Roger Buliard

The government family allowances, distributed to the Eskimos by the Hudson's Bay Company, have been precious help, especially to large families, and have been of great assistance in enabling the Eskimo people to bridge the gap created by the change in their economy wrought by the introduction to fox hunting. One deficiency of the allowance system is that it does not encourage Eskimos to teach their children to live off the country wherever possible. If the Eskimo takes his allowance every month or two, he can only obtain such items as fruit, tinned milk, jam, and so forth--things he doesn't particularly care for or need. It is fat, fish, and meat that a man wants in this country. To acquire credit for nets and ammunition an Eskimo must refrain from drawing his allowance until it amounts to forty dollars. Some arrangement should be made that would encourage the Eskimo to hunt, rather than to live on foods that are unsuitable. 

Whatever the deficiencies of the new dispensantion, it is certainly true that the Inuk is less abandoned than he was a year, two years, ten years ago. And this we must applaud, for when we look at certain statistical data we are forced to shudder at what the figures demonstrate of man's inhumanity toward man.

Monez, in the wake of Diamond Genness, estimated the number of Canadian Eskimos to be twenty-two thousand before the arrival of the white man. Some eight thousand were left in 1921, six thousand in 1931, and about five thousand in 1950. 

We are told that the Eskimo population trend has been reversed, that next year, and the year after, there will be more of them.

Will they be the same caliber of Eskimo, energetic, tough, healthy?

Or will they be a people broken in spirit and health, like the Chippewas to the south?

A single glance at the specimens now growing up seems to show that we may be gaining in quantity only what we have irretrievably lost in quality. The answer to this problem is in better government, better medical services, better police work. Only if epidemics are prevented, tuberculosis checked, ignorance ameliorated, and the methods of trade improved will the Eskimo people have a real chance of surviving with their own peculiar usefulness and beauty intact.

Are we white men harbingers of a new and brilliant era, or simply advance agents of destruction?

Do we bring with us anything more than dollar corruption, and the corporal and moral germs that have afflicted our own civilization?

If the future is to provide a satisfactory answer to these thorny problems, it is imperative that all those who work for the Eskimo, in any field or capacity whatsoever (the government, the civilian commercial enterprises, the Christian Churches), dedicate all their endeavors with supreme determination and utter selflessness not only to save the poor Inuk from extermination, but also to assure him a human "modus vivendi" compatible with the unique environment in which Providence wishes him to work out not only his temporal existence, but his eternal salvation. Then, and only then, will the Inuk, out there on the ice, perceive at last the promise of a bright new dawn that will scatter the darkness forever.

The government is establishing schools in some of the settlements, but, unfortunately, only a small proportion of the Eskimo population lives around the settlements, so these educational facilities are limited in scope. Part-time residential schools should be provided, operating during the good season, so that Eskimo children could be taken out, taught, and returned to their people, thus getting the benefits of education without losing the skills they need to live in the Arctic, as do many Eskimo children nowadays who are taken out to residential schools for several years at a time. When they return North they no longer know how to live. They are neither Eskimos nor white men. Government aircraft, which are flying numberless practice missions over the Arctic anyway, could take the children in and out.

One cannot deny the great benefits that civilization has bestowed upon the Eskimos. Certainly the white man has made life easier for the Eskimo, giving him nets, rifles, and steady trade. And the possibilities for human development implicit in the word "civilization" have at least been indicated to the Inuit.

But it would be idle to contest the contest the statement that civilization has been a mixed blessing so far as the Eskimos are concerned, and sometimes the advantages seem to be outweighed by the real harm that has been done. The trade-store rifles helped the Inuk kill his caribou more easily, but they also led to wholesale destruction of caribou and a change in the animals' migratory habits. The substitution of wool for fur clothing has not been beneficial, nor has the introduction of unsuitable foods into the Eskimo diet. The Eskimo's fur clothing is perfect for the climate, and his diet, heavy with fat, was just the thing for a man who was going to hunt on the ice in forty-below-zero weather. In one sense, civilization, by making things easier for the Eskimo, has really set the stage for the Eskimo's destruction. And the introduction of disease germs has inflicted on the Eskimos the same scourges that decimated the Indians and destroyed their pride. The ravages of disease are plain enough here, and one may deplore the havoc wrought during the last fifteen years alone.

Who is responsible[not God, obviously]?

The government, of course, since any government is always responsible for the welfare of people under its jurisdiction.

What has been Canada's attitude toward "Natives" generally?[The same attitude that Catholic schools had?]

The goverment was unfair to the Indians. After the treaty, by means of which the Indians sold their birthright--the limitless prairies and rich forests--for a mess of lentils, the government permitted tuberculosis, starvation, and loss of liberty to reduce them from a proud, self-sufficient people to a race of permanent invalids.

Was this done innocently, or through oversight? Through ignorance?

One wonders. As an official told Bishop Breynat: "it had been thought that the Indian problem would resolve itself. Their number was diminishing steadily. They would disappear."

The same policy was adopted where Eskimos were concerned.

Toward them Canada had no written obligation, as it had toward the Indians, but only the Biblical warning that we are all our brothers' keepers. Nor did the government have any specific duty toward them, except in moral terms. And so the goverment fell back on a policy that can be summed up in a word: indifference.

Indifference!

Naturally, the Decalogue makes weary progress against the established Eskimo morality, supported as that is by the shamans and the whole system of tabus and fetishes. Since 1860, when Father Grollier made the first attempt to preach the Gospel in the Arctic, the road of the Christian missionary has been a hard one, strewn with the rocks of prejudice and ignorance. 

In the forefront of Christan missionary work in the North stands the Catholic Church. Among the Copper Eskimos alone we have three missions and. six missionary priests, as against a single Anglican missionary at Coppermine. Unlike the others, we live with the Eskimos, speak their language, and travel constantly from camp to camp. Yet the number of our converts is small, for we are a minority in the country, and the Anglican Church represents those with political power, the majority. We are the minority, and to be a minority among a primitive people puts one at a severe disadvantage, for the primite respects power and influence as he respects nothing else. To be a Catholic here in the Arctic often means to be alone, and nothing is more disturbing to the communally minded Eskimo than the prospect of being alone, being individally responsible. He is a tribe-minded man, and to go angainst the tribe, even when he believes he is right, is not in his nature. 

Also, with the Eskimos, religion is often as superficial as a coat of varnish, as is civilization. Even among Eskimos who have been long in contact with the wihte man's civilization, who have borrowed many of the white man's ways, the true Inuk is just beneath the surface and breaks through the gloss under slight provocation.

Then, too, theirs is a natural tendency to regard Christianity as just another, perhaps more powerful, medicine, a better magic than the shaman offers. Young Jimmy has just been confirmed, and to celebrate the event he rounds up the boys for a little poker game and takes his cronies to the cleaners. "Eh, eh!" the others will say, mindful of the recent sacrament, "Sakuiksingortok!"..."That's it. He has been made strong!"

To create in the Eskimo heart the radical change that religion should produce is not an assembly-line procedure, but a task that wants slow, patient work and the ability to smile in the face of apostasy and failure. Our hopes really rest with the chlidren, though of course we do our best for the souls of the present adult generation.

In some ways the Protestant religion seems to sit more comfortably with the Eskimo character. Luther would have been the Inuk's man, when he said: "Pecca fortiter, crede fortius"..."Sin strongly, but believe more strongly." Faith unaccompanied by works. That is the kind of deal that appeals to the Eskimo imagination, and despite its absurdity the Eskimos, used to the wandering arguments of the shamans, do not find it hard to believe. 

The Eskimo looks at the two religions. Both advertise the same God and promise the same reward in heaven. Which one asks the least? The Eskimo closes his left eye cunningly. Naturally, he is going to select the easier way.

Another stumbling block is the sacrament of confession. To unveil one's secrets, even in the sanctity of the Church, goes again[sic] the Eskimo's grain, for he has learned to guard them carefully. It is part of his code to keep things to himself. And the idea of penance doesn't appeal to him either. To be forgiven, after confession, the thief is told explicitly that he must restore the stolen goods, the bigamist give up his extra wife, the murderer make amednds to his victim's family. "No, no!" decides Inuk. The other religion will be quite sufficient, the one that can be outguessed.

Another advantage Anglicianism offers, from the Eskimo point of view, is the fact that the minister generally does not know the language well, but makes do with the kind of pidgin the British employ with natives in every part of the world. This makes it much easier to fool him, and even to mock him to his face, the kind of thing that kindles the Eskimo temperament. Alos, since the Anglican missionary resides at a faraway station, he visits his people once annually at most, and they figure that if they pray good and hard for a couple of days before he gets there that that will be enough. For the rest of the year they can forget it. 

Mind you, I don't for an istant suggest that the Anglican missionary condones this laxness, or is even aware of it in many cases. Certainly he would not knowingly leave as deputy preoachers in Eskimo camps fellows famous for theivery, blasphemy, and adultery.

Unpleasant though the subject is, one must mention too the sometimes rather uncharitable methods the Protestant missionaries have used in their Christian competition with us. For a long time they showed no inclination to bring the Word or the sacraments, even baptism, to the North. Then, when we began our efforts, they rushed into Burnside and baptized everyone, men, women, and children, right and left, without ten minutes' instruction or preparation. Page Henry Ford and the good old Detroit assembly line!

Sometimes they have unsed prejudice and hatred to strengthen their cause. It is difficult to believe that an archdeacon thought he was advancing the cause of Christ when he addressed the following appeal to one of our converts: 

October 1, 1929: 

To Billlie Kimeksina(Tracher)

I hear news not good. I hear Akorturoat[The Long Robes] steal Billie Tracher. No, I think Billie knows God's word. He savvy Roman Catholic not right. What he give you? Little cross? Little God with string to tie on your neck? Suppose lose him, God lost! Some men no master for himself, other men piga. [In good English, "some men are not their own masters, but somebody else's property, like dogs."] That way all Catholic Indians. Priest want to make Esmiko like that. He want make him. slave. You see make Eskimo like that. He want make him slave. You see Catholic Indiians: poor, igonarrnt, all time afarid. Long time I know priest. All time teach his people lies...

No go to priest prayer. He make trap for you, just like trap for foxes. If you go in his trap, he make you slave, make trap for you wife. LOOK OUT.

It is difficult to respect the sincerity of the author of this statement, is it not? And does it not betray a certain arragance, born of power?

The Anglicans have power in the North, because the first traders certainly retained something of what they had learned at their mothers' knees. They were Protestant, to a man, the early H.B.C. post managers, the Police, and others. The Anglicans have influence with established authority, and of course the Eskimos haven't failed to notice it.

But the faults of a few will never make us forget the virtues of the many. Thoes old-timers, gentlemen all, are dear to us, and they were never men to permit prejudice or bigotry to color their dealings with men. There are many now living, some now dead, and I salute them all. These were men who knew how to share the Arctic comradeship with a smile--men of the North--and meeeting them, any one of them, on some remote northern station, or out on the barren ice, was like catching a glimpse of the sun. 

Like the rising of the new sun, too, are the firm conversions we often see here. To watch an Eskimo pass endless hours struggling to learn the fundamental truths, to observe him trying to make the sign of the Cross, naturally inspires us, especially since we know that often he risks what he dreads--isolation--in order to enter the Church of Christ. 

I remember old Napaok--a good, leathery Eskimo of the old school, hunter and pagan of Minto. During my first visit to Victoria I met him out on the sea ice and introduced myself. 

"I am a missionary," I explained. "The Falla."

His old eyes studied the poetic sea horizon. "I have never seen a missinary until now," he said at last. "But from other Eskimos I have heard about the new God."

"Well, it is from Him I come," said I. "Would you like me to reach you?"

Napayok's answer came quickly, but I think it had been a long time in the making; all of Napaok's life, in fact. "Certainly," he said. "How should I call you? And what do I do?"

During the dark months that winter when the sun was in hiding, I passed hours in the clotted air of the snowhouse with Napayok, trying to teach him the words of God, trying to be as patient with hmi as. Iwould have been with a somewhat backward child in France.

"Our Falla..." he would begin, doggedly repeating the words after me, his ancient face wrinkled with effort, his old sea-paled eyes filled with aspiration. He learned the "Our Father" all right, but he never mastered the "I believe ini God..." It was tjust too long for him, I'm afarid. ANd I know that he went to his death still making the sign of the Cross starting on the right-hand side. It may have been because the Good Thief was crucified to the right ouf Our Lord. At any rate, Napayok could never remember that by tradition the left sohuld be first. There were many things he could not remember, but his heart was pure gold. After a longish lession on the sonwhouse he would sigh deeyl and say, leaning back, "Falla, I cannot learn anything, you see. Perhaps I am too old. Perhaps too stupid, too wooden in the head. But I believe what you believe. Is it not enough? I do not know very much, but I feel it is true. Now, could I smoke?"

When he died I was away on a trip, and I returned to find him sewn in his skins, weaiting for his Falla. I carride him back to the mission on my sled and buride him in the little cemetery there. He died a Christian, filled with faith, even though he stumbed over simply prayers and made the sign of the Cross backward.

Amulets, tokens, charms, magic spells, tabus...How much do the Inuit remember from the pool of common knowledge?

Once I was telling them the story of the Flood. An old man became quite excited, and finally interrupted me. Yes, he agreed, in their stories too was the legend of the Great Tide that had swamped the world, drowning all but two or three Eskimos, who had retreated to the peak of a mighty mountain. 

An Eskimo heaven also is mentioned--Kowiasokvik--The Place of Happiness. It is something like the Indians' Happy Hunting Ground, a material paradise, overflowing with game, a haven where there is no hunger, no cold, no misery, where the dogs are always fresh and the snow always the right consistency. You get to Kowiasokvik by doing what the shamans say, wearing your amulets, observing the tabus, and following the Eskimo moral code, which is quite different from ours.

Goodness, according to Eskimo standards, is not a personal but a social matter entirely. An Eskimo may be a sexual monster, a child murderer, a drunkard, a thief, a liar, and a brute. If he is a good hunter, his reputation will be unclouded. After all the Eskimos reason, he was not born for his name to grace the pages of the Alamanach de Gotha, but to kill caribou. If he kills plenty of caribou, he is a good community breadwinner, hence a good fellow, worthy of respect. What he does privately, so far as killing his children or raping his neighbor's daugter is concerned--well, that's nobody's business, really, is it? When he dies he is sure to go to the happy hunting grounds of the Eskimo hereafter. 

There is an interesting parallel here between Eskimo morality and the morality advertised in the Soviet Union, where the greatest crimes are those against the state. A man may be a brute, a contemptible character personally, but if he's thought of as a good communist, a loyal servant of the Soviet state, why, proletarian ethics takes care of it all and he's a hero. If there is a communist Kowiasokvik, he is certain of a reserved seat.

The Eskimo hunter, after death, is always provided with certain necessities, things he will need in that other hunting ground. Beside his body, on some hilltop, will be placed his knife, harpoon, and rifle, and you find these things all over the countryside, mixed with the bones that the foxes have left. Beside the bodies of women they leave stone lamps, needles, and cooking utensils. Her job in Kowiasokvik, it seems, will be the same old round of cooking, sewing, and interminably tending the recalcitrant seal-oil lamp.

One only hopes that a Chief far greater than Atanek, a Chief to whom the Inuit did not pray, may have given his welcome to the weary Eskimo hunters. Surely the Redeemer, Who came for all sinners, will not have refused the poor Inuk, the poor wanderer from the frozen steppes, whose journey certainly has been longer and harder than that endured by most men. 

In addition to the system of fetishes, there is a multitude of tabus, some general and observed by all, others applying only to particular individuals. Sometimes tabus are handed out as cures for illness, like doctors' prescriptions. (And please don't forget the fee up here either!) Others are peculiar to a class of people. The shamans themselves, for example, are forbidden the best dish on the Eskimo menu--seal liver. Most tabus, though, are thought to apply to the whole Eskimo community, and to the Great Eyebrows too.

"Don't throw rocks down a cliff," they warned me. "This offends the atmosphere, and may cause a storm."

One day, for fun, I rolled some boulders over a cliff and watched the Eskimos as they listened to the great rocks crashing against the foot of the cliff. Nothing happened, no storm, not even a little breeze. There was silence.

"Well, at any rate," one Eskimo observed, "don't kill a crow. That is certain to bring bad weather."

I killed a crow as soon as I could find one. And did I pick the wrong day! Or the wrong crow! A few hours later an Arctic tornado mowed down every tent in the settlement. The Eskimos smiled knowingly at me, saying nothing, but very much amused and quite superior.

Virtue, in the Eskimo's mind, is always rewarded with material success. If a hunter who is usually fortunate returns several times with an empty bag, there is only one conclusion. The scamp has forgotten to wear his amulets, or neglected to observe some tabu. He himself will believe this, and castigate himself, and often become quite frantic in his effort to discover his shortcomings. 

It would be presumptuous to deny that the shaman may have sometimes accomplished preternatural feats with the help of evil spirits. But certainly most of them are frauds as palpable as any gypsy fortuneteller, and their "magic" is the result of hypotism, autosuggestion, and a whole climate of fear and awe that surrounds them as a result of tradition[sounds like most religions to me - Travis]. A shaman, by virtue of his power, functions as a kind of unofficial chieftain, and thus carries considerable weight in the community, though his real duties are curing the sick, altering the weather, making the caribou more disposed to being killed, and conciliating the variety of impish spirits that harry the unfortunate Inuk in his daily living. 

One is not born a shaman, incidently, or made a shaman. One simply discovers that he is a shaman. It may be a dream, a revelation, or some unaccountable, miraculous success that prompts the individual to think, "By golly, I think I've got it!" He believes he is a shaman and now announces the fact to others. His acceptance depends on a certain extent upon his daring and his ability as a salesman. To the gullible Eskimo, a vigorous assertion is usually sufficient. Again the Big Lie, boldly told. The greatest asset the sorcerer has is the fear that lurks in the hearts of his fellows. To most Eskimos, the idea of risking the wrath of the spirits by declaring oneself a shaman when one is not is utterly appalling. So he is apt simply to believe, without question.

Tied up with shamanism is the practice of fetishism. The Eskimos are great people for amulets and charms, and all kinds are carried faithfully, and firmly believed in-bears' teeth, wolves' ears, sections of caribou antler, and so forth. These talismen transmit to tthe wearer the qualities of the animal, and also the ability to conquer it. The claws of a hawk, for instance, will certainly give you a good grip. Caribou ears improve your hearing. "Kahak is really strong," they will tell you, "because he is a bear." Since childhood, you learn, Kahak has worn an amulet that symbolizes Nanuk, the bear. Hence, like Nanuk, he is strong--because he is a bear!

The name given to an Eskimo child, is, in a sense, fetishistic too, for the name is believed to carry with it the spirit and good qualities of the deceased who last bore it. But it also involves an almost certain transfer of the spirit--so we have here a vestige of a past belief in the transmigration of souls.

At Minto the favorite magician is a woman, one Kinakia. She makes fancy amulets and fingers an Anglican prayer book. She is quite disarming when you talk with her, the soul of courtesy, and I must confess that her charms look more like rag dolls than potent idols.

But according to the people at Minto, Kinakia's medicine is powerful. Last spring a young fellow drowned in three feet of water. I was told that he had laughed at Kinakia and that the sorceress had put the "eye" on him. Another Minto Eskimo, an old man, was rash enough to sneer at Kinakia, telling her that witchcraft was strictly out of date--a thing of the past. She fixed him. One day in summer at high noon he was traveling inland when, all of a sudden, the light disappeared. He was left in total darkness and his dogs were terrified, snapping and lunging at mysterious enemies hidden along the trail. "Kinakia, pigmana ila"..."She is after me," he muttered. After a while the sun returned and the nightmare quality of the spell was gone, though the fear of it remained in the old man's memory. "Please do not say that I told you," he whispered to me. "But maybe you can stop her, eh?"

One day another Eskimo, while eating, plucked a bone arrow out of his leg. Was it a warning from Kinakia?

Another Inuk, on the trail, met a caribou with a man's head, and the monster simply laughed at his bullets, bounding away with a frightening grin on his face.

Another sorcerer, one Komayak, could not only shot himself with impunity, but do other, more fearsome tricks. He would cause a geyser of boiling water to shoot up through the floor of the snowhouse; then, with certain cabalistic gestures, cut off his leg at the knee and toss it negligently into the jet of scalding water. It remained there for a time, suspended by the water; then Komayak muttered another incantation and retrieved it, putting it back onto his body as neatly as you would button your coat. "Eh, now!" he would say, "How's that?" and permit others to feel for themselves.

By the time I reached the Arctic, Komayak was growing old and his powers were waning. He no longer shot himself, and had given up doing the leg trick with the boiling water, but he was still regarded with healthy respect and quite feared. One dark November night, when a furious wind tore madly at the skin tents and the waves berated the rocky shore, two Eskimo girls sought shelter at the mission, and finally told me with trembling lips that Komayak was having a session. "He is making sorcery, Falla," they said, "and right beside the mission, too."

This was something I wanted to see. I went out into the evil night and approached Komayak's tent with some stealth, intending to eavesdrop on his little seance. I had hardly taken up my station in the cold outside the tent when a voice from within boomed: "Krabloonak manitok!"..."An eyebrow is here!"

In the sickly yellow pall of the stone lamp I saw a ring of Eskimos--Catholics, Protestants, pagans--all staring fixedly at the fur bed where there squatted like a Buddha a man I scarcely recognized as Komayak. His eyes glared, his hands ground fragments of bone, his lips moved, and he uttered sounds that made no sense, seemingly addressed to someone absent. Later I learnt that he was "working" a man who had died a few days earlier. 

I watched him for several minutes, as the trance progressed, and his glazed eyes became more fearsome. Then I called sharply, "Komayak!"

He was silent, then the spell passed off and his face became normal, his eyes lost their glazed look.

"Falla!" he gasped.

His eyes shifted to his rifle, resting on the skins beside him. I moved toward him slowly, attempting to show unconcern, and sat down. "Are you at it again, Komayak?" I asked, a chiding tone in my voice.

"Well no, Falla," he explained. "I've quit the trade, don't you know. But they," indicating the others, "wanted me to try something. You see, with the bad weather we can't go hunting, and it occurred to us that the dead man might just be hanging around somewhere."

They thought that the dead hunter had produced the storm to annoy them, and that if his spirit could be placated, the weather might improve. 

I smiled. "Tell me, Komayak, if you're so smart, why don't you cure your own bandy legs?"

The others laughed at this, and Komayak got mad. Soon the tent was empty and the witchcraft was over for the night. 

The next Sunday, Komayak came to Mass, quite composed. Naturally, my sermon was on sorcery, and I pulled no punches. Komayak listened, his head bowed, and after church he said to me, "Yes, Falla. I cannot do a thing any more. Not a thing."

Most of the shamans were simply shrewd men who exploited the natural superstitions of their fellows and used tricks like those employed by any carnival or circus medium in Europe or the United States.

Were any of the shamans, in the past, perhaps, true sorcerers, true diabolists? I am inclined to believe it is possible.

Nipalariuk may have been one of those truly in league with supernatural powers of evil. He was supposed to be able to fly like an angel. He could see things at tremendous distances and read the minds of others. He was expert at healing the sick, but even better at murdering the healthy, particularly when the healthy one possessed a wife Nipalariuk wanted for himself. He granted favors--many of them--but after a while his misdeeds outnumbered his good ones and everyone wanted him out of the way. Three times the Inuit tried to kill him by strangling and stabbing, but on each occasion his wife brought him back to life. Finally, the Inuit realized that theo nly thing to do was to kill both of them together. That did it. Nipalariuk stayed put.

But if he was finished as a human being, his shamanism was not finished with him. His name was passed on to a nephew, and the evil powers went with it. Or so the Eskimos believed.

I knew this Nipalariuk II, and he was a moron and lazy bum if ever one lived on Victoria. His power was said to derive from a miraculous occurrence. When hunting one day, from a canoe, a fellow hunter discharged his shotgun by accident--both barrels. The blast caught Nipalariuk II in the back, piercing his clothes and burning him, but leaving not a mark on the shaman's nephew. Many witnesses agreed that this was fact.

"Is it true?" I once asked Nipalariuk II.

"Oh, yes, most assuredly," he answered. "My power comes from my name, from my predecessor, the one they could not kill."

"Well, boy," I said casually, "if you are really bulletproof, I am curious. Would you let somebody have a try at you with my new rifle, just to see?"

"Oh, no!" he exclaimed hastily. "I'm not that way any more. I lost the spirit."

And he explained that his father had pronounced over him an incantation that had removed the spell, so that he was no longer possessed. It made him feel better.