The Eskimo is one of the great triumphs of our species. He has succeeded in adapting himself to an environment which offers to man but the poorest chance of survival. Even under most trying conditions he has maintained rudiments of ar and religion. His technical solutions of problems of the Arctic are so excellent that white settlers would have perished had they not adopted many elements of Eskimo technology. Study of the Eskimo way of life is not only fascinating, but of ever increasing practical importance, as the Arctic has suddenly shifted from the periphery into the center this brave new air world; and it harbors great, still untapped, economic potentialities. The Eskimos inhabit the American part mainly, that is two-fifths of the Arctic Circle. While the Eurasian Aric people are reindeer-raising nomads, the Eskimo is primarily a hunter sea mammals. He represents an adaptation to the Arctic climate that is specific to the New World. In addition to hunger, the Eskimo fights another, perhaps even mightier, enemy: the cold. Besides the problem of procuring foad, he is therefore faced by the problems of ade- quate ciothing and housing, problems which most other primitive people, the naked sov. can solve with relative ease further. more, he has to solve all these problems on the very narrow economic basis of one single activ- ity: hunting. In his world no agriculture, husbandry, no food gathering are possible; and even hunting is not always practicable. The Polar issimos for instance are unadlesto hunt curing two of the four sunless winter months It is therefore not surprising to learn that every winter in most every iskimo trbe several families die of starvation. Chaplins joke of eating boots has all too often become a grim reality in Eskimo life. Even cannibalism occurs during famines. The climate in the region inhabited by the Eskimos shows great seasonal variations, even with regard to daylight and darkness. In the northernmost parts of the Eskimo territory, sun- light is continuous tor four months, while for 3 months in winter no sun shines at all. and light is provided only by the moon and The summers are short and cool, lasting from June to August, and the temperature does 60 P. even under lavomble conditions. The development of plant life is almost explosive when the snow starts melting Mosquitoes are plentiful and quite bothersome. In winter the samo territory is covered by snow. The coastal region does not become as cold as certain parts of the Siberian interior Nevertheless averse winter temperatures of -009 10 -30 L: are quite common. Boas rives the following description of the mood of the Eskimo in the wintertime: While in the time of plenty the home life is quite cheerful, the house presents a sad and gloomy appearance if stormy weather prevents the men from hunting. The stores are quickly consumed, one lamp after another is extinguished and everybody sits motionless in the dark hat. Nevertheless the women and men do not stop humming their monotonous amna ad and their storism in enduring pangs of hunger is really wonderful."

The name Eskimo, derived from an Indian word meanine characteries well those who call these vee . i men The greater part of the exclusive meat diet of the Eskimos is indeed eaten raw. The meat is often frozen , and not seldom decayed, when it comes from old caches, Fuel which consists mostly of the blubber of seals and other sca mammals is too scarce to allow cooking of all the meat consumed. An exclusive meat diet makes it necessary to procure relatively large numbers of animals. Three men and six dogs require about two seals a week. Like the polar bear, the Eskimo is a land animal that lives at the edge of the son and mainly preys upon the denizens of the latter From the sea the Eskimo not only obtains his food, clothing, and fuel, but ivory and what little wood he has, that IS, driftwood. The wood shifts from Siberia as far as Greenland. Eskimos do not go farther than 50 miles inland. The principal source of the Eskimo food supply is the seal, especially the ringed scal (Pboca foetila) and the bearded seal (Eri- gnathus barbats). During the long winter when the fjords are covered with ice the Eskimo has to wait for long hours at the breathing hole, which the seal maintains in the ice. He spears the animal through the snow covccing the breathing hole, when it comes to the surface. This strenuous method of hunting seals is called man pol. In the spring when the ice breaks up, the seals are killed at the edge of the floe, where they bask in the sun. This hunting technique is called utol (see illustration, p. 897). During the short summer, at least in the more southern parts of the Eskimo territory, when the water is open. sez are hund the well-known Eskimo hunting boat, the kayak. In hunting the seal the Eskimo uses an admirably constructed harpoon, consisting of a shaft and a detachable ivory (now icon) head* to which a long line is fastened, so that the stricken animal cannot escape The harpoon may be propelled by throwing board. 2 contrivance known from

August 21.- We now pushed for the Fiord or opening to the south, which I expected would lead us again to the coast. After pulling a distance of sixteen miles, we encamped a tour sixth station. The inlet was from a quarter of a mile to a mile and a half in breadth, but of a sufficient depth of water for a vessel drawing 14 feet; the sides were more level than the shores we had hitherto passed the mountains not rising so abruptly from the sea, and the face of the country presenting a less barren and heath-like appearance. We shot some swans, which we found excellent eating. 

August 22.- Proceeded up the inlet, the head of which we soon reached : it terminated in low marshy land, about eighteen miles from its entrarice from the bay; named it Loch Fine. Up to this period, with the exception of the gale on the night of the 17th, we had had a constant calm, accompanied with the most beautiful and serene weather, so that the whole distance we had hitherto come, we had always occasion to make use of our oars. After refreshing ourselves at our seventh station, we started on our return, with a fine breeze from the southward, and made such progress, that we were enabled to reach our Esquimaux friends the same evening, although it had again fallen calm, and we were obliged to ply our oars for the last seven miles. 

August 23. and 24. 

These two days were spent with the natives, whom we found to consist of twelve in number, including women and children. We were well received by them, but our attempts at making ourselves understood were very unsuccessful. They are evidently the same race as the Esquimaux in the other parts of Greenland and the northern parts of America. Our intercourse was of too short duration to acquire any of their language ; but the descriptions given by Captains Parry and Lyons of the natives at Igluleik, in many particulars resembled those of our friends. I observed particularly the same superstitious ceremony of sprinkling water over a seal or walrus before they commence skinning it. 

Their amazement at seeing one of the seamen shoot a seal was quite unbounded. They heard for the first time the report of a musket, and turning round in the direction in which the animal was killed, and floating on the water, one of them was desired to go in his canoe and fetch it. Before landing it he turned it round and round, till he observed where the ball had penetrated, and, putting his finger into the hole, set up a most extraordinary shout of astonishment, dancing and capering in the most absurd manner. He was afterwards desired to skin it, which he did expeditiously and well. Wishing to give them farther proofs of our skill in shooting, several muskets were fired at a mark, but without permitting them to see us load. A pistol was afterwards put into their hands,and one of them fired into the water; the recoil startled him so much, that he immediately slunk away into his tent. 

The following morning we found they had all left us, leaving their tents and every thing behind, which I have no doubt was occasioned by their alarm at the firing.

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During the winter of 1866-7, and following summer, Captain Libby, of our Telegraph Service, with nearly forty men, stopped at this inaccessible place. At Grantley Harbour, a good titation, and other houses (which have been left there), and portions of the telegraph line, were built by these men. It was, as before stated, the spot intended for the Bering Strait cable “landing” on the American side, and it has been already mentioned as the central point at which the natives of Kotsebue and Norton Sounds, and the neighbouring country, meet the Tchuktchis from the Siberian coast. Many whalers annually visit this harbour for trading purposes, and I expect to hear of a permanent white settlement being formed there. The experience of the earlier Arctic explorers, as of our telegraph men, shows that it is a good spot to winter in. Some of our men there, at one time very short of provisions, lived for months at an Indian village near Cape Prince of Wales. Supplies from the resources of the country were very uncertain. In 1866-7, the natives in the neighbourhood were almost starving, and were at one time reduced to boiling down their old boots and fragments of hide, in order to sustain life. “ Yet,” said a correspondent (a member of our expedition), writing from thence, “ the party under Captain Libby although without bread or flour for some weeks, escaped the scurvy entirely. The generally received opinion that scurvy is generated from want of flour, does not seem to be correct. At the station (Fort St. Michaers), where plenty of flour was received, and freely used, they wore afflicted with this disease; while at Port Clarence, where they were almost entirely dependent upon the resources of the country for some weeks, living upon walrus and seal meat, without flour or bread, no symptom of scurvy made its appearance.”

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https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.37317/page/n293/mode/2up?q=Scurvy 

Some few of the workmen had suffered from frost-bite and scurvy. A propos of the latter terrible scourge, it is to be remarked, that our men at Port Clarence, the worst fed of all our parties, who had lived for a long time on a native diet of walrus and seal blubber, had not suffered from it at all, while those in Norton Sound, who got a fair amount of flour, &c., from the Russian posts, suffered severely from the disease.

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The Eskimo used to hunt only what he needed--bear, seal, caribou.

The little foxes--Tiriganiak--he despised. In the old days the Copper Eskimo hardly recognized the existence of the fox. If he met one on the trail he might risk an arrow on him, just to try his skill, but never because he wanted the animal. Fox meat makes poor eating, and fox fur is too frail for anything but baby clothes.

But fashionable women in Paris and New York did not share the Inuk's contempt for the fox. They regarded Tiriganiak's silvery fur as a perfect complement to their gleaming shoulders. What women want, men will get, and so the white man came to the Arctic after foxes and dinned into the Eskimo's ear the value of fox pelts.

"Do you want a rifle, eh, Inuk? Ammunition? Then go and get us foxes, plenty of foxes. Plenty of foxes."

The Eskimo wanted the white man's rifle, steel knife, fish net, boat. So he went after foxes. And soon he found he was so busy getting the miserable little animals that he had no time left in which to hunt for real meat--for bear and caribou. Observing the white traders, he saw them eating bread and jam, and tea with sugar. The new food was no good. It had no taste, and certainly didn't stay with one on the trail. But the Inuk wanted to imitate the Krabloonak. He ate the white man's sugar, and soon it became a habit. He found that he could not do without it. 

"Sugar!" he says. "The Eyebrows offered it to us for nothing, just to try, and we threw it away. The taste of that sand was so bad. Now we have got to like it, but they no longer give it to us. They sell it, and dearly. Mamianar! Calamity!"

Systematically, the white traders ensared the Eskimos, making them slaves to commodities of which they had felt no need before the Eyebrows came, unnecessary luxuries such as flour, silk, sugar, even chewing gum. All these things the Inuit paid for--by giving up his healthy, free life in exchange for trivial luxuries. He ceased to be a hunter, in many cases, and became a trapper, a slave to the little foxes he despised. Thus Tiriganiak--the smallest of all--revolutionized the Eskimo's life, at least the lives of those Eskimos close enough to the traders' posts to come under their influence.

Not too long ago, all Eskimos hunted to clothe and feed themselves. Now they go after foxes, with which to buy some jam, or a Micky Mouse watch, or a cheap, tinny-sounding phonograph. They haven't time to hunt fo seal to provide oil for their lamps, so they buy the white man's kerosene. More foxes. There is no caribou meat on hand, so he eats the white man's flour. More foxes. Soon he lives in a vicious circle, like a knifegrinder's dog in his wheel cage.

Thus, in those areas where the traders hold sway, the happy hunter of old has become a kind of clerk. Once fierce and independent, ignoring tomorrow and contemptuous of anyone who mentioned it, now he is always in debt, as badly off as a petty office worker caught in the clutches of the race-track bookmaker. Once his life was diversified--today hunting, tomorrow sealing, the next day fishing--whatever satisifed the whim of the moment. Now he must turn all his energies toward the capture of the fox. And the supreme irony, of which he is aware, is in the fact that he, the Agun, the male, must outstrip himself to satisfy the desires of the scorned Arna--the woman. And the Krabloonak's woman, at that.

Along the coast, noawadays, one often hears from the Eskimos a bitter, disillusioned cry. "Kakertogot taima"..."We are always hungry now."

Of course they were hungry. The Eskimo is a carnivore. His body craves meat--seal, bear, caribou, fish--and the climate and his hard life aren't satisfied by anything else. Half a grapefruit and a couple of pieces of toast are not the breakfast for the Inuk at all, but for another class of people.

Yet the Inuk counts on the little foxes to provide his sustenance all the year round, and sometimes the foxes don't turn up. Then he's in trouble. Then there is famine. And it is usually too late before the Inuit resign themselves to going out on the ice after seals, as they should have done early in the winter. They starve. At Coppermine, in 1948, for example the whole Eskimo colony kept alive only by eating old skins, boots, and other rubbish--and this not fifteen miles from a white man's settlement.

You might blame the traders themselves, and it is true that some are mightily unscrupulous, but it is not the individuals who should be blamed, but the system, and the government that encourages it. I am told that such tragedy is not known among the Eskimos in Greenland, under Danish rule, though it matches the colonial pattern elsewhere--in the sugar islands of the Caribbean, for eample, where the natives were persuaded to forego their food crops in order to plant sugar cane, and where starvation results when the sugar crop is poor or when the market drops and the price breaks. 

The Eskimos have never heard of the seven lean kine. A trapper may bag three hundred foxes in one year and three the next, but it never occurs to him to store provisions against a bad season. Of course, we must blame him for his improvidence. But must we not also blame the white men who profit vilely from the Eskimo's ignorance, who take advantage of a good fox season by importing diamond rings, gold watches, silk dresses, chronometers, and similar goods? Of what use is a diamond ring to a woman who's going to wear it for cutting seal blubber, if she's lucky enough to have a seal to cut up? What good is a chronometer, complete with sweep second hand, to a man who doesn't care a whit for time? Of what use is a silk dress under a greasy caribou parka?

With melancholy one must watch a venal civilization displace the old Eskimo style. The white man is as devious as Sila. He takes much, and gives little. He talks big, and the rewards look inviting, but when the season is over he has the foxes and what has Inuk?

An empty belly. A forlorn view of the future. The precious watch will soon be opened to see what makes it tick and ruined by snow or water. The elegant dress will soon because a greasy snot-stained rag. The diamong ring will not be worn long before it is lost down a seals' hole. Alas!

The results of analyses of Eskimo foods are presented in Table 1. On the basis of nutritional surveys with individual food weighings in different families from four Eskimo settlements in Alaska and the above-mentioned results of cholesterol determinations in Eskimo foods, supplemented by figures available for the cholesterol content of nonEskimo foods (Okey, 1945; Pihl, 1952), the cholesterol intake of Eskimos has been estimated (Tables 2, 3). From these calculations it is observed that the mean caloric consumption of the 45 adult male and female Eskimos was about 2,700 calories, the fat consumption was 105 g and the mean cholesterol intake was roughly 340 mg daily, varying from 150 mg to 700 mg per day. It should be noted that these cholesterol figures may be considered as minimum values because several of the food items ingested could not be included in the calculation since the cholesterol content was unknown. It may also be noted that the cholesterol intake varies greatly from one Eskimo group to another, depending on the different dietary habits. Thus, it was observed that among the inland Eskimos, the Nunamiuts at Anaktuvuk Pass, some of the men consumed as much as 70 grams or more of boiled brain from mountain sheep in a single evening meal yielding almost 600 mg cholesterol from this food item alone. 

It is thus evident that some Eskimos have fairly high cholesterol intakes compared with healthy American white men, although the mean intake for the 45 Eskimos studied is in the order of 2.5 g per week (varying from 1 to 5 g) . This corresponds to the group of moderate habitual cholesterol intakes reported for normal American men (Keys, 1949) while in the Inland Eskimos the mean figure is in the order of 4 g cholesterol per week, which corresponds to the group of highest habitual cholesterol intakes for normal American men, reported by Keys (1949). 

Keys (1950) has estimated that the American diet varies with regard to cholesterol content from a low of 200-300 mg daily to 700-800 mg, depending on the food consumed. Gubner and Ungerleider ( 1949) have given the figure 200--360 mg for daily cholesterol intake on a mixed diet. 

It thus appears that the estimated mean figures for cholesterol intakes in Eskimos may be comparable to those of Whites on a mixed diet. 

The average figure for the daily fat consumption in the 45 Eskimo subjects reported here was only about 105 g (377 of the calories), while in a larger survey the average daily fat consumption in Alaskan Eskimos was 139 g (40 % of the calories). In normal white men living in Alaska the fat consumed represented 37.5 %( of the calories ingested. 

In the Eskimo subjects the mean serum cholesterol concentration was 203 mg per 100 ml (Table 4) which is about the same as is found in normal Whites. Thus L. J. Milch (personal communications) found an average level of 207 mg cholesterol per 100 ml serum in Whites 30-35 years old. 

On the other hand, the Eskimo serum concentration of Sf 12-20 lipoproteins was 20 mgl100 ml as against 28 mgl100 ml in Whites of similar age, observed by Milch (personal communications). For Whites under 25 years of age Milch found 24 mg/lOO ml, and for Whites 40-45 years of age 38 mg/l 00 m!.