A FAIR RACE OF ESKIMO.

 

Volume 21 1912 > Volume 21, No. 3 > A new human race, p 134-136

A NEW HUMAN RACE.

[In Vol. XX., p. 224, Note 225. we referred to Mr. V. Stefansson's discovery of a new human race. We now supply a little more information on the subject, copied from the “Times Weekly Edition” of August 16th, 1912.]

FIVE YEARS AMONG THE ESKIMO.

A Lost Tribe.

PROFESSOR James Mavor, of the University of Toronto, has received very interesting letters from Mr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, one of the leaders of the Anglo-American Expedition to the Arctic seas, who claim to have discovered a long-lost European tribe in Far Northern Canada. The expedition set out in 1905. The first letter received by Professor Mavor is dated from Shingle Point, April 28th, 1906, the last from the Mouth of the Dease River, January 21st, 1911.

A FAIR RACE OF ESKIMO.

In the course of a letter dated from Langton Bay, Stefansson, writes:—

We have in four years travelled by sled more miles than any other travellers in the Arctic who have tried to live on the country. We have discovered a dense population (as Eskimos go) in districts labellad “uninhabited” in the “Aborigines of Canada” map issued by the Government. We have found a thousand people, and through them know of another thousand (in Victoria Land), who never saw a white man, a rifle, or a sulphur match. We have lived with a group of these people five months and know their speech, habits, and conditions. A point of some interest is our discovery of some people in South-Western Victoria Land who are strikingly non Eskimo in type—in fact, look more like North-Europeans than Eskimos. Their speech and culture is Eskimo, though I found one or two words that might reasonably be thought to be from old Norse.

The most European-looking group (of which I saw only 17 out of 40), the Haneragmiut opposite Cape Bixley, is not isolated in the sense that there are fair beards and eyebrows in many other groups; and there is hardly a man west of the Coppermine Mouth who is quite as dark in skin, eyebrows, and beard as are the Mackenzie Eskimos, or the Alaskans.

I have heard stories which lead me to believe that one or more survivors of Franklin's expedition lived for some years amongst the Eskimos in Victoria Land; but be that so, it will explain nothing, so far as the South-West Victoria Land physical type is concerned. If you date the origin of the fair type less than a century back and assume that the type springs from the marriage of white men with - 135 Eskimo women, then a thousand whites married among the Eskimo would be an insufficient number to produce the condition found. It seems to me that if admixture of white blood is the explanation of the origin of the fair type in Western and South-Western Victoria Land, then the only historical event that can explain it is the disappearance from Greenland between 1412 and the 17th (?) century (Hans Egede's Voyages) of the Icelandic (Scandinavian) colony of 3,000 people.

In the same letter Stefansson says that he and his party discovered that the rivers La Roncière and MacFarlane are pure creations of the imagination, and that they traced the Horton River, which is larger than the Coppermine, for 400 miles.

THE POSITION OF WOMEN.

In a letter dated from Shingle Point, Arctic Ocean (approximately lat. 69° N. long. 137° W.), on April 28th, 1906, Stefansson says:—

There seems to be nothing in the nature of a ceremony connected with entering into conjugal relations. There may be, and often is, an understanding between principals, but the essential is that the consent of the parents be obtained and then that of the prospective bride. A negative from any of those three settles it for the time being—otherwise the marital relations are entered into on the day of the agreement, and as simple as if they were being resumed after a short separation among us. The great majority of the marriages seem to be temporary. If they last beyond the year the chances are they will become permanent. For divorces after more than a year are rare—except where women have left native husbands (usually by the husband's consent) to become “wives” of white men. The habit of lending wives is about confined to those who have two wives—and there never were many of these in any village. Three wives at one time is the greatest number I have heard of, and that was when men, now middle-aged, were boys. Exchange of wives is still practised, but only among close friends.… The line of division of labour is not always clear. Both sexes row boats and some women hunt deer with the rifle. Both tend fish nets. When there is plenty of time the women both cook and make clothes, but men often cook when the women are otherwise engaged, and often mend their own clothes for a similar reason. I have never seen anything approaching a quarrel between a man and his wife.

MEDICINE AND RELIGION.

In another letter Stefansson says:

There are two ways of treating diseases or injuries among the Kogmolliks (Herschel Island to Parry). These are:—(1) Blood letting (apparently referred to by some writers as “counter irritation”) and (2) magic. Whether the latter is exorcistic in purpose I have not yet learnt. The gashes for blood letting are one and a half or two inches long and skin deep. They are over the real or fancied seat of the disease, or near it, and are cut by the man himself, or anyone who is present when the patient decides he wants the cut made; there is, of course, no fee though a second person does the work. Certain men in the community are known as doctors. The statements as to how they become doctors are inconsistant, and so far I have not made up my mind. Their treatment is by songs and dances, with sometimes a sleight-of-hand trick or two, and neither the invalid nor the audience take any active part. The details are somewhat complicated, and I have seen no - 136 performance so far. After the performance the doctor is paid—in the old days the fee went as high as two to three whaling uniaks (big skin boats). If the invalid is poor everybody gives the doctor something—a fox-skin, spear, bag of oil, or other things of value. If the man treated dies within the year his wife or children get the fee back—under other conditions the fee is retained.

Of their former religious conditions I know little as yet—I merely note their attitude towards Christianity. The Kogmolliks seem to be natural sceptics. The work of the missionary among them seems therefore to be largely destructive. It is easy for him to persuade them that fish are not annually created by a woman of the deep sea, and that songs and dances cannot cure serious diseases or work any tangible results. But when he broaches the Genesis story of Creation and urges the efficacy of prayer he has less success. There are said to be but two converts here, after all the efforts of two Bishops and an energetic missionary for many years. But while they take little interest in the missionary's religious teachings, it is different with his secular instruction. There has been maintained at Herschel Island a school for several winters. This has been attended by men and boys of almost all ages, and a surprisingly large number can read and write a little.