Pre-civilization races

Paniaq is the kind of man one cannot help noticing. His eyes are brown, with a humorous gleam; his mouth is wide and sensitive. The forehead is well arched, the nose high-bridged and straight. The black-browed temples project a little; the chin bone too is clearly marked, but not strikingly so. His complexion is rather dark. He is about fifty, but his hair has no tinge of grey. He is a tall, splendidly built man, broad-chested, narrow at the hips, with sinewy limbs. His height is 5 feet 9 inches. He weighs about 175 pounds. His hands are small and well shaped. He seems as well trained as a long-distance runner and has the easy walk of the mountain dwellers.

We start talking about all kinds of things, mostly of animals, nature, and the Eskimos' life is days gone by. From time to time there is a touch of humour, and he bursts into a roar of laughter. He also a very good memory. "My good memory comes from my mother," he says. "She remembered everything, and when I was little she told me no end of things about the old times."

He has an admirable mental balance, a capacity for taking reverses calmly. 

...

At last Paniaq's wife, Umialaq, sets before us some cooked and some raw meat, and we eat it. 

Umialaq is about twenty-nine--twenty years younger than her husband. She is pretty, small, and slight, but as tought as a willow. 

The youngest boy, Wiraq, crawls about the floor of willow boughs, almost naked. He is only a year old, but has already begun to suck meat. 

Paniaq's father in law Kakinnaq, aged fifty, lives nearby. Kakinnaq is an individual type, a thick-set little fellow with a black mustache, as quick as a weasel and bubbling over with life. 

Kakinnaq is the umialik (rich man) of the tribe. According to our ideas he does not own much, but the Eskimos tell one with profound respect that Kakinnaq has more dried fat than he can use himself and both wolf and wolverine skins from previous years. 

Aguk is about seventy. A more vigorous old fellow I have never seen, active from the early morning til late in the evening. He runs over the hills like a wolf. It is a sight to see him out hunting, getting over the ground in a very pronounced forward crouch of his own. And when he fires he never misses; ten of fifteen caribou in one hunt is nothing out of the ordinary for him. He has a bright face covered with laugh wrinkles. He is a thoroughly good fellow, of the type which is always eager to help others. And he helps himself where most get stuck.

Then there is Agmalik, a capable hunter of about fifty. He is tall and thin, with a rather curved nose and protruding lips, and seems generally rather different from the others. 

The most distinguised among the Killik people is Maptiraq, about seventy-five years old, a tall, upright gentleman of the old school, with a quiet manner and a warm gleam in his eye. His whole personality bears the stamp of the culture which has been created in the course of the years by a distinguised hunting people. When he was young, there were still people who hunted the caribou with bow and arrows. He has experienced a good deal that to other Eskimos is history. In spite of his age he still hunts the caribou and wolf and cuts a good figure. 

Inualujaq is another veteran; he may well be about sixty-five. He is reputed to have been one of the best runners in the mountains in his younger days. He is a quiet, pleasant man and an energetic hunter. 

The many children are like a fresh breeze blowing through this little community among the mountains. And these children are something out of the common. They are mountain children, these--with deep, wide chests and powerful limbs and aglow with vitality. At three years old they dash up the hillsides like goats, at seven they can run for a long time without getting tired. They are like animals in their sensitive alertness and swift reactions. And they are sharp. 

It is something of a marvel to find an Eskimo community in Alaska so sound and vital as this one. This is due in the first place to the people having had so little contact with civilization. While the coast Eskimos have felt the full blast of modern culture--brandy, civilized food, disease, and a view of life based on dollars--the Nunamiuts have, on the whole, escaped it. They have their mountain world to themselves. 

Venereal diseases do not exist, and I know of only one case of tuberculosis. It is also worth mentioning that there is no alcohol. Their greatest danger is the aircraft, which can introduce sicknesses which the Eskimos have little power to resist. Last year, after a plane had landed at the camp for a short time, the whole population was struck down by severe influenza. Three children and one adult died, and others only just pulled through.

There is something so good-humoured and cordial about these people that one cannot help liking them. They have an infectious humour which makes life brighter, a broad humanity with few reservations. Yet it is easy enough to put one's finger on things that jar. And there are dark spaces in their souls. Suddenly, and at times when one least expects it, some utterly primitive feeling will flash out, savage and incomprehensible. Sometimes the situation becomes such that it is better for a white man to exercise patience than to prove himself right. 

But one can say unreservedly that they are easy to live with. It is a solace to be with people who are absolutely themselves, who make no effort to assert themselves, who make it their object in life not to elbow forward, but to get some brightness out of the days as they pass. 

Transcribed by Travis Statham - from the physical book. Some passages/sentences are ommitted for sake of space and importance. 

We are sixty-five human beings who have to eat our fill every day, and nearly two hundred dogs. Whether we shall depends on hunting. I brought a quantity of provisions with me, but obviously I, the only white man, cannot sit brooding over my possessions. Some went to the children, some to other people, and in an incredibly short time it was all gone. It was a relief in a way, for now we are all in the same boat.

Everything depends on the caribou. The caribou is always in our thoughts. When we come together they are the main subject of our conversation, and if we are doing one thing or another with outside the tent, we cannot help searching the valleys and hills with our eyes. 

From Raven Lake two long lines of cairns have been set up, one running up the hillside, the other along the valley. The cairns are made of turf, and are about forty yards apart, and serve to lead the caribou down to the lake.

Peace prevails in the settlement. An old woman is sitting in front of the tents peering out with eagles eyes across the flat valley. She has been sitting like this for several hours, almost motionless. Suddenly she jumps up crying, "Tuttu! Tuttu!" (Caribou! Caribou!) And the children immediately take up the same cry.

The camp is transformed. People tumble out of their tents and stand staring, while the hunters drop whatever they have in their hands, seize their guns, and dash off at full speed across the valley. 

There they are, a herd of about fifty caribou. Their grey-brown fur blends almost perfectly with the moss and marsh grass. They are going northeast at a good pace. The animals move forward lightly and gracefully over boulders and tussocks. The leader is a cow, then come several bulls with mightly antlers, and after them the rest. 

Here and there out in the flat valley and up the slopes toward the mountains I catch a glimpse of the Eskimo hunters. They are still running at full speed in different directions. Then they throw themselves to the ground and wait.

Suddenly the caribou herd stops as at a word of command; the animals stand dead still and gaze. The long row of cairns across their path rises out of the landscape as dark threatening objects. The beasts give a frightened start and run nervously now in one direction, now in another. Shots ring out, caribou fall. The herd is seized with panic and dashes off like the wind in the direction from which it came. More shots. Again the animals approach the caribou fence, but swing off sharply and hurry along it; not a single animal dares to pass between the cairns. At last the herd finds its way right out into the valley and continues northward at a high speed. 

It is not uncommon for herds to come so close to the camp; now and then the beasts start to swim across Raven Lake and are an easy prey. But what we shoot in the neighbourhood of the camp is quite insufficient. Sometimes we have to go a long way into the wide pass or in among the mountains. 

The Eskimos are masterly hunters. They train from boyhood and are still young when they bring down their first beast. To their own experience is added all the knowledge accumulated by generations: a comprehensive instinct for animal psychology. There are a multitude of things which are so accustomed to observe and work upon that they know what ought to be done without reasoning further. The hunters know how the caribou will react in given conditions, which route it will choose in accordance with the nature of the ground, where it will graze, and much else. Thus, they are able to place themselves favourably that they often get to close quarters with the herds.

As I wandered into this endless mountain world, I often stumbled upon old signs of caribou hunting--traces of vanished times. Along the slopes of the valley where the caribou have their tracks, I quite often came upon rows of little stone cairns. These were to lead the caribou to the spot where the marksman lay in wait with bow and arrows. At some places the hunters had built themselves stone screens, sometimes in a square like a small house without a roof.

On one beach a mass of caribou bones, half overgrown, lay strewn around. Here the beasts must have been driven into the water and then slaughtered from kayaks, being stabbed with a spear behind the last rib, close to the spine. The Eskimos have many stories of this kind of hunting, which was formely of great importance. Sometimes hundreds of animals were killed, and were usually divided equally between the families which took part in the drive.

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.

page 213

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!

It was impossible to tell from the appearance or behaviour of the two that something well-nigh fatal had happened to them only the morning before. The old lady was pounding some freshly grilled meat to pulp in her stamping-block, since neither her teeth nor her husband’s were good enough to chew venison whole.

The woman’s wooden mortar and pestle, or stamping-block as we call it in Africa, stood near by with her grubbing-stick or iron-wood beside it.