We know not how nor why, but we obey them that we may be suffered to live in peace, And for all our angakoqs and their knowledge of hidden things, we yet know so little that we fear everything eise. We fear the things we see about us, and tfee things we know from the stories and myths of our forefathers. Therefore we hold by our customs and observe all the rules of tabu/1

Aua's explanation was reasonable enough from his point of view. There was no more to be said.

But I will endeavor now to give a brief summary of the leading principles in the system of tabu, with its ordinances and pix^MMtians.

It is to begin witfa wy lai^ely a matter o£ propitiatory sites and ceremooies attending the treatment of the Atwmalg killed; preparing food, skins, ete. Here, there is a fundamental distinction between land game and the products of the sea. The fauna of each has its own distinct origin, and it is believed that any contact between the two is offensive to both, involving punishment of the person responsible. The caribou of the land have their "mother," as the seal and walrus together have theirs, and the two must never be confused.

Then it is a matter of faith that all living creatures have souls; and the souls of animals slain for food or other useful purpose by man are affected by the manner in which their bodies are treated after death; even, indeed, by the manner of their killing. There are a host of little apparently trivial things that must be done or must on no account be done, -in connection with hunting, cooking, making clothes and the like; and they are regarded so much as a matter of course that it is difficult,when living among the natives and observing them, to pick out this or that little matter and get at the purpose underlying it. The whole system is further complicated by 4 'name" principle running through daily life and observances in a similar way. A person's name is always derived from that of someone deceased, and carries with it the namesake's qualities; one becomes, indeed, a member of the great community of all who have borne the same name back to the ultimate distant past. Each living human being is thus attended by a host of namesake-spirits, who aid and protect him as long as he is faithful to rule and rite, but become inimical on any transgression. The soul of the caribou detests everything pertaining to the creatures of the sea ; in caribou hunting, therefore, all implements and material associated, with hunting at sea must be left behind. On the other hand, footwear which has been used for caribou hunting must on no account be used when hunting seal or walrus. Caribou are moreover, peculiarly sensitive in regard to "contamination" by women; when slain, they must be skinned in such a fashion that certain parts of the carcase are protected against direct contact with a woman's hands. Women at certain periods, and in certain conditions, are forbidden to touch either the meat or the skin. Dogs must not gnaw the bones of caribou during the hunting season. A piece of the meat and a piece of the tallow must be placed under a stone near the spot where the animal was killed; this is an offering to the soul in the hope that it may attract other caribou to -the hunter.

Walrus hunting has its own special rules, which again are to some extent distinct from those which apply to seal. Salmon, curiously enough, are reckoned as "land meat*' and may not be eaten on the same day as seal or walrus meat.

Tabu at Igdlulik was particularly strict, as it was here, according to tradition, that the Mother of the Sea met with her fate, and she is thus nearer and more easily offended than elsewhere. It was said that she hated the caribou because they were not of her own creation; hence the rtde that wfiale, seal and walrus meat mmfc mw& be eatm on the same day as caribou; must not evea be f ottnd in the same httt at the same time.

Some of the sea-beasts are of the order, and have to be propitiated after death; ifatts whale, ribbon seal and bear. No work may be done in the huts for so many hours after the killing; parts of the carcase must be hung up together with certain implements. Ordinary seal are easier to manage, but here again there are complicated rules as to refraining from this and that tint-ill it has been skinned. Certain articles must not be touched, women must not comb their hair. Sinews of the seal must never be used for sewing, on pain of premature death.

Birth and death have their own peculiar rites and observances. Various means are employed to facilitate birth, mainly of the magic order, such as the wearing of certain amulets, or dressing the hair in a certain way* No assistance may on any account be rendered to the woman at the actual birth; she is placed beforehand in a separate tent or hut, and there left until the child is born. She is then moved to another house where she lives by herself for two months; others may visit her, but she must not enter any other house. For a whole year after she is not allowed to eat raw meat, or the meat of any animal save those killed in certain ways. There are endless observances designed to 'secure good luck or useful accomplishments for the child when it grows up.

Death involves first of all the attendance of the nearest relatives for a period of three days if the deceased be a man, four days if a woman; during this time the soul is supposed to remain in the body, which must not be left alone. No work must be done, nor any hunting save in extreme need, during these first days of mourning. No one is allowed to wash, comb hair or cut nails. Curious methods are employed for purification of the hut or tent, and certain magic formulae are used. The body is never buried or enclosed in a cairn, but simply laid out on the earth at the chosen spot, with a few loose stones placed at head, shoulders and feet* In winter, a small snow shelter may be built above the corpse. Models in miniature of implements used by the dead, suitable for man or woman as the case may be, are fashioned and placed beside the corpse for ttse "on the other side."

Persons tired of life and wishing to hang themselves — a recognized form of suicide — are required to do so while alone in the house, and by certain methods; it is also a rule that the suicide shall leave the lamp burning in order that his body may be at once observed as soon as anyone enters the hut.

A woman who has lost a near relative is jnegarded as unclean for a year after; she toay not work on caribou skin, or speak of any animal used for food except in the peculiar te&ms employed for magic incantations. A man who has lost his wife may iiot drive or strike his own dogs for a year after.

When any breach of these irksome regulations has been committed, the only means of making reparation and warding off the evil consequences that would otherwise ensue* is for the ddinqueat to confess at once to his fellows* Tbere.is, however, a natural tfflwilliiig^aess to <16 so; and fttrt&ennore, the of the whole code renders it very easy for one t0 offend unwittingly* Even where every reasonable care is taken, there is constant danger of incurring the enmity of spirits and supernatural powers; and it becomes the task of the angakoq, then to intervene.

All these observances however, are mainly negative; designed to avoid actual disaster; they do not make for any positive advantage beyond the ordinary level of security. He who would achieve anything further xxrast have recourse to amulets and charms, or spells*

Amulets consists mainly of certain portions of the body of certain animals, which, are sewn into the clothing. The Igdlulik natives, unlike those of Netsilik, use very few amulets, but their idea as to the purpose and effect is the same. The virtue lies in the soul of the creature represented, though it is only certain parts of its body which can convey the power. A woman with a newly born infant for instance, will use a raven's claw as a fastening for the strap of her amaut (the bag in which the child is slung on her back) ; this is supposed to give strength and success in hunting to the child later on.

The mystic power of an amulet is not invariably at the service of the person wearing it; the actual object for instance, may be given away to another, but its inherent activity will not operate on his behalf unless he has given something in return. It is a regular thing for a young hunter to obtain a harpoon head from some aged veteran no longer able to hunt for himself; the "luck" of the former owner then passes with the chattel to its new possessor. Clothes may be lucky in themselves. One lad at Igdlulik whose father was always unlucky at caribou hunting, was given the sleeve linings of a particularly successful hunter, and these were fitted successively to every tunic he wore, and brought him luck. There axe amulets for various qualities, such as making the wearer a good walker, preserving him from danger on thin ice, keeping him warm in the coldest weather, giving extra stability to his kayak, and so on.

Then there are "magic words" for use in various emergencies. The efficacy of these is impaired as soon as they are made known to others, and it is therefore difficult as a rule to get hold of them. They consist mainly of fragments from old songs, handed down from earlier generations, They can be bought, at a high price, or bequeathed by the "owner " on his deathbed to another. But they must never be heard by any save the one who is to use them, or their power will be gone,

Aua himself had, as a young man, learnt certain charms of this sort from an old woman named Qeqertuanaq, in whose family they had been handed down from generation to generation dating back to "the very first people on earth." And by way of payment Aua had undertaken to feed aad clothe her for the rest of her life. They had always to be uttered in her name, or they would be of no avail.

Here is one of than, designed to lighten heavy loads. The speaker stands by the fore end of his sledge, looking ahead aad says:

I speak with the month of Qeqertaanaq, and say:

I wffl walk with kg mtisdes strong as the sinews <m the shin of a Httie caribou catf .

I mil walk with leg muscles strong as the sinews on the shin of a little hare,

I will take care not to walk toward the dark.

I will walk toward the day.

(This may be said also when setting out on a

X*^/

Jor ctaieg sickness among ndgbfoors may be tttfeeral by one who is weH. Thesp^kerg^s up eariy in tfae toocirii^ before airycme dse is as«ir, takes the inner upper garment of a child, and drawing down his own hood over his head, thrusts his arms into the sleeves of the child's garment as if to put it on. Then these words are uttered:

I arise from my couch with the grey gull's morning song.

I arise from my couch with the grey gull's morning song.

I will take care not to look toward the dark,

I turn my glance toward the day.

Words to a sick child:

Little child! Your mother's breasts are full of milk.

Go to her and suck, go to her and drink. Go up into the mountain. Prom the mountain's top shalt thou find health; from the mountain's top shalt thou win life.

A charm to stop bleeding:

This is blood from the little sparrow's mother. Dry it up ! This is blood that flowed from a piece of wood. Dry it up.

A charm for calling game to the hunter:

Beast of the sea! Come and place yourself before me in the dear early morning!

Beast of the plain ! Come and place yourself before me in the dear early morning!

These charms, quaint or meaningless as they may seem, are used by the Eskimos in all sincerity and pious faith, as prayers humbly addressed to the mighty powers, of JMature.

CHAPTER X

"I HAVE SEEN SO HAPPY t"

A TJA'S wife Orulo was one of those women who ** give themselves up entirely to their housewifely duties. She was never idle for a moment from morning to night and could get through a wonderful amount of work. Her favorite occupation was sewing, and of this there was plenty, as the men's clothes were constantly in need of repair after the wear and tear of hunting. But she had many other things to attend to besides. It was her business to fetch in snow for water* and beep the hut supplied, to have a stock of meat thawing near the lamp for 5fflB3®dia&e use, aad a supply of food foe the dogs ready eirt tip when the men came home. There was blubber to be pressed and beaten that the oil might run out, the lamp itself to be tended carefully and kept from smoking. If the temperature inside the hut rose beyond a certain point, the roof would begin to drip, and had to be plastered with fresh snow from within. Occasionally, when a part of the roof or wall thawed through, she had to go out and cut away the weakened portion, fitting fresh blocks of snow into the hole. There was blubber to be scraped from the raw skins of newly killed seal, the skins themselves stretched out to dry on the frame above the lamp, and pieces of hide intended for boot soles had to be chewed from their original state, which was almost as hard as wood, until they were soft enough for working. All these manifold duties however, she took cheerfully as part of the day's work, and went about humming a scrap of some old song, as happily as could be. And there was sure to be a cheerily bubbling pot on the boil — more welcome music still — by the time her menfolk came in from their hunting*

With it all she found time to look in and see that all was well with her neighbors, lending a helpful hand where needed, and finding a bit of meat, or a lump of blubber, from her own store for those who were badly off.

I had often asked her to tell me something of her life, and such of her experiences as she reckoned the most important, but she always turned it off as a joke, declaring that there was nothing of the least importance to tell about. At last one day when we had the hut to ourselves, she returned to the subject of her own accord. I was busy with my own work, and hardly conscious of her presence, when she began without preamble. And there, sitting cross-legged on the skins, working the while at a pair of waterproof boots, she told me the story of her life.

"I was born at a place near the mouth of Admiralty Inlet, but while I was still quite small, my parents left Baffin Land and came to Idglukk. The first thing I can remember was that my mother lived

alone in a little snow hut. I could not understand why my father lived in another, but then I was told that it was because my mother had just had a child, and must not be near the hunters. But I was allowed to visit her myself; only when I went there first, I could not find the entrance. I was so little at that time that I could not see over the big block of snow that the others stepped over when they went in, and there I stood crying out * Mother, Mother, I want to come in, I want to come in/ At last someone came out and lifted me over and into the hut. Then when I got inside it seemed that the couch erf snow she was lying on was ever so high, that I could not get up there by myself, and again someone had to lift me. Yes, I was as little as that at the time when I first can remember.

'The next thing I remember is from the time we were at Piling, up m Baffin Land. I remember having the feg of a bii$;to sat^ ever so t% it was* brat that was because I was oely t^ed to haviog ptarmigan, and tills was tine kg erf a goose. I remember wfcat a huge 1% bijrci it inasfc be* cannot remember any taoro taufcii o&e day it seems to wake up again, and we were Jiving at a place called the Mountain. My father was ill, and all the others had gone away hunting caribou and we were left alone. My father had pains in his chest and lungs, and grew worse and worse. And there we were all alone, my mother and two little brothers and myself , and mother was very unhappy.

"One day I came runninginto the tent crymg out: 'Here are white men coming!' For I had seen some

figures that I thought must be white men. But whea my father heard me, he sighed deeply and said, 'Alas, I had thought I might yet be suffered to draw the breath of life a little while ; but now I know that I shall never go out hunting any more/

1 Tor the figures I had seen were evil trolls ; no white men ever came to our country in those days. And my father took it as a warning that he was about to die,

"I made no secret of what I had seen, but told it to the others without thinking either way about the matter. But my little brother Sequsu kept it secret; and he died of it shortly afterwards. When one sees evil spirits, it is a great mistake to keep it secret.

"Father grew worse and worse, and when at last we saw he could not live much longer, we put him on a sledge and carried him off to a neighboring village, where he died. I remember they wrapped him up in a skin and carried him away; the body was laid out on the bare ground, with its face toward the west. My mother told me that this was because he was an old man; when old men die, they are always placed so as to look toward the quarter whence the dark of evening comes; children must look towards the morning, and young people towards the point where the sun is at noon. This was the first I ever learned about the dead, and how we have to fear them and follow certain rules. But I was not afraid of my father, who had always been kind to me. And I thought it was unkind to let him lie there out in the open, all in the cold with no covering; but then my mother explained that I must no longer think of him as in

TYPICAL WOMEN OF THE TRIBE

that body, for his soul was.already in the land of the dead, and there he had no longer any pain.

"After this we went to live with an old man who took my mother to be another wife to him, and we lived in his hut. It was soon after this that my brother Sequsu fell ill; he had pain in his stomach, and his liver swelled, and then he died. I was told that it was because he had seen those evil trolls with me before our father died, and because he had kept it secret, it had been his death, for it is always so-

"In the autumn, when the first saow had fallen, the others went off hunting up inland, and my other brother went with them. I remember my mother was very anxious about this, for she did not think the old man could get any game, having only a bow and arrows. But she could not get food for herself, and so had to let my brother go with them*

"A stmnge thing happened a little after tbis. My mother had cooked some walrus ribs and was m&mg eating, wfaaa the bone sbe bad in bar baud feegtn to utter sounds. She was SQ feigfatei^ sbe slopped eating &fc once and threw down the bone. I mBember her face T&ent quite white, and she cried out: 'Something has happened to my son!* And so it was; for in a little while they came back aod instead of walking straight into the hut, the man went to the window and called to my mother and said: 'Dear Little Thing, it is through my fault that you have no longer a son.' Dear Little Thing was a name he had for my mother. And then he came in and told us how it had come about. They had been for several days without food and were seeking the spot where he had cached a caribou some time before, but could not find the spot. So they separated, his wife going one way and he with the two boys the other. But still they could not find it. It was autumn, the first snow had fallen, and a cold wind sent it whirling about them every now and then; and their clothes were poor for such hard weather. So at last they lay down behind a stone shelter, worn out and almost perishing with cold. The days were short now and the night seemed very long, but they must wait for daylight before they could begin their search again. Meantime, the woman had found the meat, but now she had no means of knowing where to find the others. Being anxious about them she ate but little herself, and gave the child she was carrying a tiny piece of meat to suck. She had made a shelter of stones, as the others had done, and lay there half dozing, when suddenly she awoke, having dreamed of my brother* The dream was that she saw him quite plainly before her, very pale and shivering with cold. And he spoke to her and said: 'Now you will never see me again, This has come upon us because the earth-lice are angry at our having touched their sinews before a year had passed after my father's death.'

"I remember this so distinctly myself,, because it was the first time I ever heard about not doing certain things for a year after someone had died. When he said earth-lice, he meant caribou; that is a word the wizards use.

11 Now the woman could sleep no more that night because of her dream. My brother was very dear to

her, and she used to say magic words over him to make him strong.

"Next morning, when it was light and the others were ready to start again, my brother was so weak that he could not stand, and the two others were too exhausted to carry him. So they covered him up with a thin caribou pelt and left him. Afterwards they found the meat, but they did not return to my brother. He was left to freeze to death.

"My stepfather had his old mother still living; sbe was blind, and I remember 1 was terribly afraid of her because I had heaffd that ouee, i she had eaten human flesh. A wise woman had said charms over her to cure her blindness, and shehad just begun to see a veary little, but then she ate some blubber, and that is a thing one must never do when being cured of anything by magic; after that she became quite blind again and nothing oonld make her see*

"The following spring we left that place and came to Admiralty Inlet. We got there jttst at the time wben ersFeryone was getting ready to go up country hunting caribou, One of the women had just given birth to a child before her time, and could not go with the rest, so my mother went instead, and took me with her. We stayed up <xmntryalll3iatsiimmer. The hunting was good, and we helped the men to pile up the meat in store places or cot it up into thin slices and laid it out on stones to dry- It was a merry fif e, we had all kinds of nice things to eat, and the day's work was like so much play. Then I remember one day we were terrified by a woman from one of the tents crying out: 'Come and look, Oh come and look.' And we all ran up and there was a spider letting itself down to the ground. We could not make out where it came from, it looked as if it were lowering itself on a thread from the sky. We all saw it quite plainly, and then there was silence among the tents. For when a spider is seen to lower itself down from nowhere in that way, it always means death. And so it was. Some people came up from the coast shortly after, and we learned that four men had been out in their kayaks and were drowned; one of them was my step-father — and now we were homeless and all alone in the world once more.

"But it was not long before my mother was married again; this time to a young man, much younger than herself. They lived together until he took another wife of his own age; then my mother was cast oS and we were alone again. Then my mother was married once more, to a man named Aupila, and now we had some one to look after us. Aupila wanted to go down to Pond's Inlet, to look for some white men. He had heard that the whalers generally came to that place in the summer. So he went off with my mother, and I was left behind with another man and his wife. But I did not stay with them long, for the man said he had too many mouths to feed already, and I was passed on to someone else. Then at last Aua came and found me; 'my new husband' that is my little name for Aua ; and he took me away and that is the end. For nothing happens when you a#e happy, and indeed I have been happy, and had seven children/' :

Orulo was silent, evidently deep in thought. But I was eager to hear more, and broke in without ceremony:

"Tell me what is the worst thing that ever happened to you/'

Without a moment's hesitation she answered:

"The worst that ever happened to me was a famine that came just after my eldest son was born. The hunting had failed us, and to make matters woerse, the wolverines had plundered all our depots of caribou meat. During the two coldest months of winter, Atta hardly slept a single night in the hut, but was out hunting seal the whole time, taking such sleep as he could get at odd moments in little shelters built on the ice by the breathing holes. We nearly starved to death; for he only got two seal the whole of that time. To see him, sdfering himself from cold and hunger, out day after day m the bitterest weather, and all m vain, to seeten gra^fting thfameraiMl weaker all the tame— oh, it wa& <tecrfHet"

"And wliat was t&e meest thing caf all you remember?"

Orulo's kindly old face lit up with a metty she put down her work and shifting a little began her story:

"It was the first time I went back to Baffin Land after I was married. And I, who had always been poor, a child without a father, passed on from hand to hand— I found myself now a welcome guest, made much of by all those who had known me before, My husband had come up to challe&ge a raaa he fc&ew to a song contest, a&d there were great i easts gatherings, such as I had heard of perhaps but never seen myself."

"Tell me something about them/1

"Well there was the Tivajuk, the Great Rejoicing, where they play the game of changing wives. A big snow hut is built all empty inside, just for the dancing, only with two blocks of snow in the middle of the floor. One is about half the height of a man and is called the jumping block, the other is a full man's height and is called the lamp block. Two men, they are the Servants of Joy, are dressed up, one like a man, the other like a woman, and both wear masks. Their clothes are made too small for them on purpose, tied in tightly just where they ought to be loose, and that makes them look funny, of course. It is part of their business to make everyone laugh.

"Then all the men and women in the place assemble in the dance hut, and wait for the two masked dancers. Suddenly the two of them come leaping in, the man with a dog whip and the one dressed as a woman with a stick; they jump over the jumping block and begin striking out at all the men in the hut, chasing them all out until only the women are left. The maskers are supposed to be dumb, they do not speak, but make signs to each other with great gestures only giving a sort of huge gasp now and again with all the force of their lungs. They have to leap nimbly about among the women, to make sure there are no men hidden; then out they go to the men waiting outside. One of the men waiting now goes up to the two, ami smiles, and whispers the name of the woman he specially wants. At once the two maskers rush

into the hut, and touch the woman named under the sole of the foot. Then all the other women are supposed to be ever so pleased to find that one of their number has been chosen, Then the three go out together; and every time the maskers go in and out they have to jump over the jumping block with long strides trying to look funny. They lead out the woman who has been chosen, and bring her back directly after with the man who asked for her; tibe women are never allowed to know who it is that wants them till they get outside. Both have to look very solemn when they come in, aad pretend not to notice that the others are laughing. If they laugh themselves, it means a short life. All the others then call out 'Unu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu' and keep on saying it all the time, in different voices, to make it sound funny. Then the man leads the women he has chosen twice round the lamp block, aad all sing together:

"Mask, mask, kapisg, teasing mask,

Twirl and writhe aad dance with joy,

Give him gifts now,

Dry moss for lamp wicks;

Mask, mask, leaping teasing mask!

"While this song is being sung, the two maskers have to keep on embracing each other, making it as funny as they can, so that the others have to laugh,

"So the game goes on until every man has chosen a woman, and then they go home.

"Another festival that is only held where there are a lot of people together is called Qulungertut. It

ISO ACROSS ARCTIC AMERICA

begins with two men challenging each other to all kinds of contest out in the open, and ends up in the dance house.

"Each of them has a knife, and as soon as they meet, they embrace, and kiss each other. Then the women are divided into two parties* One side sings a song and they have to keep on with it all the time, a long, long song; the other side has to stand with arms up waving gull's wings all the time and see who can keep on longer. Here is a bit of the song:

"See here they come Gaily dressed in fine new skins, Women, women, all young women, See, with mittens on their hands They hold the gull's wings high aloft See their skirt tails waving, waving, All the time as they are moving. Women, women, aU young women, You may know them by their motion As they step towards the men who Take them for their prize of contest.

"The side that first gives in has to step across to the others, who make a circle round them,^ 'and then the men come in and try to kiss them.

"After this game there was a shooting match with bow and arrows. A mark was set up on a long pole, and the ones who first hit it ten times were counted the best. Then came games of ball, and very exciting contests between men fighting with fists, until the end of the day, and then a song festival to end up with, and that lasted aU night. Here are some of Aua's songs:

"/ HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY!" i5I

WALRUS HUNTING

I could not sleep

For the sea was so smooth

Near at hand.

So I rowed out

And up came a walrus

Close by my kayak.

It was too near to throw,

So I thrust my harpoon into its side

And the bladder-float danced across the waves.

But in a moment it was up again,

Setting its flippers angrily

Like elbows on the surface of the water

And trying to rip up the bladder.

All in vain it wasted strength,

For the skin of an unborn lemming

Was sewn inside as an amulet to guard.

Then snorting viciously it sought to gather strength,

But I rowed up

And ended the strti||gia

Hear that, O men from stea^croefe aad fjords

That were always so a?eady fe> praise yourselves;

Now you can fifl your lungs witli song

Of another man's bold hunting.

BEAR HUNTING

I spied a bear

On the drifting floe

Like a harmless dog

It came running and wagging its tail towards me

But all so eager to eat me up

That it swung round snarling

When I leaped aside.

And now came a game of catch-me-who-can

That lasted from morning till late in the day,

But at last it was wearied

And could play no more,

So I thrust my spear into its side.

CARIBOU HUNTING

Creeping noiselessly I moved across the marsh

With bow and arrows in my mouth;

It was far, and the water icy cold,

And not a scrap of cover to be seen.

Slowly I dragged myself,

Dripping wet but still unseen,

Up within range.

The caribou were feeding,

Nibbling at ease the juicy moss

Till my arrow stood quivering deep in the breast

Of the biggest.

Then terror seized

Those heedless dwellers of the plains,

In a moment they scattered

And swiftly trotting hurried away

Beyond the refuge of the hills/'

Orulo had spoken earnestly of her life, and I could feel, as she went on, how the memories affected her while she recalled them. When she had ended her story, she burst into tears, as if in deep sorrow. I asked her what was the matter, and she answered:

"Today I have been as it were a child again. In telling you of my life, I seemed to live it all over again. And I saw and felt it all just as when it was really happening. There are so many things we

never think of until one day the memory awakens. And now you have heard the story of an old woman's life from its first beginning right up to this very day. And I could not help weeping for joy to think I had been so happy . „ ."

CHAPTER XI

SEPARATE WAYS

prolonged absence of Therkel Mathiassen at

• Southampton caused us, at last, so much uneasiness that I began making preparations for a relief expedition, and even sent down to Repulse Bay for a guide, thoroughly acquainted with the region, to go with me.

February 2ist was a perfect beast of a day, with a howling blizzard, and bitterly cold. Nobody stirred out of the house if he could help it. The Greenland Eskimos were indoors mending harness, the rest of us posting up our journals. Then, suddenly, the door burst open, and in tumbled Therkel Mathiassen, with Jacob Olsen at his heels, followed by John Ell, and a crowd of Southampton Islanders.

Mathiassen had been eight months absent. We gave him a rousing welcome, as may be imagined.

The expedition had done good work and met with not a few adventures by the way. Southampton Island is the most isolated piece of territory in the whole Hudson Bay district, and accessible by open boat for only a few days during the summer. They had planned to spend only a fortnight there, but unfavorable weather and other mishaps detained them. The local natives couldn't do anything for them, and when Mathiassen violated tabus by cracking caribou skulls with iron hammers, he

aroused their fears. One night, Jacob Olsen overheard one of the locally employed Eskimos and his wife plotting to kill Mathiassen and himself, and frustrated the attack* The lack of personal malice, however, was so evident, that the plotters were forgiven and allowed to continue with the party. The difficulties arising from native prejudices, together with an injury to Olsen's hand and a loog sickness of Mathiassen's, due at the beginning to his inability to eat the rotten walrus meat, made the trip to Sofrtfaampton Island, though fruitful of good expedition material, a kind of nightmare. We weane all glad to forget it in the preparation for the next year's work.

For we had now come to the parting of the ways, and the Fifth Thule Expedition was about to split up into five separate projects each with its own field of work, scattering over the greater part of the Arctic Coast of Canada.

Maihiassea was to go by dog-dtedge to Pond's Inlet in Baffin Land, to supplement his ethnological investigations with imp-making and other studies in that territory.

Birket-Smith with Jacob Olsen as interpreter, was to continue with the Caribou Eskimos, and then go on to the Chipywan Indians, near Churchill.

Peter Freuchen, was to stay fear a while to look after the transportations of our collections, and then survey the route to Chesterfield. The Greenlanders would remain at headquarters, until they cotdd be taken back to Greenland by Freuchen.

And I, myself, was to start, about the loth of March, for my long sledge trip through the west Passage, with only Miteq and Anarulunguaq to help me. Helge Bangsted would accompany me a little way, and then, after further excavations, would return to help Freuchen supervise the removal of otir effects.

The rest of this account will have to do only with my own observations, but I carried with me for some time the regret of breaking off contact with companions with whom I had been so happily associated for eighteen months. And it is a pleasure to recall that our work together was never marred by the slightest discord among ourselves.

The Greenlanders, too, had done their part well. Like all other Arctic expeditions we had based our maintenance on the help afforded by these faithful hunters and workers. There was Arqioq, a steady sensible fellow of thirty odd, who had spent most of his life with one expedition or another, including two from America. Bosun, a few years younger, had been my foster son at Thule since he was ten years old. He was a dead shot, a good comrade, and cheerful under the most adverse circumstances. Their wives, too, had done all that was possible to make our headquarters homelike and comfortable.

Especial gratitude was due to Jacob Olsen, not oinly for his indispensable services to Mathiassen, but also for his abilities. In contrast with the others, who had lived always native fashion, and were only baptized just before we left Greenland, Olsen was a man of some education, having spent six years in a seminary and acquired a considerable knowledge of books, though he was no less adequate

as a hunter on that account. He was valued as an interpreter, and was useful even in collecting ethnographical material.

I should like to close this part of the book with a recollection of one of our last evenings at home. I had just come in from a run over the ice, and was driving up in the twilight towards the house, where the light from the windows shed a glow on the space in front. Seme of the dogs were stepping, 33 if making the fflost of their time bdfoiB fresh iiard week set in; groups of men and women weie at .work by lantern light getting the new sledges rea%- for use. The daylight was not long enough for all these was to be done. Hammers rang, and the rhythmic bacfcand-f orth of the plane spoke cheerily of work wefi in hand. A wild scene, maybe, yet not without a beauty of its own. Dark against the white plain rose the two peaks where we had raised memorial stones to those whom death had taken on the threshold; at the foot, stood the domed snow huts, with little ice windows twinkliBglafce stars.

Into the midst of this I drove, my team scattering their sleeping companions to every side and bringing up against the wall where they were accustomed to lie themselves. And as we halted, I heard someone singing a little way ofL The words seemed curiously appropriate to the occasion:

Only the Air-spirits know What lies beyond the hills, Yet I turge my team farther o& Drive on and on, On and on!

CHAPTER XII

STEPPING OUT

""FHE Arctic spring was full of promise on that ^ March morning when we took leave of ote companions and set out on our long sledge trip* Two continents lay between us and home.

Our party consisted of but three persons in afl;' Miteq, Anarulunguaq and myself. Miteq, a you&g man of twenty-two from Thule was a very old friend of mine; I had known him, indeed, from the time when he lay screaming lustily in his mother's amatrt. He was a skilful and untiring hunter, and a good driver, besides being a cheery companion. Anarulunguaq, a woman of twenty-eight, was Miteq's cousin. Oddly enough, she had as a child been on the point of being killed off as a burden to the community, as is often done with fatherless childreii, but her little brother's intercession had saved her life. And here she was setting out upon a journey that wa& to make her the most famous woman traveller of her tribe. I could not have wished for better companions than these two.

"Our equipment was the simplest possible. We 1iad two long six-metre sledges of the Hudson Bay type, with ice shoeing, each drawn by twelve dogs, and with a load of 500 kilos, to each sledge. About

ANARULUNGUAQ, THE YOUNG ESKIMO WOMAN FROM GREENLAND

She accompanied the Expedition on the long sledge journey through the North-west Passage and round the north of Alaska, returning to Greenland via New York and Copenhagen.

tance they stopped, and I at once went forward to meet them and assure them we were friends. They carried long snow knives and sealing harpoons, but I thought it best to carry no weapon myself. They were greatly astonished to find a white man in these regions, and more so when I hailed them in their own tongue:

" You may lay aside your weapons; we are peace* able folk who have come from afar to visit your land/'

On this the elder of the pair stepped forward and said:

"We are just quite ordinary people, and you need fear no harm from us. Our huts are near; our weapons are not meant to do you hurt, but it is well to have weapons here when meeting strangers/'

We went back to our hut, and the two men, who had been somewhat shy at first, were soon at ease and friendly. They were particularly interested in the two Greenlanders, who came from so far a country and yet spoke the same tongue. They themselves, it appeared, were on their way down to Repulse Bay with fox skins, to buy new guns, their own having been lost in crossing a river some time before.

Despite the blizzard, we now decided to move over to our new friends* quarters. Orpingalik, the elder of the two, explained that they were but a short distance away. It cost us three hours fierce batting with the storm, however, before we reached the spot. There were two snow huts built together, cosy, well furnished and well supplied with food. The natives here were remarkably well built and handsome, differing in many ways from the ordinary

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Eskimo type and rather like the Indians in feature, but their frank, open smile and character generally were those of the true Eskimo. We soon made friends with them.

Orpingalik was an angakoq, and well up in the legends and traditions of his people, and I was glad to avail myself of the tine while my companions were busy getting our goods down, to have a talk with him about such matters. I was anxious in the first place to learn how mao j of the stories I had already written down among the IgdluliBgrniut were known to him, and we went through at least a hundred of these together. Also, he gave me some rare magic songs, or spells, which I paid for in kind, giving him in return some of those I had obtained from Aua. The transaction was regarded as perfectly legitimate, as the magic would take no harm when it was a white man who acted as the medium of conveyance.

jaani spefls asae rltffireilt to late, as the words themselves asne <rftea the actual context; they have to be uttered in a peculiar way, with great distinctness aad sometimes with pauses here and there; the virtue Ees to a great extent in the way they are spoken.

One which Orpingalik regarded as of great value was the Hunter's Invocation, which is roughly as follows:

I am ashamed, I fed humbled and afraid, My grandmother sent me oat Sent me out to seek

I am out on an errand

Seeking the precious game,

Seeking the wandering fox.

But alas, it may be I shall frighten sway

That which I seek.

I am ashamed,

I feel humbled and afraid,

My grandmother and great-grandmother

Sent me out to seek.

I go on their errand after game,

After the precious caribou

But alas, it may be I shall frighten away

That which I seek.

When he had given me this, he declared that we were now almost like brothers. Another useful song is the Poor Man's Prayer to the spirits, which is spoken at dawn before setting out hunting, when the blubber is running low and fresh supplies are urgently wanted.

0 father- and motherless,

O dear little one-all-alone

Give me ,

Boots of caribou.

Bring me a gift,

A beast of those beasts

That make luscious blood soup;

A beast of the beasts

From the depths of the sea

And not from the plains of earth.

Little father- and motherless one,

Bring me a gift.

This is ttsed for seal; when hunting caribou, on the other hand, one must say:

Caribou,

Earthlouse,

Longlegs

One with Big Ears

And stiff hair on the neck,

Flee not from me.

Here I bring skin for boot safes,

Here I bring moss far lamp wicks,

Come then gladly

ESther tome

Hither to me.

Orpingalik himself was a poet, with a fertile imagination and sensitive mind; he was always singing when not otherwise employed, and called his songs his "comrades in lotieHness*** Here is tlie beginning of one of them — written when he was slowly recovering from a severe Illness, It is called My Breath.

I will stag a song,

A little song about myself

I have lain sick since the autumn

And now I am weak as a child,

Unaya — unaya.

Sad at heart I wish

My woman away in the house of another

In the house of a W&T*

Who may be her refuge,

Firm and sure as the strong winter ice.

Sad at heart I wish her away In the house of a stronger protector Now that I myself lack strength Even to rise from where I lie. Unaya, — unaya.

Who knoweth his fate?

Here I lie, weak and unable to rise,

And only my memories are strong,

I asked Orpingalik how many songs he had made up, and he said " I cannot tell you, for I do not know how many there are of these songs of mine. Only I know that they are many, and that all in me is song. I sing as I draw breath."

Singing is indeed very prevalent among these people. They go about singing all day, or humming to themselves. The women sing not only their husbands' songs, but have songs of their own as well Orpingalik taught me one that belonged to his wife. They had a son, Igsivalitaq, who had killed a man some years before, and was now living as an outlaw up in the hills near Pelly Bay, in fear of being brought to justice by the Mounted Police. His mother had made a song about him, as follows:

Eyaya — eya,

I find again

The fragment of a song

And take it to me as a human thing,

Eyaya— -eya.

Should I then be ashamed

Of the child I once bore,

Once carried in my ainaut, c

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Because there came news of his flight

Prom the dwellings of men?

Eyaya — eya.

Ashamed I may be,

But only because he had not

A mother flawless as the bhie sky

Wise and without unwisdom.

Now tibe gossip of others shall teach him,

And II! repute follow that teaching.

I should incteed be ashamed,

1, who bone a ddM

That was not to be my refage;

I envy instead all those

Who have a host of friends behind them

Beckoning on the ice

When they have taken leave at a merry feast before starting.

Alas, I remember a winter When we set off from the island, The air was warm

And the tiiawing snow saag under tbe mmtfm* I was as a taiBe beast aanong isen. But when the news came Of the killing, and of the ffigfct, Then the earth became as a mountain peak, Its summit needle-pointed, And I stood trembling.

The song is interesting less for its form than for the evidence it aifords as to the workings of the primitive mind.

On the 5th of April we took lea ve of QrpingaSk aad his people, the whole party shoutiisg after tas as we drove off:

"Tamavta tornaqarataingerdlasa" ("May we all travel with tic evil spirits in our train").

We had bought a store of meat from Orpingalik before leaving, and were to pick it up on the way from the spot where it was cached. Part was fish, the rest seal meat and caribou. The fish we found without much difficulty, and were delighted to find that we had purchased, for a pound of tea, a pound of sugar, twenty cakes of tobacco and a small pocketknife, something like six hundred pounds of fine sea trout, besides the seal and caribou. To get at this last, however, we had first to hunt up Igsivalitaq the outlaw, who knew where it was. This was rather a delicate task, and Orpingalik had warned us to be careful how we approached him. We found his hut, but it was empty, and fresh tracks showed that he and his party had made off to the northward. Following up the tracks, we came up with him in the course of the day. I greeted him with the same words as his father had used at our first meeting:

"We are just quite ordinary people, and you need fear no harm from us/'

The outlaw was evidently relieved to find that he was not being hunted down, but only receiving visitors with greetings from his family. He gave a shout of delight, and his wife came out from the snow hut and joined in the welcome.

Later, Igsivalitaq gave me an account of the circumstances which had led to his act of homicide— and certainly, h© had acted under considerable provocation. I advised him in any case most earnestly to make no attempt at escape in the event

of his being sought for by the Mounted Police, and above all not to resist capture by aimed force; it was unlikely! I thought, that he could be punished very severely. At the same time I endeavored to instil into him some idea as to the sacredness of human life and the wickedness of killing a fellow-man; my exhortation here, however, was unfortunately impaired in its effect by what the poor outlaw himself had heard, through some traders from Repulse Bay, as to the doings of the white men in the Great War.

On the following day, under Igsivalitaq's guidance, we filled up our stores from the depot of seal and caribou meat, and drove on again to a camp of snow huts some distance out in the fjord.

Arviligjuaq, "The Land of the Great Whales, " is a term used to denote the whole of the PeUy Bay district, and is derived not from any actual prevalence of whales in those waters— ^as far as I could learn, there are none — but from some hill formations on land, which viewed from a distance present the appearance of whales.

The people here were Arviligjuarmiut, a tribe related to the Netsilik group, but holding apart from them as regards their territorial limits, and keeping to the district between Lord Mayor's Bay and Committee Bay. This winter, they numbered in all but fifty-four souls, men, women and children, divided among three settlements, two on the ice in Pelly Bay and a third on the west coast of the Simpson Peninsula.

The whole region seemed to be one of plenty, and the Arviligjuarmiut informed me proudly that the scarcity and famine, such as the Netsilingnriut west of Boothia Isthmus often suffered, were altogether unknown among themselves. This was due to the variety of game at their disposal in sequence throughout the year; caribou, musk ox, seal and fish; should one form of hunting fail, there was always another to fall back on.

The Arviligjuarmiut, whose country lies right off the routes followed by white men through these regions, have from the first learned to rely on such material as their own territory afforded for the making of weapons and implements generally. Knives are made from a kind of yellowish flint, brought from a considerable distance, in the neighborhood of Back's River. Fire was obtained from "Ingnerit," i.e., firestone, iron pyrites, found near the sea west of Lord Mayor's Bay. Sparks were struck so as to fall on specially prepared tinder made from moss soaked in blubber. Soapstone for lamps and cooking pots was procured from the interior south of Pelly Bay.

The greatest difficulty was the scarcity of wood. Owing to the masses of drift ice always collecting out in Boothia Gulf, drift wood never came up into the fjord; the nearest place where it could be obtained was on t&e shores of Ugjulik, west of Adelaide Peninstia* Mostly, however, the natives here learned to manage without wood; they made long slender harpoon shafts of horn, the pieces being straighteiied out laboriously in warm water and joined length to length. Tent poles were fashkmed in the same way, only one being used for each tent. Owing to the

scarcity of iron and flint, harpoon beads were made from the hard sfambone of the bear,

When summer was at an aid, and the tents no longer required, they were turned into sledge runners. This was done by laying out the skirts in a pool to soak, and when thoroughly softened by this means, folding them orcr aad over into long narrow strips of several thicknesses, and leaving the whole to freeze hard in the shape of a runner. Musk ox skins were used in the same way. These runners of frozen sdrins were ftirther straigtbeaied by a pocking of raw fish or meat between the layers, the whole being frozen to a compact mass. Then in the spring, when warmer weather set in and the sledges thawed and fell to pieces, the tent strin runners did final service as food for the dogs, and the meat "stuffing" as food for their masters.

There were originally two trade routes offering means of oommnnieatkjii with tribes from whom iron and wood cotdd be procttred in case of i^eed, Goe was via Rae Isthmus down to Chesterfield,, where, before the new trading station was established, knives cotdd be procured from natives who had been down to Churchill. The other was across Back's River to Saningajoq, the country between Baker Lake and Lake Garry, and thence to Aldlineq, the famous hill district on the Thekm River, where the Eskimos from the shores of the Arctic used to meet the Caribou Eskimos for purposes of trade. Wood; in particular, was brought from here.

And these hardy f oHc were not afraid o£

long journeys by sledge, beti^* away sometimes for a whole year, in order to procure some luxury which they could well do without; on the other hand the possession of a real knife, or a wooden sledge, conferred a certain distinction upon its owner, while the woman who could make and mend her husband's clothes with a needle of iron or steel was an object of envy among her less fortunate sisters,

It is generally believed that the wreckage of the Franklin Expedition was of great importance in the domestic economy of the North-west Passage Eskimos, and in particular, that their supplies of wood and iron were for years obtained from this source. I never found any confirmation df this; on the other hand, I did find that the Eskimos right from Committee Bay to Back's River, from King William's Land to the Kent Peninsula, possessed implements whose origin could be traced back to the John Ross Expedition, which appeared in Lord Mayor's Bay in the autumn of 1829 and wintered there. The natives round Pelly Bay had still many reminiscences of this expedition, and the sober fashion in which they spoke of these experiences, now nearly a hundred years old, goes far to show how trustworthy these Eskimos are when dealing with anyone who understands them.

They state that John Ross's ship was first observed early in the winter by a man named Avdlilugtoq, who was out hunting seal. On perceiving the great ship standing up like a rocky island in a little bay, he moved cautiously towards it, as something he had not seen before. The sight of' its <taH' masts, however, convinced him that it nrast be a great spirit, and he

tttraed and fled. That evening, and throughout the night, the men held council as to what should be done* Ultimately, it was decided that if they did not take active measures themselves, the great spirit would certainly destroy them; they therefore set oS on the following day, armed with bows and harpoons, to attack it. They now discovered that there were human figures moving about beside it, and therefore hid behind bk>cks of ice in order to see what manner of beings these might be. The white men, however, had already sighted them, aod caoia towards them. They stepped out then from their hiding places to show they were not afraid. The white men at once laid down their weapons on the ice, and the Eskimos did the same; the meeting was cordial, with embraces and assurances of friendship on both sides, though neither could understand the other's tongue. The Eskimos had heard of "white men " but this was the first time that any had visited their country , Tbe whi costly gifts— all tn^.nn^r of things winch they ocmld never have procured for tfaerasdires — and there was much intercourse between them, the natives going out with them on journeys and helping them in various ways from their knowledge of the country. The names of some who went out more often than the rest with the white men are still remembered: as Iggiararsuk, Agdlilugtoq, Niungitsoq and Ingnagsanajuk.

After the first winter, the ship was beset by the ice and ultimately sank in Itsuartooik (Lord Mayor's Bay), but the "insldes" of the ship were saved, being carried on shore in boats to Qilanartut; and when the strangers finally went away for good, they left behind them a great store of wood, iron, nails, chain, iron hoops and other costly things, which are still in use at the present day in the form of knives, arrow heads, harpoon heads, salmon spears, caribou spears and hooks. Some time after, a mast came ashore, and from this sledges, kayaks and harpoons were made. The mast was first cut up by saws made from barrel hoops; it took them all the summer and autumn to do it, but there was plenty of time.

There are interesting stories current also as to the Franklin Expedition. One old man named Iggiararjuk relates as follows:

" My father, Mangak, was out with Terqatsaq and Qavdlut hunting seal on the west coast of King William's Land, when they heard shouts, and perceived three white men standing on the shore and beckoning to them. This was in the spring, there was already open water along the shore, and they could not get in to where the others stood until low water. The white men were very thin, with sunken cheeks, and looked ill; they wore the clothes of white men, and had no dogs, but pulled their sledges themselves. They bought some seal meat and blubber, and gave a knife in payment. There was much rejoicing on both sides over the trade; the white men at once boiled the meat with some of the blubber and ate it. Then they came home to my father's tent and stayed the mght, returning next day to their own tent, which was small and not made of skins, but of something white as the snow. There were already caribou about at that season, but the strangers

seemed to hunt only birds. The eider duck and ptarmigan were plentiful, but the earth was not yet come to life, and the swans had not arrived. My father and those with him would gladly have helped the white men, but could not understand their speech; they tried to explain by signs, and in this way much was leaareed, It seemed that they had formerly been many, but were now only few, and their ship was left out on the ice. They pointed towards the south, and it was understood that they proposed to return to their own place overland. Afterwards, no more was seen of them , and it was cot k&prmi what had become of them."

And lest any doubt should remain as to the veracity of his account, Iggiararjuk mentions the names of all those who were in the camp when the white men came: Mangak and his wife Qerneq, Terqatsaq and his wife UkaEaq, Qavdlut and ids wife Ihttana, Ukuararsuk and Ms wife PrrtuHk, Baaatoq and his

Among other visits from white mea, they remember those of John Rae ia 1847 aad 1854,

I am quite ready to axfamt that there is nothing particularly exciting about these reminiscences in themselves, but this very fact: the lack of any special interest in the episodes, affords proof of the memory and reliability of these Eskimos. Their encounters with the white men were of the most castial order, and there was no time for them to become closely acquainted with the stranger; uewrtheless, the accounts of such meetings are preserved, even after this long lapse of years, m a manner Which speaks for itself as to their reliability. And if we look up the official reports of the respective expeditions concerned, we find that the native tradition is in excellent accord with the facts there stated.

The last day was given up to sports of various kinds, among which target shooting with bow and arrow was particularly effective. The targets were life size figures built of snow* And I noted here, that while the arrows might strike at a distance of 100 metres with force enough to kill, the shooting at this range was very uncertain. Accurate shooting was limited to a distance of 20 to 30 metres. Most of the men of course possessed firearms, which would naturally lead them gradually to neglect their practice with the bow and arrow. Nevertheless, the musk ox hunting of the previous autumn., in the neighborhood of Lake Simpson, had been carried out exclusively with-bow and arrow, and twenty or thirty beasts would be brought down by this means.

The same evening, I had a visit from a man named Uvdloriasugsuk, who had come in from his camp a day's journey to the north-west. He was a big, broad-shouldered fellow with a long black beard; a steady and reliable man, greatly esteemed by all who knew him. Nevertheless, he had shot his own brother the winter before. And it was in connection with this frilling that he wished to see me. The brother, it appeared, was a man of unruly temper, who went berserk at times, and had killed one man and wounded others in his fits. His fellow villagers therefore decided that he must be killed, aad Uvdloriasugsuk, as head of his village, was deputed to act as executioner. Much against his will, for he

CHAPTER XIII

GOING PRETTY FAR WITH THE SPIRITS

day when we were lying out in Pelly Bay east of Boothia Isthmus, two men came running up out of the blizzard in front of the hut.

It was like a naked man suddenly knocking at the door. They had no sledge, no dogs, and carried no weapon save their long snow knives. And this was the more extraordinary since their dress showed that they came from a distance.

We got them in and thawed them up a little, and after a good meal they were able to give an account of themselves. They were two brothers from the neighborhood of the Magnetic Pole, out with a load of fox skins which they were going to trade for old guns with the natives at Pelly Bay. Qaqortingneq, the elder, was turning back now; and we decided to go back with him to visit his tribe.

The rest of his party were in camp some distance off; he brought them up and introduced them; two wives and a foster son. Quertilik, the prettier of the two women, had, he explained, cost him a whole wooden sledge; the other, Qungaq, had been purchased for the modest price of a bit of lead and an old file. He explained, however, that he had got her cheap, as her husband had just died of hunger. The boy had been bought in infancy, for a kayak and a

QUBRTILIK, NALINGIAQ'S PRETTY DAUGHTER, WIFE OF THE CHIEF QAQORTINGNEQ

cooMug pot — men, of course, are worth more than women.

We did a little trading, ourselves, and I secured a blue fox skin for our collection at the price of a few beads. On the following morning we struck camp and set out together aox>ss Franklin Isthmus, making for an encampment of Netsifingmiut out on the ice between ITItig William's Land and Boothia Isthmtis.

Q& the 311 of May we camped oorthof tteMtrrchison River, in a great plain leading down to Shepherd Bay. An endless expanse of white spreads aS around, broken only here and there by a few isolated hillocks jutting up like seals1 heads from the waste. Qaqortingneq was an intelligent fellow, and thoroughly acquainted with the Netsilik district; also, he drew excellent maps. The camp, however, had been shifted since he left it, and it was not until the evening d: tifoe 5th thai our dogs picked tip the soeat. Even then it was not the camp itself, but & etriods indication. Ahead of us on the kse lay a kng Iiaa dl seal skulls, with the snouts pointing in a particular direction. This Qaqortingi^q explained was the work of the hunters on shifting camp, it being generally believed that the seal would follow in the direction in which the snouts of the slain were set. In the present instance, it served as a guide to us, pointing the way the party had gone.

After some fruitless chasing about among confusing tracks, we came upon the village. Great blocks of snow were set up roimd it, not for shelter, but as frames on which to lay out the skins to dry. The

people of Kuggup Panga (The River Mouth) had evidently no need of sheltering walls; they had, however, set up spears and harpoons in the snow outside their huts, and long snow knives above the doorways, to keep off evil spirits.

No white man had visited these people since the coming of Amundsen twenty years before, and I was a little anxious as to how they would receive us. Coming upon them as we did in the middle of the night there was no time for much in the way of explanation,

I crept into a house, together with Qaqortingneq's foster-son, Angutisugssuk, who was one of the party that had accompanied us from Pelly Bay. It was his mother's house we now entered.

" Here are white men come to visit us," he cried excitedly. His mother jumped up at once from a bundle of dirty skins, knelt down on the sleeping bench and bared her breast, which the boy hurried forward to kiss. This is a son's greeting to his mother on returning from a long journey. In the midst of these squalid surroundings, this recognition of the bond between them, the son's homage to the mother's breast, was to me doubly impressive.

We had hardly made ourselves known to them when I observed that the women were gathering in an odd sort of order about our sledges; and soon they began marching round them in solemn procession. On enquiring the reason for this I was informed that it was a ceremony designed to ward off any possible danger from the "spirits" which had accompanied us on our way unknown to ourselves.

It is a custom on the corning of strangers, for all the women who have borne children, to step a circle round the sledge with its team; undesirable spirit entities are then "bound" within the magic tihncle and can do no harm*

By the time we had unloaded our goods and gear, friendly hands had built a hut for us, and we were hardly settled in our qttarters when two huge seals wem dragged tip before the door as food for ourselves and our dogs.

Early the next morning we were awakened by the unceremonious entry of the Tillage wizaixl, one Niaqunguaq. He was in a trance, and talked in a squeaky falsetto; the burden of his message being that his "helping spirits" had visited him during the night and declared that Qaqortingneq had eaten of forbidden food, videlicet, the entrails of salmon, while in our company. This is tabu during the seal hunting season* It was a safe gtbess anyhow, as the frozen fish were there among our stores witen. we unpacked the sledge, plain for alt to see. Incensed authority was pacified, howwear, by the fragrance from our coffee pot, which I had quietly put on tbe oil stove while he was capering about, I took the opportunity to question him further as to these helping spirits of his, and learned that he counted about a score. One was a naked infant he had found sprawling on the bare earth far from httman habitations; another was an Indian who had appeared to him with icicles in his hair and a flint knife stack through his nose; a third was a lemming with a httman fare, which could also take the form of an i8o ACROSS ARCTIC AMERICA

eagle, a dog or a bear. This lemming was his special guardian angel. Despite the importance thus con* ferred, and his dignity as a wizard, he was not above enjoying a mug of coffee, and when he left, we were on the most friendly terms.

We spent the rest of that day going visiting from hut to hut. I soon discovered that we were in a hunting camp, where all were intent upon the most pressing of all our human occupations, the getting of their daily bread. It would be better therefore, for my purpose, to call on them some other time, later in the year, when they had settled in King William's Land. I decided accordingly to move on to the Magnetic Pole, where there was said to be a big cainp.

I myself was anxious to make a collection of amulets from among the Netsilingmiut, where they were in use to an extent beyond what was customary with other tribes,

On the nth of May I took leave of my comrades and set off to the northward through Rae Strait, taking with me one Alorneq, whose personality is best indicated by the fact that his gums were always dry from constant smiling.

We had no very precise idea as to where our people were to be found, as camps in the spring shift with the movements of the seal. We had first of all to get up to the north of Matty Island and into Wellington Strait, where we might hope to come upon sledge tracks leading in the right direction. It was difficult indeed to keep any sort of direction here. The compass itself was useless owing to the proximity of the magnetic pole, and the low south-eastern .shore

of King William's Land with Franklin Isthmias, is hardly to be distinguished from the sea ice, while the few mountain ranges are always wrapped in a veil of driving snow, We drove for two days without sight of a landmark anywhere; then we got a glimpse of the south-west coast of Boothia Isthmus, and on the third day went OB tip through Roes Strait, where we knew there had been a camp earlier in the winter. A fresh north-easter was blowing as we passed the north coast of Matty Island, and in Wellington Strait we began to look about on the chance of sighting bear, which not infreqtseiitly come in here hunting seal on their own account.

It was at Cape Adelaide, close to the Magnetic Pole, that we came upon the first snow huts; these were deserted, but the quaint little "offerings" of seal skulls pointed the way the hunters had gone; we followed up their tracks, and came upon more huts, first five, then three, then twelve, and tfeea twelve again.

Alorneq is a magnificent tracker; he knows people by the way they build their httts, the way tfaey Be down to sleep, as well as by their actual spoor, and long before we come up with the party he is able to tell who they are. When we did come upon them it was with a certain suddenness, our dogs disappearing headlong out of sight in what proved to be the entrance to a hut.

Alorneq went from one to another announdbag oar arrival, all turned out without the slightest hesitation and helped us to rights, and we were socm settled among them as comfortably as could be.

Amulet hunting is rather a delicate business, and I had to proceed with care. My business was to obtain, in the name of science, all that I could of these little odd trifles which are held by the wearers to possess magic power, and worn as a protection against ill. But it had to be done in such a manner that I should not be held accountable afterwards for any evil that might befall those who had parted with their treasures.

I spent the first day making myself known to all, and seeking as far as I could to win their confidence. This meant, incidentally, partaking of generous meals at the shortest intervals — for after all, humankind is much alike all over the globe, and one of the best ways of getting to know your neighbor is to dine with him.

Meantime, Alorneq had unpacked the trade goods and set them out for all to see. There were brand new glittering needles, taken out of their papers and laid in a heap, there were knives and thimbles, nails and matches and tobacco — little ordinary everyday trifles to us, but of inestimable value to those beyond the verge of civilization. I was pleased to note that there was a constant stream of visitors to our little exhibition.

That evening, on returning to £he hut, I found it packed with eager men and women. All had something to offer in exchange, principally skins such as traders usually ask. There was a murmur of disappointment when I announced that I did not propose to trade on the 'usual lines. I explained that I had come from a distant land in order to learn the

customs of other tribes, and bad visited them in particular on account of their amulets, of which I had heard so much* I then gave them a lecture oil the subject of amulets and their power, the gist of which was that as I was a f oreigner from across the wide seas, the ordinary rules and regulations applying to amulets, tabu and the lite did not apply to tne. I

had in the meantime made the acquaintance of their

0?m medicine man, and quoted him in support of my arguments, together with other atttfaorities— -famous angakoqs of other tribes, whose names, it is true, they had never heard before, but whose words nevertheless carried weight. I pointed out that an owner of an amulet still enjoyed its protection even in the event of his losing the amulet itself — and this was agreed. How much more then, must he retain its protective power when, by giving away the artide itself, he secured the material advantage of something valuable m e&dhasge? Na&M&ss to say, I

emphasised tins feet that I wsas mfc power of the charm, whidi must rernain with the original owner, but only the article itsdf f and its history,

Despite all arguments, it was plainly a matter that required thinking over. I left them to sleep on it, and decide next day whether they would trade or not.

It was late next morning before we awoke and removed the block with which the entrance to a hat is closed at night. This was a necessary preliminary to our receiving visitors, as it is not considered good manners to call OB people until their htit had been opened.

i84 ACROSS ARCTIC AMERICA

Aforaeq and I made some tea and had some teeakfast, but nobody came along. I was beginning to fear the worst when a girl strolled casually down towards the hut and stood hesitating. I had noticed bar the day before, admiring some of our beads. We invited her to come in, and she crawled through the passageway with all the amulets she was wearing on behalf of her son— when she should have one. Women rarely wear amulets on their own account. The Tpdritnn idea is that it is the man and not the woman who has to fight the battle of life, and consequently, one finds little girls of five or six years old wearing amulets for the protection of the sons they hope to bear— lor the longer an amulet has been worn, the greater is its power.

Has giri, whose name was Kuseq, now handed me a Httfe akin bag containing all her amulets, newly removed from various parts of her clothing, where they were generally wean. I took them out and examined them, a pitiful little collection of odds and eaods, half mouldy, evil-smelling, by no means calculated to impress the casual observer with any idea of magic power. There was a swan's beak— what was that for? Very sweetly ami shyly the girl cast down her eyies a&d answered : "That I may have a maacfe&l for my fost-boni/7

'•that tl^B was the head of a ptarmigan, with a fo^tdftfeesasobe bin! tied <m; this was to give the boy speed and e^israoee in hunting caribou. A bear's toolb gate powraful faws and sound digestion; the pelt of an ermine, witti §fctjM attached, gave strength and agifity; a little dried flounder was a protection

against dangers from any encounter with strange tribes.

She had still a few amulets besides, but these she preferred to keep, so as to be on the safe side. Meantime, a number of others had found their way into the hut, young men and women, who stood xramd giggling and adding toonr finst otstomer's embarrassment, Bu& their scornful smiles gave place to wonder whea they saw what we gaye her in retani; beads eaoagfa for a whole little aeddaoe, two beantiful bright needles and a sewing ring into the bargain. The girl herself could not conceal her satisfaction at the deal; and when she went out, I realized that this little daughter of Eve had set jtast the example that was needed*

In a couple of hours time there was such a tun on the shop that I was really afraid the premises would be lifted bodily Irani their fouodatiort, and before bedtime I was able to anoocmoe that we had "sold out/* In retara, I had a raoqne collection of amulets, comprising several htradred items,

Among those most frequently reaming asd considered as most valuable, were portions of the body of some creatttre designed to convey Its attributes; as the tern, for skill in fishing, foot of a toon, for 3ri1l in handling a kayak, head aad daw of a raven, for a good share of meat in all htmting (the raven being always on the spot when any animal is killed), teeth, of a caribou, worn in the clothing, for skill in caribou hunting. A bee with its brood sewn tip in a scrap of skirt grres "a stiong head"; a % makes the person invtdnerable, as a % is difficult to hit

One o£ the few amulets worn by women on their own account is a strip from the skin of a salmon, with tine scales along the lateral line; this is supposed to give fine strong stitches in all needlework.

We paefced up our collection and stowed all away, ready to move off the next morning. Our departure was delayed however, at the last minute, by a visit from the local medicine man, whom I had, as already mentioned, appealed to as an authority in support of my theory as to the harmlessness of the transaction. He now demanded further payment in return. It was plain, he said, that I must be a man of remarkable power myself, and a lock of my hair, for instance, would be uaosfc valttable as an amulet in the event of trouble with spirits later on, He suggested that I should pvte a piece to each of those who had traded with me. I was rather taken aback at this; with every wish to give niy friends a fair deal, I could not bat remember that it was winter, in a chilly climate, and I was loth to set out on my further travels entirely bald. We compromised therefore with a few lodks of bak for the most important customers, the lesfc being satisfied with bits of an old shirt and ttaric divided amongst them.

actual haircuttiog was the worst part of it, lode bd^g sliara, ot rather sawn, off by the himself with a sHtmltig knife, and not over nt ifaat. Scfesocs were unknown among these dbytifetiiaie^^ Sf^aiaace was baldly what my hairat ,b©8ie JM&M ociasider t^t of a gentlemaa, *§ gofc away^alwtifc midday, instead of at

NIAQUNGUAQ, THE WIZARD

The white band across his forehead, made from the soft underskin of the caribou, marks him as an angakoq, or witch-doctor.

daybreak as I had intended* But the whole village waved us a hearty farewell, and I had the satisfaction of feeling that we left than convinced of having obtained full value for what they had given, aod something oveir.

CHAPTER XXVI

CLIFF-DWELLERS OF THE ARCTIC

XJOME lies on a moist grassy plain with a fine *^ range of fertile hills in the badkground, making an Imposing picture to those coming from the wastes of ice and snow. My two Greenlanders gazed wide-eyed at the spectacle, impressed by the white men's power of forming great settlements far from their own country.

Thirty years ago, the population consisted of a few Eskimo families^ winning a bare existence from the sea. Then, in 1900, gold was found, and as if by magic a town sprang up, with room for ten thousand souls. The haste with which it was constructed shows even now in the lack of regard for beauty or comfort. Gold was the one idea. It is said that in Nome, there is gold underfoot wherever you tread; and during the last twenty years, the district has produced over eighty million dollars. Methods at first were of the most primitive sort; men dug with spades in the sand wherever they could get at it, or stood in lines along the shore trying to wash out gold dust from the sand. Mighty machines have superseded all this, and men now prefer the certainty of a high wage regularly paid to the chance of a fortune that may never come,

The season at Nome is but short; in the first half of June the ice disappears and navigation begins; by the end of October, or early in November, the last vessel has left for the south. The summer population now is about 2000; in winter barely 900, chiefly whites; of the permanent residents hardly more than a hundred are Eskimos. The town is a sort of capital for North-west Alaska, a centre for equipment of trading expeditions, and the constant stream of people passing through in summer provides a means of existence for stores, agencies and trades of various kinds.

My companions were naturally interested in the sights of the place ; the streets with their curious wood paving, and the shops with all manner of wares they had never seen before. Anarulunguaq in particular cotfld hardly believe it was all real. After a first look round, we went into a restaurant to get something to eat. To my astordsfarae&t, *we ware turned out! I had forgotten that we were now in regions where people are judged by their outward appearance, and had not given a thought to oar old, worn clothes. We took the hint, however, aad at once set about to procure the garments of respectability; took rooms at an hotel, and arranged our mode of life on modern lines.

I had reached Nome at a fortunate time for my work. Here were assembled Eskimos from all parts of Alaska; the entire population of King Island, the so-called UHtivangmiirf, the inland IMdmos from Seward Pfeoinsttla, tbe Qavjasamitft, the longingfrom Cape Prince of Wales, tiie Ungaterdlermint from Norton Sound and the mouth of the Yukon, the Siorarmiut from St. Lawrence Island, and finally, natives from Nunivak Island. They had come in for the tourist season. Some lived in golddiggers' cabins, but most of them in tents, and great camps had sprung up at either end of the town, where the Eskimos worked away making " curios," quaint carvings in walrus tusk, a form of industry which might bring in three to four hundred dollars in the course of one summer, enough to purchase necessaries for the winter with which to return home. The streets were full of Eskimos trotting about on business; they rarely, if ever, offered their wares direct for sale in the streets, but sold them to shopkeepers who retailed them, All were cleanly and decently dressed, kindly and respectful when spoken to, without the least sign of having become demoralized by life in town.

It was a festive time from first to last at Nome; an ugly little town, but a town that quickly won one's heart. It is the threshold of Alaska out towards the great adventure of the north, and the people one meets are inspired with the same love as we ourselves for that Nature which calls and enthralls. No wonder that one finds friends here. I shall always remember with especial gratitude the members of the " Loiaaaa dynasty/1 who, with the splendid old Judge aisd Ms wife afctibfcif '.bead, threw open their charming home to aH the members of the Expedition, white irtagt and Eskimo alike.

I calculated that I could afford to spend a month here, even allowing for a visit to East Cape, as the

vessel which was to take us down to Seattle would not leave until the end of October. I had thus an excellent opportunity of studying the various Alaskan types without having to travel in search of them, since they were all assembled here, I have here selected two of the most distinctive, namely, the King Islanders of Bering Strait, and the natives of Nunivak Island, south of the Yukon delta.

The native myth regarding the origin of King Island is as follows:

A man from the neighborhood of Igdlo came rowing down the river in his kayak. Near Teller he sighted a giant fish, which he harpooned with a bird dart. The great fish splashed about so violently that the river overflowed its banks, forming the sheet of water now known as Imarsuk. It then swam on again, and the man pursuing harpooned it once again, when the creature in its further struggles gave rise to a new mmklatiQa, forming the bay at Port Clarence. It tliea smm far out to sea, the hunter followed, and at last killed it. He then cut a hole through the snout, in ordear to fasten a towline, but a great storm came on, and he was obliged to leave it. And there it stayed, and turned to stone, and became the island of UMtxvak (King Island). There is a hole at one eaad of the island, cut right through the rock; and that is the hole which the tr>fl.n cut in the fish's snout*

The Qavjasamiut lived in the interior, some way inland from Teller. In one of their villages there was a girl who, being scolded by her mother, ran a^siy* and leaping on to an ice floe, was carried out to sea, a^Iai^edoaEiag Island. Siiewastiie first human being to kad there, and kept herself alive by magic; afterwards, others came over from the mainland, and a great village was formed. But the island was steep, and there were no valleys where houses could be built in the ordinary way; they had theref ore to be set up on wooden supports on the steep rocky slopes. It was very cold here, with a constant wind, and the houses were built with three walls all round; first of driftwood, then a covering of hay, and over all a thick outer layer of walrus hides.

Thus the native account of King Island, its origin and colonization.

It is beyond question, the most inhospitable island I have ever seen; some 3-4 km. long by 2-3 across, with steep rocky sides all round. In calm weather it is generally wrapped in fog; and when clear, harried by fierce winds, with a heavy swell that makes landing difficult among the broken rocks and churning waters at the foot of the cliffs* For a great part of the winter the place is cut off from the mainland altogether. When I visited the island, it was deserted for the time being, the entire population having gone in to Nome, We -managed to land, in a small boat; and certainly it was worth a visit. It was like climbing up a bird cliff . The houses stood on piles leaning over the precipice; here and there, in the more exposed parts, the buildings were "moored" to the roc^itsetf with topes of plaited walrus hide. Ropes ^^ ^§t^^;^solr^ points on the shore up to the jbouses, as aa aid to the ascent. Here and there one saw flat spaces under the houses themselves, where the rock had been levelled to make a playground for the children.

There was a notice board on the island, stuck tip between a couple of boulders, with the following announcement in a flourishing hand:

NOTICE

All property on this Island belongs to the Eskimo. Do not take or disturb anything. Failure to comply will result in arrest and prosecution.

AVLAQANA,

Chief , King Island.

The King Islanders are zealous Catholics, and generally visit the Catholic Mission station at Nome during the summer. They are not only regular church-goers, but send their children to school as far as they are able, while the little ernes themselves are keenly, interested in their lessons. Unfortunately, there is not a sbgle spot on the island where a school could be built. The Board of Education therefore proposed, some years back, to shift tibe entire population to St. Lawrence Island, where there is level ground and fertile soil; and as an inducement, each family was offered a two-years1 supply of provisions, with special facilities f or acquiring tame reindeer. They were Hr»ited to hold a Tweeting, presided over by their dhief , and were given time to consider the matter. It took them very little time, however, to decide; not a single family WOT$4 feave the naked rock they called their home; to gfata,; ft^ias tbe^feiest spot in the world*

These Kftig j^de^ are f or the most past tall and well fosift according to Eskimo staadaads; they are, moreover, particularly neat and orderly with their gear. Their skin boats, kayaks, harpoons, and implements generally are the most handsomely worked in Alaska, and they have nearly always a full store of meat in reserve for the winter. Close to the village is a cave thirty metres deep, where meat will keep frozen all through the summer; it is entered through a narrow passage, and great torches have to be carried, as it is perfectly dark inside. Joints and carcases are marked with their owner's mark, the one store-chamber serving for all.

Their names for the different months of the year give an idea as to their manner of life.

October is the month of thin ice. Winter is approaching, and those who have been over to the mainland hurry back to set their house in order. The weather is unreliable, and it is dangerous to venture far out to sea. There is little hunting of seal or walrus, but fishing is carried on, mostly for small cod.

November is the hill-climbing month. The houses are built on the south side of the island, where there is now open water and very rough seas. The prevalent north wind, however, drives the ice in on the north shore; seal and walrus assemble there, and the villagers "climb the hill" to descend and go hunting on the opposite side. The yield, however, is bat poor at this season.

December is tfae-d&nce month. Weather stormy, and days too short for much, to be done in the way of hunting; there is, however, generally a plentiful supply of meat in reserve, and the dark stormy days are passed in feasting.

January is the turning month, when the sun turns on its journey and begins to rise again. Light returns, the Strait is filled with ice and hunting commences on the north side of the island.

February is young-seal month. The seal are now heavy with young and are caught at the breathing holes and patches of open water. Sometimes the ice is firm enough for the islanders to cross to the mainland.

March is preparation month. Larger spaces of open water appear, the ice breaks adrift and kayaks and implements are made ready for use.

April is the month of getting out kayaks again. Winter hunting has now ceased altogether, the ice scatters, and the walrus begin to make their appearance. Seal and ribbon seal are harpooned from the kayak. This is the commencement of the spring season.

May is the month of flowing stoeams. Usegtouacl is now clear of snow and the earth "comes alive." Hunting in kayaks is continued ainong the drifting ice.

June is the month of light nights; game is abundant, and hunting is carried on by night and day*

July is the month of sleeping walrus, when the anjmA.k gather in great numbers on the ice and sleep in the sun, being thai easily harpooned. During this and the following month most of the winter's store of «eat is procured.

August m the moirtii of fledglings. Seabirds are now caugbt in gf§a& iirafeeis; many of tlie islasklei<st however, prefer to go faartib&r afield, catching marmots for fur or gathering belies.

September is sldn-forming month, — i.e., when the velvet begins to form on the antlers of the reindeer. In earlier times, the islanders went over at this season to the mainland, hunting caribou; now, however, they buy skins of tame reindeer from the owners of herds, and sell carvings and curios made during winter to the tourists at Nome.

The King Islanders are remarkably adapted to the harsh conditions under which they live, on a barren rock in the middle of the Bering Strait. They are hardy and always in training, frugal and industrious, obstinate and independent in character, and holding fast, despite their conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, to many of their ancient festivals, stories and songs. In their isolated position, with the monotony of winter on their little island, they naturally seek such diversion as can be found. Occasionally, in summer, several villages will hold great song festivals just as in the old days; and the King Islanders are famous for their dancing. There are a couple of dance houses in their village which appear to be of very ancient date. They are altogether overgrown with grass, which is so astonishingly luxuriant that it has almost filled up the chasm in which these two buildings are stuck like fantastic birds' sesta I clambered up into one of them and wormed my TOJ tifaoiigh the six metres of entrance tunnel fomlt of stones and earth; the place was hung abottt with tambowin^ and weird, staring masks— more Eke a temple erf the spirits than adance house. Unfortttnately, there was no one on the island at the time of my visit, and I had to be content with making the acquaintance of the islanders in the picturedrome at Nome, where I found them wondering at the coldly impersonal manner in which white men go to their "festivals/'

The Eskimos from the south and west of the Yukon spoke a dialect differing so considerably from the others that I found it, contrary to all previous experience, impossible to discuss difficult questions such as matters of faith and ceremonial, without the aid of an interpreter. I was fortunate in finding an excellent helper in the person of one Paul Ivanoff, a half-bred Eskimo, from St. Michael, who had also lived several years on Nunivak Island. I understood his speech without the slightest difficulty, while he also spoke the southern dialect, which is more or less the same throughout the whole range of country down to Ktiskokwim and Bristol Bay.

One might expect to find the E^doaos soiQ&e civilized farther to the sotith; this however is not the case. The Nunivak Islanders occupy a poor ami barren country with day soil, round the deltas of the great rivers; there is nothing here to attract the white man. No gold, no furs to speak of; the natives live mainly on seal and fish. Navigation is difficult along the coast here, owing to frequent storms, shallow water and lack of harbors, so that the pfeopfe lie^e have remained practically cut off from, tfee development of the rest of Alaska. CMy recently lias Italtaieatttcf Iducatkm began to set up schools in this region, but in most places the natives are still heathen, cannot *ead, or even speak

English. They were thus peculiarly interesting from my point of view, and I was able to procure a great deal of information as to their customs and ceremonies, in which a marked Indian influence is apparent. A notable feature in this respect is their use of masks, in which the spirit element is developed to a degree far exceeding that noted under Point Hope. There is still a belief in the very slight distinction between the animals and man, and the power of animals to take human form; hence many of the masks represent seal, or birds, or beasts of preyf with human faces. Each type is credited with some particular power, and serves to assist the augakoq in his invocation of helping spirits which here as elsewhere are the mediators between life and the supernatural.

Despite the miserable country and climate in which they live, the natives here have by no means lost their capacity for festival entertainments; on the contrary, we find here some of the prettiest ceremonies in use. When a child is born, the parents give a great feast to all those from some distance round, and old men and women are given gifts by the mother, according to her wealth and position. Every husband is expected to lay in a store of costly £ ttrs, garments and finely worked weapons and impleto fegiveii away at tfae birth feast; the birth diicl:s ooi^iefed so great a blessing that a may well give away aH he possesses.

Similar f easts are held for the dead, with a view to preparing the way for them and Tpfrfrmg them bappy in the world beyond The ceremonies here

last a week, with various rites each day, and costly gifts to all present. As a rule several families combine in a festival for their respective dead, but even then the proceedings may be so expensive that several years of saving may be required to defray the cost of a feast worthy of the standing of the deceased.

The frail kayak to which the hunter trusts himself on the sea is built with great ceremony, special rites being designed to ensure safety and good httnting. The kayak is generally renewed each year, as it is considered unpropitious to enter on a new hunting season with old gear of any sort. During the time when a maa is engaged on the building of a kayak he does not enter the women's house, but remains isolated in the dance house, which is also the men's workshop- Work must be done fasting, no food bemg taken until the evening, when the day's work is done. AM lias to be doo£ slowly and carefully, with the obsecvaaee of rv®$mm fomis of tabu. When it is finished, the kayak Is consecrated on the first fine day when the sea is calm* Tbe whole family will appear in new dothes, maa, wife and boys — girls are considered tmdean. The kayak is set on the ground with all the new implements decoratrvely arranged in place. Hie ceremony takes place at dawn; the man walks in front holding a lighted lamp, aad aH step round the kayak, the idea bdjiig t&at the flame scares away all evil spirits. Tbe m®& than ^ttets tibeee words:

" May we procuring food." Then he goes out Irirfttb^ aod t&i day he brings home his first seal, with the new kayak, his wife loads up a little sledge with good food, fish, game and seal meat, and drives from house to house, giving gifts to all widows and fatherless children.

Thus gratitude should be shown for the blessing of daily food.

Every autumn a great festival is held in honor of the ribbon seal, which is an important factor in their life. The strange ceremonies here in use reveal the fundamental elements of that religious belief which we find among the Eskimos far to the east, in connection with preparation for winter work and the making of new clothes for the coming year, where strict rules of tabu must be observed.

The preparations for the festival begin in November and last a whole month. During this time the men must live apart from the women, remaining in the dance house, which their wives are only allowed to enter when bringing their food. The women, who are regarded as unclean in connection with all animals hunted, must take a batH every morning before carrying food to their husbands, and when so visiting them, must wear the waterproof garments used in stormy weather.

Every festival begins with new songs competed by tfefe men, a kind of hymas invoking the spirits, me& $»1 xirqmea sbgbg aad daadng together. WMMiiiia^^i^ €s®«posjBg these hymns, all lamps most be put out, aacl ail mtist be silent in the dance houses with nothiog to disturb them* All males saust be present, even the smallest boys, so long as

siluni, or time of waiting for something to break; for it is held that in the silence and darkness, when all are striving to think only noble thoughts, the songs are born in the minds of men as bubbles rising from the depths of the sea to break on the surface. The song is a sacred thing, and silence is needed for its birth. Here is one of the songs:

The autumn comes blowing;

Ah, I tremble, I tremble at the harsh northern wind

That strikes me pitilessly in its might

While the waves threaten to upset my kayak.

The autumn comes blowing;

Ah, I tremble, I tremble lest the storm and the seas

Sand me down to the clammy ooze in the depths of the waters.

Rarely I see the water calm, The waves cast me about; And I tremble, I tremble at thought of the hour When the gulls shall hack at my dead body.

As soon as a song has been made it must be sung, and the women are called in to learn it with the rest. The making of songs, and dancing, must ady be done in the evening; in the daytime, all are tmsy with other things; the women sewing, the men carving selected pieces of driftwood into various implements and utensils for the winter; large handsome vessels for water, drinking bowls and ladles, meat dishes and the like, so that each fairly has its own new set of requis&es. Whm the mm and women have finished their respective tasks, the angakoq

is invited to call upon his helping spirits. He appears in new winter boots and creaking waterproof skins, and sits down in the middle of the floor. A line is brought out and a noose laid round his neck, four Boen hauling at each end of the rope, yet he utters his warnings and prophecies in a clear voice, despite the fact that he is apparently being strangled. Thus, almost hanging by the neck from the rope, he invokes the various animals, and informs the company when the winter hunting can begin.

As soon as this is over, the floor boards are moved away from the dance house, and a fire is lit in the space beneath. All vessels, marked with the owners' respective marks, must now be exposed to the heat of the fire, the men at the same time purifying themselves by a perspiration cure. The window in the roof is removed, the smoke escaping from the opening, yet so fierce is the heat that the men are dripping with sweat. Finally, they wash in cold water, This concludes the preparations for the great feast.

The feast itself lasts eight days. During the past year, the bladders of all ribbon seals caught have been carefully preserved, and these are now brought in to the dance house, hung up with bundles of herbs under the roof, where a harpoon and line are also fixed, with a small lamp lighted beneath them. IJieaai witfe great solemnity the new clothes are put ^aM4jie$^ haaded round to their respective 0w®e$s. Hie women are called in, and feasts are held every dayt ending with "song and dance. At last, the seals' bladders are dropped into the sea &iaugfa a hole in the ice, while the angakoqs implore

the animals to be generous to men- On the eighth evening, men and women exchange gifts, and promise to try their best in the coming winter to be better in conduct and in their respective tasks.

The festival ends, as it began, in deep silence, the silence of good wishes and good resolutions.

And then the winter hunting can begin.

Here I conclude this description of the Alaskan Eskimos. . * . They number a little more than the Greenlanders, or about 14,000. The total number of the Eskimos is thus distributed approximately as follows: Greenland about 13,000, Canada about 5,000, Siberia about 1200— total thus about 34,000.

In material respects, the culture of the Alaskan Eskimos resembles more or less that of the natives of Point Barrow, Point Hope and on the great rivers up inland, as already described. There were of course adaptations to local conditions, but in the main, the old principles were followed throughout. Hunting on the ice is in these regions, as in the greater part of Greenland, relegated to a secondary pla^e, and we naturally find it most highly developed in the neighborhood of the North-west Passage, where it remains the only form of seal hunting. The netting of seal, however, unknown farther to the east, is an important feature; even to this day nets are made from thin strips of sealskin and placed in narrow openings of the level ice near open water. But hunting at sea is the staple form, and is carried to a high degree of perfection. The Eskimo methods were doubtless developed on the shores of the Bering Sea, but whether this was due to the natives alone or aided by alien influence, cannot be determined with certainty.

The southern territorial limit of the Eskimos at present is on the east coast of Bristol Bay and at Kodiak in the Pacific, formerly, however, they extended as far as Prince of Wales' Sound and the coasts immediately to the southeast. Here lived also the northernmost tribes of the North-west Indians, the Tlingit, and the Eskimos here encountered a highly developed culture based on the same forms of hunting as their own. It is always possible that they may have learned something from their neighbors. This is certainly the case as regards some of their legends, especially the raven myths; also the cult of masks and the complicated ceremonial at their festivals. It is at any rate characteristic that these particular customs should have attained their highest development in these southern regions.

It is a consolation to every explorer that even the most comprehensive expedition never comes to an end, but by its researches opens the way for further work. It lies then with the future to investigate more closely the problems thus raised.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE BOLSHEVIK CONTRAST

TV7HILE flying before the gale on board the Sifaer " Wave, just off Cape Prince of Wales, we sighted a little flotilla of quaint looking skirt boats that came dancing over the choppy waters of the Bering Strait, Hie sails were so close-reefed that the wind had but the merest rags to catch hold of, but the boats were heavy laden, and tore through the waves like so many flapping seabirds.

It was a party of Siberian Eskimos from East Cape, on their way home feom Teller, where they had been to trade. It was a hurried meeting, but thrilling in its way, and left me more than ever keen to visit these people on their own ground. In the extreme eastern corner of Siberia Eve the most westerly of all the Eskimos, and here surely was the most fitting point at which to end the Expedition,

Before landing anywhere in Siberia, it was necessary, I knew, to have a passport issued by the Centeal Office of the Soviet Government in Moscow. I bad no such pass, for reasons which will appear Iaf$r %*su ^1 ipas therefore prepared to meet with some difficult^, but my *>wn keen interest in the task led me to imagine that my reasons must appear sound enotigh to anyoee, Tb& obstacles to be reekoned with arose from causes which had nothing whatever to do with my own work and aims. In the first place, relations between the Soviet Republic and America were generally strained, and secondly there was a particular cause of dispute . just now in the matter of certain small schooners which had for generations past traded with Siberia under the United States flag, and now wished to continue without paying for the license which the new government not unreasonably demanded.

There were two ways of crossing Bering Strait. I could go in an Eskimo boat. This would be, to me, the easiest and simplest way of accomplishing my errand; but there was this disadvantage attached to it, that the native skin boats can only cross with a certain wind, and I might have to wait some time for it. And I had no time to spare. Also, in the event of any collision with the authorities on the other side, I should be alone, and at the mercy of any arbitrary official.

The other way was to charter a schooner. I should then have the advantage of being in company with other white men; on the other hand, it might prejudice my case if I were to arrive in one of those veryvessels which were the subject of dispute.

Anyhow, the crossing must be made somehow, mtfeiaiely, I chartered a small schooner, the Teddy Bmfi captain and ow&er Joe Bernard, a well known and respected personalty in these waters. I had at once, on getting into touch with the wireless at Kotzebue, sent off a message asking for permission to land from the Soviet Government, but after waiting three weeks I was forced to start without it, as otherwise the season would have been too far advanced to cross at all.

Bering Strait is one of the most treacherous waters in the world, gale follows gale almost incessantly, and in this part of Alaska there are practically no harbors in which one can seek refuge. We started on the 8th of September, and had a stormy week to start with, which forced us to seek the shelter of small islands and headlands here and thane, shifting our refuges from time to time as the wind changed about, and in daily peril of being carried out into the still more dreaded Bering Sea. At last, on the i6th, about noon, the weather began to dear, and that evening, in the dark, we passed Cape Prince of Wales. From here, our course lay past Diomede Island over to East Cape itself. We came from Teller, aad rounded the steep black cliffs in fine weather; the summits stood right up among the clouds, and there was a mighty wash of breakers at the foot . At the extreme limit of the land, on a piece of level ground, was an Eskimo encampment. We heard women laughing, dogs barking, and children at play, but saw only a duster of lighted gutskin windows, the only visible slga of human habitation.

I was tired out after the restless threshing about of those stormy days, and turned in early that night, at dawu, Captain Bernard came ; we were nearing Diomede Island, I tamed oofc at «»P0; ifc was still barely Kgfet asd I could just make out a great dark mass rising sbeer and inhospitable from the sea, with thousands of seabirds wheeling and screaming over the cliffs, while the water broke in a scurry of foam on the rocks below. And this was fair weather — what would it look like in a storm? Yet the place was inhabited, though it looked like a bird cliff and nothing more. We made in towards the headland, intending to anchor, but just then a mass of fog came up, and the island vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. We gave up the idea of a visit for the time being, and made straight for East Cape,

Towards noon the fog lifted, and we sighted a forbidding rocky coast with snowclad hills rising from the sea. There was a desperate loneliness in the bare look of that land; a fitting aspect for the utmost verge of a continent. Masses of drift ice lay spread along the shore; the place looked desolate and far from any recognized route to anywhere. It was almost a shock to perceive a big steamer maMng straight towards us. The vessel was a patrol boat, and we were soon aware that the Soviet was keeping guard over its farthest frontiers. We hoisted the Danish flag, and the big boat seemed to peer inquisitively, only to turn its back on us next moment as if disdaining to approach anything so insignificant.

The ice almost hides the Eskimo village from view, and we can barely make it out. Anyhow, there is no shelter here,, so we sha|>e our course for Emmatown, seme miles Jarther south. Captain Bernard, aa experienced navigator, knows that the coast there will be dear of ice with this wind, and give us anchorage under shelter of a spit of laa<L There is a small township there consisting of a few TchtikcM families, some traders, and the Soviet representative. We are not particularly anxious to run right into the arms of the frontier poEce, but we shall have to meet them sooner or later.

We came sailing in with the Danish flag flying, and at once the red flags of the Republic were hoisted on shore. I am not sure that they had seen the white cross in ours. Captain Bernard and I were both pretty certain we were in for a trying day , andaccoidingly, had a good meal before going on shore. At last we got the dinghy out, and rowed to land, where we were met by a well known trader named Charley Carpe&dale, who has lived here for a generation, He at once introduced us to a giant of a man, whose height was further accentuated by a tall fur cap; this is the frontier guard, AUayefL We shook hands, and I found myself looking into a pair of very friendly eyes; btrfc there was a hint of obstinacy about the mouth that I feared might meaa trouble. We found here also a Russian-English interpreter named Leo, and some traders from the recently established Soviet store.

We had hardly got our boat hauled up on shore before AHayeff requested us to accompany httn to the police station. Here, with the energetic assistance of Bernard, I endeavored to explain my errand, and the reason for my having no passport, a£ ffefe same time requesting permission to stay for a m&s^m&®&ji tibe 'Eskimos of East Cape. I promised, of eottrs^M^i^tmdingshotild take place with the natives.

AHayeff declared that he had no authority to give me any such permission, and that if we did not put to sea again at once he would be obliged to send me under escort to the Governor at Wahlen. I recognized that this would at least prolong my stay in the country, and add to my chance of obtaining what I wanted; accordingly, I declared my willingness to make the journey.

I was then led over to the Tchukchi village, where a team of twelve dogs was in readiness. I had barely time to glance at the place. It was at once evident that these were people of a different type from the cheery, noisy Eskimos, These men looked serious, and from their expression, appeared to regard me as some dangerous criminal. Curious types there were among them, but all looked poor and ill cared for. Women came out from the big domeshaped walrus hide tents and stared curiously at our party; they were not unaccustomed to seeing people carried off never to return. A few dirty children clustered round the sledge.

All my papers had been taken from me and handed to the Tdhukchi who is to take me to the Governor, The dogs are started — a miserable team — and we move slowly over the sodden, melancholy tundra. Not a trace of snow here, only swamp and watercourse aad marsh. The only enlivening feature of the landscape is the neck of East Cape rising strongly ie t&e €asfc; tibe^y the first snow has already fallen on the heights, aadL gleams encouragingly; but for tile rest there is nothing but flat marshland, mud and mire and wet; and as if this were not enough, the sky sends down a steady soaking drizzle.

My driver had his own way of urging on his team. He carried a special kind of harpoon, with a sharppointed nail at one end, which he threw from time to timeout among the dogs. At first they stopped dead; then, with howls of pain, they put on the pace for a few minutes. It was a pitiful proceeding for an experienced driver to watch; but the man was my jailer at present, and all my papers were in his charge, so it would hardly be wise to interfere. Moreover, there was no means of making oneself understood.

The dog-harpoon, or flying whip, is furnished at the kindlier end with a bunch of sted rings that rattle when shaken, and the sound also serves to urge on the team to fresh effort; evidently, the poor beasts have learned by experience what to expect if they fail to answer this hint. The dogs were harnessed in pairs, and I will in justice admit that despite their slowness, doubtless due to a summer on short commons, they were most obedient, After a couple of hours' energetic persuasion, they seemed to think it as well to make an end of the business, and went on at such a pace that we had to take it in turns to sit on the sledge.

I had always wanted to visit Russia, but the atmosphere of this monotonous tundra, the endless . unchanging expanse of cheerless waste, was hardly what I had looked forward to. Moreover, I was i30fc a&ogefcfaer free from anxiety as to the outcome of tfae iotertiew awaiting me. Nevertheless, I was convinced tlia* I iiad^Doe the right thing so far.

Some distance out wfe encountered another sledge coming from the opposite direction; it proved to be a

Tchukchi, who spoke a few words of English, and we halted for a few minutes' talk. It was an awkward sort of conversation, standing there in the drizzling rain, shifting our feet continually to keep from sinking into the mud* I could not make out -my fellowtraveller's name; it sounded rather like the chatter of a seagull as he pronounced it. He was very interested in my doings. Was I a trader? Had we any sort of goods on board our ship, and would we trade with him, somewhere out of sight along the shore?

I explained that I wished to conform to the law of the land, at which he protested, urging that the shops were all empty, and one could not even purchase ammunition. To make my own position clearer, I told him a little story I had heard myself regarding one .of the American traders a few weeks before our arrival at East Cape. He had been informed, through one of the Eskimos on Diomede Island, that the Russian authorities had no objection to his landing at East Cape and trading with the natives there. Trusting to this safe conduct, he went across, and started bartering, only to find himself immediately seized and accused of illicit trading. AH the ready cash on board his vessel, some $2000, was confiscated; the trader himseJf got away, thankful that they had not taken his ship Bat when the Eskimo intermediary on ^^M,lieafd what had happened to his Mend, be crossed to the mainland himself to complain of having been made the instruBae&t of a plot ie "defiance of good faitk AI he got for his pains a fine of $25 for insulting the authorities, and the

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RUSSIAN SOVIET FROM EMMATOWN

He refused us permission to land at East Cape in Siberia.

curious combination garments of reindeer skin, worn as a rule with one aim out of the sleeve, leaving half the body naked. They were not without a certain ample grace, rather reserved, and trying not to appear inquisitive. I had not time to study them closely, however; an elderly man, broad-shouldered and of stern countenance, stepped forward and I braced myself to meet the Governor. As it turned out, however, this was only a bankrupt trader— one of the victims of the new monopoly. A moment later another Russian appeared, dressed from head to foot in sealskin; he introduced hfangftlf in excellent English as Peter Cossigan, trader and interpreter.

Authoritatively he waved the crowd aside, got my papers from the driver, and led the way up to Government House, where my fate was to be decided. On the way, I managed hurriedly to explain who I was and what I wanted. As a sufferer under the present regime, he seemed inclined to sympathize with my position.

Despite the commotion occasioned by our arrival among the natives, none of the Government officials appeared, and we made our way in to the office* Here all was wild disorder, with papers and documents strewn about everywhere, and a medley of people dodging about and getting in one another's way.

"Dctiskaya Ekspeditiya" is all that I could mate out of what is said in the course of an eloquent speech introducing me to the Governor, one Nikolaus Losseff . He wore a ragged old sweater, and his manners were as informal as his dress. Losseff appeared to be a kindly soul, personally most willing to oblige, and was deeply distressed on hearing what is the matter. I was introduced to the other officials present: Vassili Dimitrievitch Kouslmm, Chief of Police, newly arrived from Leningrad; Peter Bodrofi, Inspector of Finances for the Chukotsk Peninsula, and Police-Constable Maxim Penkin, a giant of a man, who smiled with the simple kindliness of giants as a race.

The Chief of Police at once took over all my papers, including a passport issued from Montreal, a letter of recxmmendation from the Danish Legation at Washington, a letter from the Danish Consul at Seattle, and one from the American Minister of the Interior, strongly emphasizing the purely scientific aims of the Expedition. Unfortunately , it soon appeared that the Chief of Police could not read our Governor, who is in no better case, ^> tbs office, to afl appearance mudi perttifbadL M-^b^^p^e|fei^ve treated me with the greatest courtesy, altogether diitereat from what I had expected of the new Soviet type; and after the exaggerated inf ormaJity of C^adiaa and Americanmanners, it was quite refreshing to see a man bow, actually bow politely, when one is introduced. A chair was placed for me, and Russian cigarettes were offered. Then the negotiations commenced* I was no longer conscious of my wet clothes; my one thought now was for the Expedition, With the aid of an excellent interpreter, I endeavored to mafce dear to them tfeat my object in visiting East Cape was strictly and exdus&ely scientific, and that thk was abundantly evident from the papers I had shown them. With all the energy at my command I that my having no passport was due to the fact that there was no Government of Siberia in existence at the time when I started from Denmark, and that the Governorship of Wahlen was not established until a year after. Also that I had endeavored, throtigh the nearest Danish consulate, to get into communication with Moscow, but in vain. And finally, that after three years of travelling from one Eskimo settlement to another, I had arrived at East Cape in order to study the Eskimos there, and begged the Soviet authorities to accord me the same facilities as I had received in Canada and America, where an Expedition coming from the Arctic regions is regarded as exempt from passport formalities.

In vain the Governor tugged at his hair, went out and came in and went out of the room again, all the time hugging the one solid fact which he seemed unable to get over, namely, that I had no passport from the Supreme Government in Moscow, and that his instructions left no margin for acting at his own discretion. I was further informed that the great concentration of officials was due to the strained relations existing between the Soviet and the rest of the world* and not least the formal conflict regarding the possesskm of Wrapgel Island, to which place a wars&ij> b$d been despatched that swimer.

to be popular after Vilheaqpkat in planting the British ing m Wraagd Island, which the Russians regard territory, Eagka4 #eftised to recognize aad Stefaassoa established a trading concern on the island by himself, but later ceded the rights to a syndicate at Nome, which brought over Alaskan Eskimos to the disputed colony.

All unsuspecting, I had tumbled innocently into a political wasps* nest, and made the best use of such arguments as I could find, pointing out, for instance, that it would hardly be wise to turn away a scientific expedition from Russian territory after it has been received with interest and encouragement everywhere else— especially just now, when the Soviet should be keen on showing the world that Russia under the new regime appreciates the value of culture and science generally, AH, however, apparently to no purpose.

All at once the Governor seemed to recollect that I had been travelling for some time; and appeared also to notice that I was covered with mud.

"Are you hungry?" he asked suddenly.

I admitted the fact. Whereupon he dashed out into the kitchen, to retttrn a moment later and drag me through with him. Two smiling Russian girls were busy preparing a meal, and I passed them with a bow, finding time to notice their peculiar beauty, the white sldn, and their eyes with long dark lashes that seemed fifce an expression of all unspoken. melancholy in the world. We entered the dicing room, the Governor sat down at table with me, and the women followed. One of them was his wife, the other a yottng sdK>dims tress from Irkutsk I made an attempt at conversatkm, trying three languages, but in vain. We turned ena^ticafly to the dishes before us; oversweetened cocoa and some hot, sweet

preserve eaten with bread; famished as I was, it went down as meat with a hungry Eskimo.

The dining room was an apartment with bare walls devoid of ornament, perhaps in order to focus attention the more directly upon the Constitution of the Soviet Republic, a copy of which covered the whole of one wall. And also — I had almost forgotten it — in one corner a picture of Lenin, dressed as a simple street scavenger. I gazed at him, not without bitter reproach at the thought of his having given this otherwise amiable Governor instructions leaving no room for the slightest deviation: the letter of the law, or off with his head!

A moment later the Chief of Police came in and informed me that I might stay the night in the Governor's house, but must return to my ship the following day and leave Siberia at once. Very sorry, but . . .

It was goodbye to East Cape.

I had thus one evening and part of the following day to work in, and hoped that after all I might be able to make some use of my time. East Cape was out of reach, but there were a few old Eskimos at Wahlen and at Emmatown whom I could talk to. There were also the Tchukchis; and I had here an excellent interpreter in the person of Peter Coswho spoke their language and English with The police imposed no further restrictions on my liberty? I was free to go where I pleased and speak with whom I pleased during the eighteen faotes or so that I was stiE strflered to remain ill Sroiet territory* : ' *

I began by calling on the traders, who were assembled in a small house, and discussed with them the situation generally. They were all Russians, but in spite of this, their position was worse than my own. The Soviet monopoly forbade them to trade on their own account, while at the same time, the government offered them no other means of making a living, and no opportunity of getting out of the country. One of these tmfortunates, whose name I will not mention, fumbled in an old chest full of oddments, and pulled out a huge bundle of notes — paper roubles from the time of the Czars. These were his savings; rouble on rouble hoarded up by years of economy; and now, he declared, worth less than so much cigarette paper*

I asked how many there were*

" What does it matter?" he answered. "I used to know the whole sum to a kopek, but now, I cannot say. Thirty thousand, a hundred thousand roubles, it makes no difference either way."

One old trader named Gobrinoff, who had suffered the same fate, burst out suddenly into a foolish mirthless laugh, and the rest of us fell silent.

These bankrupt traders speak no ill o£ the Soviet, in spite of the fact that they, like everyone else in the district, have to look forward to a winter without tea or coffee, perhaps without tobacco, though, as tbey explain almost apologetically, there will be plenty oi wates meat and blubber. It is something erf a degi2u3a$i« m tfeeisr old age; tbey were wealthy once, snsesi c$ (^tiifcetica in the place, and are now reduced to eating the blubber cf charity and seeking the warmth of the native yarrangs as soon as the winter drives them from their own wooden huts, which they have no fuel to make habitable.

It was not a cheerful party, and I was glad to take my leave and go visiting with Peter Cossigan. among the natives. The information I acquired in the course of these visits, and subsequently, may be summarized as follows :

Save for the Governor's residence and a couple of stores, Wahlen consists exclusively of yarrangs — huts of the Tchukchi type — inhabited by a couple of hundred people, who get their living solely from the sea. The Tchukchis, and also the Eskimos of East Cape, still live exactly in the same fashion as before any white men came to their country. No attempt at spiritual influence has ever been made. It was thus a magnificent field for ethnographical research, and one in which I might well have spent some months. As it was, I had only a few hours, and can only give one or two of the main features.

Peter Cossigan, who had himself married a Tchukchi woman, led me first of all into one of the largest yarrangs. It was a curious structure, half hut, half tent, consisting of a heavy wooden framework built to the shape of a dome, and covered with walrus hide. We found ourselves at first in a sort of front room which occupied about half the entire space, with a fireplace in the middle of the floor, on which some walrus njeat was cooking at the time. Despite a couple of ventilation holes in the roof, the place was so full of smoke that it was some little time bdfore I made out the figure of a woman kneeling by the fire and tending her pot. She rose to her feet with a little laugh, and invited us to enter. I now perceived that there was a sma.11 tent of reindeer skin hung up in the interior of the hut, being fastened by thongs to the wooden framework, but without tent holes of its own; this was just large enough to enclose what would have been the raised sleeping place in an Eskimo hut. There was no particular entrance to this tent; we simply crawled in anywhere under the sides, which were made of heavy, thick-hair^ winter skins. In this inner apartment sat a young woman perfectly naked, busy preparing some sealskin, The temperature indeed did not call for any excess of dothing, for though the sun was blazing down outside on the walrus hide, and making the place intolerably hot already, there were two blubber lamps burning in addition. There was no raised platf arm or couch to serve as a bedplace, but the floor itself in this apaitmeat was made of wood covered with layers of walrus hide. The place served as a workroom for the women during the day, and a bedroom for the whole family at night. Looking about me, I realized that all the implements in sight, knives and other tools, even the drums, were of exactly the same type as those I had found among the Eskimos. It was therefore the more remarkable to find that I understood not a angle wofd of the language. The young woman greeted m wife a frieodly smile, and went on with her work, and i^^p^aaioa now informed me that o&iy womea wesie geaeraHy to foe f emnd in the bouses during the daytime; they dM their cooking and needlework here, while the men were out in the open air practically all day long. When not actually out hunting, they would be outside somewhere, whatever the weather was like. We should therefore find no men anywhere indoors at this time of the day, and therefore found it best to invite a couple of Cossigan's Tchukchi friends in to the little hut, where his native wife, a gentle and kindly soul, at once made tea for us*

The one thing most prominent in my mind at the moment was to find out what the Tchukchis and the East Cape Eskimos respectively thought of each other, and get their views as to relations generally between the races. One old man whom we questioned was well up in this subject, and began by pointing out emphatically that his people were the original inhabitants of the country, and nothing to do with the Eskimos. In which connection he gave us the following story:

"In a strange land, among a strange people, there lived a little girl whose mother was always displeased whatever she did. No matter what trouble she took with the tasks assigned to her, she was continually being scolded. At last she could bear it no longer, aad ran away from home, taking with her aH her dolls. She walked and walked for ever so far, till she came to a land she did not know, And here she built herself a shelter from the wind, and decided to live there. But one night she woke up and found that all her dolls had come alive; had turned into real men and women. And from these, it is said, sprang the of the Tc&ukdhis."

Originally, all the Tchukchis were hunters, but some learned in course of time to tame the wild reindeer, and grew rich; others, who could not attain to the ownership of a herd, moved down to the coast in the hope of finding better fortune there. When the Tchukchis first came down to the coast, there were no Eskimos there. They found all manner of beasts in the sea; seal, whale and walrus, but it was long before they learned how to hunt them; they tried to make boats so as to follow them out at sea, but their hunting implements were poor, and they were often hungry, despite the wealth offered them by the sea. At last they took to tnaking long sea voyages, along the coast and far out to sea, where they could perceive land in the farthest distaace. This was Diomede Island. Here they met a strange people whose tongue they could not understand; a people who called themselves Eskimos, and lived likewise on the beasts of the sea. But they had fine weapons for their hunting, aad many curious ways of Idling seal and whale and walrus; they had harpoons furnished with lines and bladders; they had big sktr* boats f or long voyages and little swift kayaks. But they were a hostile people, with whom it was not wise to live for any length of time, and there was often war between the two peoples. Once a wfaole boatload of Tchukchis was attacked and slain to ifee last man. This was too much. AH the men from many villages assembled and sailed across the sea; and whea the Eskimos saw this great number apf8*>adhiBg, they mad$ iready for a fmttle. But the Tchukehis had not ocme to fight; they only proposed that an agreement should be made between them, so that they could live in peace and trade with one another thereafter. They then laid out all the trade goods they had brought with them; skins of the caribou, and handsome white spotted skins of the tame reindeer; skins of wolf and wolverine they kid out on the rocks by the strangers' village, and the Eskimos saw all these skins, which they themselves needed but could not get, because they lived on a little island in the midst of the sea. Thus the Tchukchis offered to make peace, and peace was made between them, and has never since been broken. And it was not long before the Eskimos in turn began to make trading voyages to the coast of the mainland, and finding excellent hunting in the neighborhood of East Cape, they determined to build a great village of their own there. Thus the two peoples became neighbors, and the Tchukchis learned all the Eskimo methods of hunting; they built fllHn boats and made lances, harpoons and bird arrows, and lived as the Eskimos did. The Eskimos in their turn wished to dress as the Tchukchis did, and copied also the manner of their houses, which are built of wood and walrus hide. They also learned to cut their hair in the same way. So the aae people learned of the other, but each retained its own language, and only very rarely did those of oil® jr&ce fetennsrfy with the other.

The Eskimos, however, were frodoq. the first superior oa tibe sea^ and so they remained, The East Cape Igidmos, who hunted with the America** whafcrs, became famous tor their ^ffl,in^managbg a boat; and in a mixed crew of Eskimos and Tchukchis, it will always be the Eskimos wlio take command. When hunting on the ice in winter, if difficulties arise, it is invarably an Eskimo who is chosen to lead the way*

All this I had from the mouth of the old Tdaukchi himself,

According to the Tdhttikchi tradition, then, the Eskimos are a new people who came into Asia from Alaska and the islands of the Bering Sea* This tradition accords entirely with the Eskimos' own recollections of the manner in which the islands in question, and East Cape itself, became inhabited.

All the old myths agree that the first men came to Xing Island, from the interior east of Tellar, while Diomede Island was inhabited by people coming from Tffag Island and Schismareff; from here again they found tfadr way -to East Cape, and thence further along the coast of Siberia both iKarth and southwest. Ruins of Eskimo houses are also found in both directions. I was naturally tmable to make excavations here, but I did manage to examine a number of old houses at Wahlen, which were indubitably of Eskimo origin. The only island in the Bering Sea colonized by Eskimos from the Asiatic side is St. Lawrence Island, called by the Eskimos Sk&aq; this, however, is due to the geographical the island lying close to the Siberian shore, so that a^entarers from East Cape would reach it by way of

I managed dtmtig &rf short slay to note d0wn a Hst of native words showing that the East Cape dialect is very like the language spoken at St. Lawrence; and oddly enough, both resemble mostly that spoken south of Norton Sound and over the Yukon right down to Bristol Bay, differing considerably from the form current in the rest of Alaska.

Until the American Bureau of Education commenced work in Alaska, the Siberian Eskimos were greatly superior to the American, both in conditions of life and in general estimation; now, however, the reverse is the case, and those Siberian natives who have been to Nome for trading purposes marvel at the enormous progress made by their fellows on that side, while they themselves live in a country whose government seems to take no interest in them whatever beyond getting their furs at the lowest possible price.

This then was the result of my visit to Wahlen and my encounter with the Soviet.

On the following day I was taken back across the same dreary tundra, and escorted on board the Teddy Bear by the Chief of Police and the kindly giant of a constable, Penkin. I was shown out; requested to leave and that forthwith; but it was some consolation to reflect that my visit had not been altogether fruitless. The information I had Ipiteed fitted in admirably with the previous reof the expedition, ^nd confirmed the corrects of wtiat we had already learned. We hoisted sail and got under way. The ice lay to shore, and we were forced to He for a little off the Eskimo village at E&st Cape. It was like looking into the promised land that one was not fated to enter. Novoqaq is a big village with some 400 souls. The jaws and ribs of whales were used for building material, as we could see, not only for the houses but for platforms and drying frames outside. The houses themselves were built on a slope of the steep hillside, wall to wall; down on the beach were skfa boats and whale boats ready to put out the moment an animal was sighted. It was in the height of the walrus hunting season, and one had not long to look with a good glass before one perceived the great heavy bodies on the ice-floes as they surged along dose together to the northward. The walrus were dosing; as if well aware that the boats could not put out because of the ice between,

Young men and children came running down, out on the ke itself, and right up to the ship, A few came on boaixl M& sfcayed with us for an kmr; they knew I was not allowed to stay, and the situation called forth expressions of regret on both sides. Needless to say I should have been glad to see more of them, and I could see that they wotild have welcomed me among themselves,

However, there it was. A few days later we were back in Nome. And the Fifth Thule Expedition was at an end.

As I rowed on shore in the dinghy, I saw a mart rtmokig backward and forward on the beach, waviag in his hand. It was a telegram, addressed to w^&iKf ®8& I opeeed it not without some excitement, as to its coirteiite. It proved to be from the Danish Foreign Ministry, stating briefly that permission had been obtained from the Soviet Republic for me to land at East Cape,

Only, as fate would have it, the information arrived six weeks too late.

CHAPTER XXVIII

SILA

AH true wisdom is only to be found far from the dwellings of men, in the great solitudes; and it can osily be attained through suffering, Suffering and privation are the only things that can open the mind of man to that which is hidden from his fellows," — IGJTJGARJUK, erf the Caribou Eskimos.

moraing at the end of October, 1924, 1 awoke for the last time in the little wooden dwelling on the outskirts of Nome, where I had been living for the past month. By noon that day I must be on board ffee big totirist steamer bound for Seattle, and these years of life among tibe Eskimos would be at an end,

I was delighted at the work I had beea able to acxxmrplisli dttring that time, and my thoughts iiatttraHy tamed once more to a last survey of tfaevast regions which we had traversed and the people we bad met. Otae could not but fed some regret that it was all over and done; a happy spell of work that w<^dd never come again, aad now mtist give place to" tile hurry of returning to civilization, and the ®€ trying to give out again scaa^- tiling of aH I had ii&c€3ved.

Alas, what are t^otfcfe m3a fife itself!

I went out into the morotftg staalight aad felt the

38*

cool breeze in my face. The lakes were already frozen over, and the first sledges were driving over the snowy plains. The town itself was getting ready for the coming winter; white men were writing their letters for the last mail before the port was closed by ice, and the Eskimos were making preparations for return to their scattered villages far around.

As fate would have it, this very morning I received a visit from an angakoq ; one of the few still remaining in these parts. And as he was the last of all I met, it seems fitting to conclude with him*

His name was Najagneq, and I met him for the first time in the streets of Nome, as a fugitive in a strange place. His appearance alone was enough to create a sensation; among the well-dressed people, with fashionable shops on either hand, and motor cars hurrying past, he looked like a being from another world. His little piercing eyes glared wildly around, his lower jaw hung down, swathed in a bandage half undone; a man had recently tried to kill him, aad wounded him badly in the face.

Strange things were told of him. He had turned his house into a fort and waged war single-handed against tie rest of his tribe. And against all white men as welL He had already killed several people, whim he was captured by a ruse and brought in to Norse, Here he was Jcept in prison for a year, and fepd jtist been refeasedipr ki&ctf ^evidence to ‹x›n,vict him. Opinions wefe. divided as to the rights of the case; some declared he was simply half^iiffiad, and a to the community; others regarded him as oa behalf of Ms people agaiiist the whites,

and against those misguided natives who supported them. He was forbidden to speak his own language in prison, and as he could not speak any other, be did not speak at all for a whole year. By the eod of that time, ten witnesses from his own village had been brought in to give evidence against him, but when confronted with the accused, all without exception dedated they had nothing to say. He was known to be a powerful wizard, and no oee dared to give evidence against htrn. In face of this, there was nothing to be done but release him, and send Vmn back to his own place, on Nunivak Island.

I managed to get into touch with him just before his release, and as I happened to be working amoag his fellow countrymen at the time, I had ample opportunities for observation. He was never tired of telling stories of his life in prison, and by no means disinclined to tritsnph a little over those of his own people who had tried to rM tfaeasifres of his #©oe&- tricity by affiance with the whites, yet had not dared to say a word when brought face to face with ****** in court.

He had found fresh food for thought* in this great town. Though accustosned cmly to earthen huts, sledges and kayaks, he was not impressed by tibe great houses, the steamers or the cars; but a white horse pulling a heavy cart had set his imagination woddng. And he solemnly iaf onaed his wondering feUow-tribesmm that the white men in Nome had killed frfrn ten times during the past winter; but be had had ten white horses for his helping spirits, and by sacrificing one oil each occasion be had managed

to save his life! For the rest, his confinement in a solitary cell had not crushed his spirit. He, the great hunter, had learned to talk to the darkness, had vanquished solitude itself, and now, released at last, had accustomed himself to the lack of open air life, of speech and humankind*

This 10 HP wizard was an oldish man, with fiery eyes, a power of words and a forceful utterance that impressed those with whom he spoke. He was curiously gentle and friendly toward me, and when we were alone, was not afraid of confessing that he had been playing on the credulity of his native friends. He was not a humbug really, but a man accustomed to finding himself alone against a crowd, and with his own little tricks of self-defense. Whenever the talk turned on his early visions and the faith of his fathers, he spoke firmly, clearly, and in the plainest earnest. His words were brief and to the point; and I suited myself to his manner as far as I could. So that a conversation between us would be something like this:

"What does man consist of?"

"Of the body; that which you see; the name, wfaich is inherited from one dead; and then of sometfoing more, a mysterious power that we call yutir — the soul, which gives life, shape and appearance to ail that Eves." ,

; ; ?fW!a&t do you think o£ the way men live? "

• They five bcofee&ly, imngtfog all tljings together; because they cannot do one thing at a A great hunter must n0t be a;great lover of But no ooe can help it* Animals are as

•unfathomable in their nature; and it behooves us who live on them to act with care. But men bolster themselves up with amulets and become solitary in their lack of power. In any village there must be as many different amulets as possible. Uniformity divides the forces; equality makes for worthlessness/*

"How did you learn all this?"

"I have searched in the darkness, being silent in the great lonely stillness of the dark. So I became an angakoq, through visions and dreams and encounters with flying spirits. In our forefathers* day, the angakoqs were solitary men ; but now, they are all priests or doctors, weather prophets or conjurers producing game, or clever mejx&ante/lseffing their skill for pay. The ancients devoted their lives to maintaining the balance of the universe; to great things, immense, unfathomable things."

"Do you believe in any of these powers yourself?"

" Yes; a power that we call S2a, which is i0t to be explained in simple words. A great spirit, supporting the world and the weather and aH life on earth, a spirit so mighty that hj$ utterance to mankind is not through common, words, but by storm and ^jow and rain and the fury of the sea; all the forces of nature that men fear But he has also another way of utterance, by sunlight, and calm of the sea, and little children innocently at play, themselves undernothing* Children hear a soft and gentle voice, almost like that of a woman, It comes to them in a mysteriotts -way, but so gently that they are not afraid; they only hear that some danger threatens. And the children mention it as it were casually when they come home, and it is then the business of the angakoq to take such measures as shall guard against the peril. When all is well, Sila sends no message to mankind, but withdraws into his own endless nothingness, apart. So he remains as long as men do not abuse Hfe, but act with reverence towards their daily food.

" No one has seen Sila; his place of being is a mystery, in that he is at once among us and unspeakably far away."

These mighty words form a fitting dose to the sketch I have tried to give throughout this book of Eskimo life and thought* Before many years are past, their religion will be extinct, and the white man will have conquered all, the country and its people; their thoughts, their visions and their faith.

I am glad to have had the good fortune to visit these people while they were still unchanged; to have found, throughout the great expanse of territory from Greenland to the Pacific, a people not only one in race and language, but also in their form of culture; a witness in itself to the strength and endurance and wild beauty of human life.

Najagaeq's words come as an echo of the wisdom we admked in the angakoq we met at every stage of tfe je&smey; in the inhospitable regions of King WSEairfs Land, in Aua's snow-palace at Hudson Bay or m the circle of the Caribou Esktroo Igjugarwhose woids are quoted a£ tte liead of this

A month later, I stood on the roof of a skyscraper looking out over the stony desert of New York. Miteq and Anarulttnguaq stood beside me, impressed, as I was myself, by the marvels we saw about us.

"Ah," sighed Anarulunguaq, "and we used to think Nature was the greatest and most wonderful of all! Yet here we are among mountains and great gulfs and precipices, all made by the work of human hands. Nature is great; Sila, as we call it at home; nature, the world, the universe, all that is Sila; which our wise men declared they could hold in poise. And I could never believe it; but I see it now. Nature is great; but are not men greater? Those tiny beings we can see down there far below, htirrying this way and that. They live among these stone walls; on a great plain of stones made with hands. Stone and stooe and stone — there is no game to be seen anywhere, and yet they manage to live and find their daily food* Have they then learned of the animals, since they can dig down under the earth like marmots, hang in the air like spiders, fly like the birds and dive under water like the fishes; seemingly masters of all that we struggled against ourselves?

"I see things more than my mind can grasp; and the only way to save oneself from madness is to suppose that we have all died suddenly before we knew, and that this is part of another life."

The Expedition was at an end. The years which to us white men had been full of strange happenings and experiences, were just everyday life to our two Greenlanders. It was their turn now; their expedition was beginning. But as I showed them the marvels of this new world, my thoughts were constantly returning to the people we had left, to the men anc^ women who had spoken so simply and yet so powei£ fully of the greatest and the smallest things. Hunger and feasting, happiness and adversity, the daily round and the great moments of life — they spoke of all with true and simple feeling. So here; face to face with a chaos and confusion of marvels, Anarulunguaq found the very words for all it meant : Nature is great; but man is greater still.