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History List
With the possible exception of the Bowhead Whale, the Caribou is without doubt the most important animal of the Arctic. There is scarcely anything manufactured which can equal Caribou skin as an article of clothing; in many districts the natives live for long periods almost exclusively upon the meat of the Caribou, while there are many vast sections of the land which could with difficulty even be explored without relying upon finding the herds of Caribou.
My Life with the Eskimo - Caribou - Tuktu
May 10, 1910
The only roots which I have seen used as food by the Eskimo are the roots of a species of Knotweed Polygonum bistortum. The roots of plants of this genus, known to the Eskimo as Mā'sū, or Mā'shū, are frequently dug and eaten in summer, but usually only when there is a scarcity of meat or fish for food.
My Life with the Eskimo - Notes on Plants
June 11, 1911
Stefansson: "I am so great an admirer of the Eskimo before civilization changed them that it is not easy to get me to say that civilization has improved them in any material way, leaving aside, of course, the question of whether it profiteth a man that he gain the whole earth if he lose his own soul."
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 27
February 19, 1912
Dr Marsh was stationed in the Arctic and tried to change the Eskimo's minds on how to engage themselves during the whale hunting season, but instead they considered him an immoral Christian and asked for his removal, whereby they lost the only doctor around for hundreds of miles.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 27
April 1, 1908
It is Hiawatha and not the ordinary Indian who deserves the credit for introducing the art of corn-growing; and so it is Christ and not any ordinary human being who deserves the credit for having taught white men how to raise wheat and grind it into flour.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 27
February 2, 1912
Ilavinirk continued: “Yes, it is a great pity; for the missionary has told us Christ came to all the people of the earth, and He never came to the Eskimo. I suppose that must have been because He visited the other countries first, and had not yet found time to visit the Eskimo before He was killed.”
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 27
February 17, 1912
Christianized Eskimo blacklist an old couple who wouldn't convert to Christianity. "All arguments had failed to convince her of the truths of Christianity, and she kept saying that she had seen the spirits of her own belief cure disease, avert famine, and bring a change of wind, and she had yet to see that the new religion could do any better."
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 27
June 1, 1911
Stefansson explores the conversion of the heathen Eskimo by comparing them to all other religions - "I remember the professor of church history and allied subjects explaining how in Europe Christianity underwent local changes to suit itself to the environment and understanding of the different peoples as it spread northward during the early centuries of our era."
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 27 - On the Conversion of the Heathen
February 9, 1912
Alualuk had then been a shaman in possession of half a dozen familiar spirits which enabled him to cure diseases, wake people from the dead, and perform various miracles with the greatest ease. He told me now that since I saw him last he had become a Christian, had renounced all his familiar spirits, and was now as powerless as I or any other man in dealing with the things of the other world.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 25
April 11, 1912
Alualuk, he said, had unfortunately embraced Christianity and had since then ceased to fly, but Kublualuk, he thought, had not yet been converted and would still have his old powers. There were others who could do it too, some of them right in the village beside us; but he thought that perhaps none of them would fly even if I asked them to, because they now understood that to employ familiar spirits is wicked and that a man cannot employ them without endangering his prospects of salvation.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 25
April 5, 1912
She told me of how diseases were controlled, how famines were averted, how people were killed or cured by magic, how the future could be foretold and the secrets of the past uncovered, how people could see through hills and fly to the moon, and various things of that sort of which the Christian Eskimo pretend an ignorance and of which they will either tell you nothing or else half truths and untruths.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 24
March 12, 1912
Hubert Darrell was a man who understood thoroughly the principle of “doing in Rome as the Romans do,” and he had on many occasions, to my knowledge, in the past applied that principle so well that he was as safe as an Eskimo in his wanderings about the country; and really safer by far, for he had learned all the Eskimo had to teach him, and added to that knowledge the superiority of the white man's trained mind, and a natural energy and resourcefulness that are rare among men of any race.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 23
January 1, 1901
The Sound people are evidently the most prosperous Eskimo we have seen; they are the most "travelled” and the best informed about their own country (Victoria Island) and its surroundings. Dietary habits surrounding bear, musk-ox, fish, seals, and even macu roots are discussed.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 18
May 16, 1911
The system of taboos relating to eating caribou and seals at the same time are discussed by Stefansson. "The flesh of caribou and of seals must not, among some tribes, be eaten at the same time, nor must the flesh of caribou be eaten on the sea at all."
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 17
May 2, 1911
Besides that, this is the season which the Eskimo give up to the accumulation of blubber for the coming year. Fresh oil is not nearly so palatable or digestible as oil that has been allowed to ferment in a sealskin bag through the summer. A single family's store of oil for the fall will run from nine hundred to two thousand pounds.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 17
May 1, 1911
The natural feelings of sympathy that had grown up through a year of association with these people, who in their way were so infinitely superior to their civilized brethren in the west, made me regret that civilization was following so close upon our heels.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 16
April 15, 1911
The stories of Kaplavinna, a whale killer, are told to Stefansson in a remote village, but he soon discovers that they are the retellings of an Eskimo he had brought with him and that myths can spread through simple misunderstandings."When Natkusiak told these stories, as I noticed on many occasions, he never made any allowances for the fact that he was dealing with things entirely strange to the local people."
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 16
April 10, 1911
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