Biblical Fundamentalism

I was especially interested in meeting Mr. Fry, because I wanted to learn from him his attitude with reference to certain matters which I had often discussed with various Eskimo, most often with our own employees, notably the form which certain Christian doctrines have taken in their minds, as described by me in Chapter XXVII of this book headed “ On the Conversion of the Heathen .” I found, as I had expected, that although Mr. Fry's ideas of Christianity were more those which one might have expected forty years ago than those in vogue in our enlightened churches of today, still he is in no way intentionally responsible for most of the curious ideas which the Eskimo hold of his teachings and those of his senior, Mr. Whittaker.

In the village near Captain Anderson's ship was, among others, a young boy who had been for several months in Mr. Fry's house for the purpose of learning English as well as mastering the elements of Christianity. Mr. Fry and I had various talks while he was with us about whether the Eskimo still retained the doctrines of their old system, my point of view being that they believed now everything which they had ever believed , and all the doctrines and facts of Christianity on top of that. Mr. Fry felt certain that this young man at least had quite relinquished all the old beliefs. The day before I left Captain Anderson's place Mr. Fry left for the Baillie Islands. It was unfortunately not until after he had gone that Captain Anderson and I got into a talk with the young man who had so long lived with Mr. Fry in his house and who was therefore considered by the rest of the Eskimo to be an authority on the doctrines of the Church . I asked him whether he believed his countrymen were able to fly to the moon, or from one village to another, magically. He said, and there were half a dozen other people in the house at the time who agreed with him, that the fact of many people being able to fly to the moon was a matter of common knowledge, just as their ability to walk on snow -shoes or to snare ptarmigan was a matter of common knowledge. We asked the boy to specify some of the people who could do this, and he named among others Alualuk, at whose house I would sleep on my way west the first day after leaving Captain Anderson's place. He also specified a young man whom I knew well, named Kublualuk, who had long been in the employ of the mounted police at Herschel Island. 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.

After he had given us all the information he had with regard to flying, the boy asked me what I would give anyone who would perform the magic flight for me, and I suggested my rifle and field glasses, both of which were of a kind and quality much coveted by the Eskimo. The young man thought he would very likely be able to find someone who would fly for me in order to get these articles, although he said that the risk of offending God was considerable and the pay small in proportion to the risk. Upon hearing this, Captain Anderson volunteered to give any of them the schooner North Star with her entire cargo , suggesting at the same time that the risk of damnation was not very great, especially if some young man did the flying, for he would no doubt have ample time in which to repent of his wickedness before he died . Of course nothing came of the conversation, for the boy canvassed the village without finding any one who would weigh the prospect of gaining a schooner against the prospect of losing his soul. Captain Anderson said , however, he would be sure when Mr. Fry returned to inform him in exactly how far his favorite disciple and housemate had renounced the beliefs of his Eskimo forefathers.

On the morning of April 11th early we started on our westward march again. By fast travel we reached the eastern edge of the Mackenzie delta proper at eight in the evening and lodged at the house of an old friend of mine, Alualuk (mentioned before), whom I had known on my first expedition in 1906. 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. He told me that not only had he found it an inconvenience to be without the assistance of the spirits which had served him so long and efficiently, but he also missed them as one misses a friend who is dead or who has gone away , for his association with them had been so intimate. Also, he said, the spirits grieved at having been separated from him and he pitied them in their loneliness . Some of them had been moved to anger rather than to grief at being cast out; one or two of them, in fact, would lose no opportunity of doing him harm if they could, so that he had to be very watchful in saying his prayers and keeping the commandments of the Christian Church in order to assure himself of the protection of Jesus from the wiles and meditated attacks of these his former servants. He reminded me that, as I no doubt knew , he had waked Taiakpanna from the dead when he had died a few years ago. That was while the spirits served him. Now Taiakpanna had died again and this time he ( Alualuk ) had been powerless to wake him from the dead. He could now only weep for the loss of his friend and pray that his soul might have found salvation . We were entertained for a day most hospitably by Alualuk's family. They were living comfortably for the present, with an abundance of fish to eat, but they complained much of prospective poverty, for they had been able to get very few foxes and would have little with which to buy tea and tobacco the following summer.

After spending five pleasant days with Mr. Young in his comfortable house we resumed our journeying again, and went on about eighteen miles to another camp of Eskimo whom I had known when I wintered in this district in 1906, and the day after that we reached a village of four or five houses at Tununirk, the south point of Richard Island. It was on Friday that we came there. This was the home of my old friend Ovayuak, who had entertained me so generously at his house for several months six years before on my first visit to the country. I had therefore to stay for several days to talk over old times. There was so much rejoicing in camp over our visit that although the main occupation of the community was rabbit hunting and although there was nothing to eat except the rabbits shot by the men and the ptarmigan snared and the fish hooked by the women, still all these occupations were suspended in honor of our coming, and we feasted so energetically that by Saturday night we had eaten up all the food that was in camp. This did not seem serious to me in the evening, for there were ptarmigan on every hillside and rabbits in every bush, and doubtless a good many fat fish under the ice right in front of our tent door. But on Sunday morning, as I might have known would be the case had I thought of the matter, nobody was willing to do anything toward getting food, for it was now the Sabbath and the Sabbath must not be broken . I felt a bit hungry myself. There were on our sled little provisions beyond a few delicacies which Mr. Young had given us to help along on the journey to Herschel Island, and I was stingy of these, so instead of bringing them out at once I informed the community that I also was well versed in the Scripture and proceeded to tell them the story of how the ears of corn had been gathered on the Sabbath. The consensus of comment was that while to take flour off the bush in the country where it grows might not be wrong, they had had specific instructions that it was wrong to hunt rabbits or to fish on Sunday, and they would therefore prefer to go hungry rather than risk the displeasure of the Deity. 

I thought it would be too much of a task for me alone to go out with the idea of getting rabbits for the whole crowd, so I took out of my sled and shared with them what was not nearly enough food to satisfy our hunger, but it was all we had to do us over Sunday. Monday morning bright and early every one was out hunting and fishing, and long before noon we had plenty to eat. This entire community had been heathen to a man when I lived with them in 1906 . 

It is said sometimes about the people of New England that they consider cleanliness next to godliness. It is true of the Mackenzie River Eskimo today that they look upon washing as a part of godliness. Soaps, towels, and the wash-basins are with them concrete means of grace. Although Christianity had not yet obtained hold among these people as a confession of faith when I first lived with them (in 1906 ), the idea was even then prevalent that washing was a thing of magic value, likely to promote good fortune and turn away evil influences. I tried then and later to counteract this idea as much as possible by seldom washing, but this deterred them in no way , for they knew from my frank avowals that I was not a shaman and knew nothing of the occult forces. 

I found now on Saturday night in Ovayuak's house that things had gone much farther in the matter of washing and towels than they had when I lived with them five years before. Just before bedtime Ovayuak got out a tub filled a quarter full of water and took a bath. Although he had been an apparently healthy man when I first knew him, both he and other members of his family now have sores on various parts of their bodies which I have no doubt are of syphilitic origin. After bathing he wiped with a towel, rubbing it into all these sores . When he was through bathing, his wife took the towel, and after bathing wiped with it also. It was then passed on to the other members of the family, and when everybody had bathed the towel was hung up beside the stove to dry. Next morning when we woke up all the family washed their faces and wiped with the one towel. Several visitors also came in to have breakfast in our house, and, as the custom is among these people now , they all washed their hands and faces in their host's wash -basin and wiped with his towel. I expostulated with Ovayauk, explaining to him by analogies with certain vermin with which they were thoroughly familiar that the germs which inhabit the sores that accompany contagious diseases get on the towel when it is rubbed into the sores , and will later on be transferred by the towel to the eyes and other parts of the bodies of people who wipe with it. Notably would these invisible vermin enter any sores which the person who used the towel might happen to have on his body and would make them sick in turn. By much explaining I was able to make these things thoroughly clear to my Eskimo friends, and it was evident not only that they believed me but also that they were much impressed with the danger they were in. 

When I saw how clear an impression I had made I said : “ Now you must not do these things any more. You must promise me that you won't take any more baths unless you each wipe with your own towel, which you allow no one else to use or unless the towel can be boiled between times.” But they answered regretfully that they could not follow my advice because they had so few towels. God had commanded them that they must wash all over their bodies every Saturday night and must wash their hands and faces before every meal and on waking up in the morning. Their first duty was, they considered, to obey God lest they fail to attain salvation , for they considered that the health of the body was of small consequence beside the welfare of the soul . 

The point is, of course, as we have explained elsewhere, that they look upon the missionary as the spokesman of God, and anything which he tells them they consider he tells them as the direct commandment of the Lord . For that reason, although they were much exercised over the gruesome picture which I had painted of the effects of the promiscuous use of towels, they felt themselves unable to do anything because the commandments of God in the matter had to be obeyed at all costs . They explained to me, as others have done on similar occasions, that when I first knew them and lived among them they had not been Christians, but that they had since learned about heaven and hell and considered that nothing else is of vital importance except the avoiding of eternal punishment ; for after all, they said, a man has to die sometime anyway and it makes comparatively little difference when he dies, but if he observes the commandments of God while he lives, his soul will when he dies go to heaven and dwell there in joy forever.

The Indians give expression to their superstition in diverse other ways. Often their notions have to do with hunter's luck, which must be safeguarded at all costs. Here the influence of woman is of the utmost importance. In many different ways she is supposed to drive the game in the direction of the hunter or to drive it away. 

Women are not permitted to have anything to do with hunting or trapping; they are forbidden to touch the family gun or to set foot in the hunting-canoe and under no circumstances may they paddle over a seine set in a lake — they must paddle round it. Even an article of dress which a woman has made use of may, in certain cases, bring about misfortune. For example, a hunter must be careful to refrain from placing himself beneath such an article and must under no circumstances accept such an article as a present. Once upon a time a starving Indian asked a white man married to a squaw for some clothes in place of the rags he had on. The white man felt sorry for the poor fellow, dragged a fine woolen blanket from the bridal bed, and handed it to him. Instead of thanks, the benefactor received no more than a volley of abuse for having been wicked enough to wish misfortune upon another's head. Strangely enough, the same Indian would not have hesitated an instant to come in contact with the same woolen blanket had the white man's squaw under a different set of conditions been alone beneath it. 

Since ancient times women during their period of menstruation have been considered as unclean and obliged to maintain a separate existence. Even today traces of this custom are observable east of Slave Lake, but, in so far as my own experience has determined, the custom is more general amongst the tribes living along the Mackenzie River. In certain localities women during this critical period are forbidden to use the door of the cabin. There is a hole in the wall just beneath her bunk, and through this aperture she must crawl in and out. Nor is she permitted to follow along the common trails. A trapper once told me that he had come across the tracks of one of these "unclean" women. Mile after mile they went through the deep snow alongside a well-packed sled-trail. 

Thus the Indian's world of ideas reeks with mystical superstitions, as is always the case with those striving to maintain their lives in the wilderness. Just how their mental outlook came to develop will be perhaps best understood by those who have themselves tried living up there in the north. When the sun stands shedding its warmth over the snow-fields for the first time after a long winter, and when the caribou begin by the million to flood the wastes which formerly lay empty and desolate, it may then well happen that each and every one feels within himself a sudden wave of that same heathenish feeling which first caused the Indians to bow down before the sun and offer up their praise to the god of the hunters.

The cholera lectures gained new converts to the cause of meatless living and garnered praise in some circles of the established medical profession. A group of physicians in Maine reported that “we entertain a high sense of our obligations to Mr. Graham for his Lectures on the Science of Human Life, in which the laws of the vital economy have been explained and elucidated by a great variety of original, striking and happy illustrations.” Similarly, John Bell—a Philadelphia medical doctor who later became a harsh critic of Grahamism—reported that Graham “speaks like a man who has earnestly and carefully examined his subject” while claiming to “known of no lecturer or writer out of the profession, who is, in the main, so well informed in physiology.” 

A key component of Graham’s meat-free diet was a reevaluation of the bread consumed by Americans to accompany nearly every meal. In the early nineteenth century most bread was baked at home and comprised of corn or rye meal. However, as the decades progressed, cities grew, and men and women joined the industrial workforce, more and more Americans purchased their daily bread from a local baker. Produced in mass batches, this bread differed in composition, often whitened through the process of bolting, which removed the outer casing from grains and with it much of the nutritive value.  

The bolting process often utilized chemicals such as chlorine in order to whiten grains. As a result, white bread was less expensive and in greater abundance, particularly with the spread of large farms into western New York and the Midwest that provided cheaper, abundant wheat. The bread was also produced outside of the household. As Americans were shifting from producers to consumers, Sylvester Graham offered a critique of the increasing disconnect between individuals and their food sources.  

With a heavy dose of nostalgic yearning, Graham hearkened back to “those blessed days of New England’s prosperity and happiness when our good mothers used to make the family bread.” Bread baked at home, according to Graham, was crafted with care and control over its ingredients, while the wheat used to make bakers’ white bread was inferior, aimed at maximizing profits rather than dietary excellence. These principles led to the development of what became known as Graham bread, “coarse wheaten bread” that was “the least removed from the natural state of food” and “best adapted to fulfill the laws of constitution and relation.”  

Throughout his cholera lectures in 1832, Graham labeled bread as “the most important article of artificially prepared food used by civilized man” and warned of “the pernicious effects of superfine flour bread.” Graham pointed to the greedy motives of bakers who “make bread and sell it for the profi ts of the business, and not for the sake of promoting your health.”   When it came to bread and diet in general, individuals had a responsibility to regulate their own bodies by taking control over what was ingested. Graham’s attacks on bread offered a harsh critique of the rise of industrial capitalism in the United States, warning against the profit-driven motives of bakers and farmers, looking to “extort from those acres the greatest amount of produce, with the least expense of tillage, and with little or no regard to the quality of that produce in relation to the physiological interests of man.”  

Although Graham first advocated for wheat bread as a pulpit minister in New Jersey, broader audiences began to become aware of its existence as his activities gained attention. Frequently the coverage was negative. As early as July 1832, Atkinson’s Casket —a humor magazine published in Philadelphia—mocked Graham bread as indigestible and hard enough to break a window.  However, the journal’s use of the term Graham bread without a precise definition illustrates that the product was already known in some circles. One publication described Grahamites as appearing too thin and irrationally inflexible in their dietary ideals. Another pleaded for the “speedy extinction of Grahamism,” an event that “should be witnessed by every lover of mankind.”  The New York Mirror labeled Grahamites as being filled with “humbug” and the system as filled with “absurdities[,] . . . perversion and folly.”  One medical journal said Graham was “entirely out of his element” in discussing matters of health and driven by “pride and vanity.”  Other publications mocked the culinary choices of Grahamites. New York’s Morning Herald described Grahamites as clinging to a “crusty morsel like half starved dogs, and prefer[ing] sawdust bread to fresh, superfine flour.” The author stated that a bachelor friend was lonely not because of inherent personality flaws but rather because of “the awful catastrophe” known as Grahamism. The New England Review described the “first Grahamite” as “the man who fed on husks until he lost all his flesh.” The individual, however, reportedly soon found his way, and “was very glad to make public confession of his folly for the sake of a cut from the falled calf.”  The New York Review was explicit in its rejection of a Grahamite, meatless diet, referring to it as “dietetic charlantanry.”