True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World Part 19

Prior to the nineteenth century practically the only known Eskimo people of Greenland consisted of those under Danish protection, who occupied the entire ice-free west coast from Cape Farewell 60 N. to Tasiusak, 73 24' N. Traditions of the existence of tribes of natives on the east coast have long prevailed, but up to the nineteenth century there were known only a few individuals, quite near Farewell, which were visited by Wall in 1752.

Still among the Inuits of extreme southern Greenland were numerous and curious traditions of the inhabitants of the east coast, one to the effect that far to the northward were some light-haired people of European complexion. Another tale oft told in winter gatherings was one, doubtless in ridicule, of the occasional Inuit who, holding fast to a barren land, came west only to trade and never to live. It is a beautiful legend showing true and abiding love of home and country. Dr.

Rink thus translates it: "A man from the east coast of Greenland from love of his home never left it even during the summer-time. Among his princ.i.p.al enjoyments was that of gazing at the sun rising out of the ocean. But when his son grew up he became desirous of seeing other countries and above all of accompanying his countrymen to the west coast. At length he persuaded his father to go with him. No sooner, however, had they pa.s.sed Cape Farewell and the father saw the sun about to rise behind the land than he insisted upon returning immediately.

Having again reached their island home, he went out from his tent early next morning, and when his people had in vain waited for his return they went out and found him dead. His delight at again seeing the sun rise out of the ocean had overpowered and killed him."

The first definite knowledge of the Eastern Inuits came by accident, through the boat voyage of Captain W. A. Graah, who under the directions of the King of Denmark was searching for the ruins of the East Bygd--the colony of Scandinavians of the twelfth to the fifteenth century. During this search, which extended to within sight of Cape Dan, Graah found no less than five hundred and thirty-six Inuits living at about twenty different places. Of these more than one-half had never seen a white man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GROUP OF THE ESKIMO INUITS.]

Graah says of them: "The affection the Eastlanders have for their children is excessive.... Notwithstanding the little care bestowed on them, the children conduct themselves so as to seldom merit reproof....

The East Greenlanders look on begging, especially for food, as a disgrace.... As soon as a boy can creep about alone his father gives him a little javelin, which he is taught to throw at a mark. He thus speedily acquires that dexterity in the management of his weapon on which in after years he is to princ.i.p.ally depend for his own and his family's subsistence. When he grows older he is provided with a kayak, and learns to battle with the waves, to catch birds, and to strike the seal. When the youth comes home for the first time with a seal in tow the day is made a holiday and the friends and neighbors invited to a feast, at which, while he recounts all the circ.u.mstances of the chase, the maidens present lay their heads together to choose a bride for him.

"Their intercourse with each other is marked with singular urbanity; they are modest, friendly, obliging, and forbearing.

"When the howling of the dogs proclaim the arrival of strangers the people hurry to the sh.o.r.e to welcome them and to invite them to their houses. The wet clothes of the visitors are taken from them and hung up to dry. Dry ones are lent in their stead, and if a hole is discovered in their boots the landlady sets to work straightway to patch it.

"They are a gentle, civil, well-behaved set of people among whom one's life and property are perfectly secure as long as one treats them with civility and does them no wrong. Their veracity and fidelity are beyond impeachment.

"The northern lights they take to be the spirits of the dead playing ball with the head of a walrus."

The princ.i.p.al encampments were between Kemisak and Omevik, beyond which place to the north, said the natives of Kemisak, there were no inhabitants. The Eskimos numbered two hundred and ninety-five and were called the Omivekkians.

Of their environment in favorable places and their amus.e.m.e.nts Graah reported: "The cove had fields of considerable extent, covered with dwarf willows, juniper berry, black crakeberry, and whortleberry heath, with many patches of fine gra.s.s. The stream, abounding in char, had its source in the glaciers of which several gigantic arms reached down from the height in the background. Flowers everywhere adorned the fields.

Three hundred paces from the sea the cliffs rise almost perpendicularly, with snow-clad summits, far beyond the average height. The natives had here a.s.sembled to feast upon the char, plentiful and of large size, the black crakeberry, and angelica, gathering them also for winter use. They give themselves up to mirth and merrymaking. This evening, to the number of two hundred or more, they began by torch-light their tambourine dance, a favorite festival."

Graah believed that there were no natives living to the north of Cape Dan, and that, when the greater part of the Eskimos seen by him moved to West Greenland, in the course of a few years, the whole coast was deserted. This belief was seemingly, though erroneously, confirmed by the fact that, while Clavering saw a few natives in 74 N., Scoresby, Koldewey, Ryder, Nathorst, and the Duke of Orleans, in their explorations, saw no living native on the east coast.

It remained for the expeditions of Hall, Nares, Greely, Amdrup, Holm, and Mylius-Erichsen to prove by their united observations that there was not only an Inuit settlement on the east coast, but that such natives are the descendants of the true Children of the Ice, who have crossed Grinnell Land, skirted northern Greenland, and thus come eventually to their present habitat. Their fathers were formerly inhabitants of the most northerly lands of the globe, of the lands of Grant, Grinnell, Greenland, and Hazen (or Peary).

Brief and transient may have been their occupation of many of the various encampments during their devious wanderings in the long migration, covering nearly two thousand miles of travel. Their summer tent-rings and stone winter huts dot the favoring sh.o.r.es of every game-producing fiord from Cape Farewell, in 60 N., northward to Bronlund Fiord, Hazen (Peary) Land, 82 08' N., on the nearest known land to the north pole.

They travelled leisurely, seeking fruitful hunting grounds and living on the game of the land or of the adjacent sea. They thus netted the salmon of the glacial lakes, searched the valleys for deer, snared the ptarmigan, lanced the lumbering musk-ox, speared the sea-fowl, caught the seal, slaughtered the walrus, and they are believed to have even pursued in kayaks and lanced the narwhal and the white whale.

While Mylius-Erichsen and his heroic comrades obtained the definite information as to the extreme northern limit of Inuit habitation of all time, and paid the price of such data with their lives, it was with equal bravery but happier fortune that Captain G. Holm rescued from oblivion, and thus indirectly raised to happier life, the struggling descendants of the iron men and women whose unfailing courage and fertile resourcefulness had wrested food and shelter from the most desolate and the most northerly land environment of the world.

Once, in 1860, there came to the Cape Farewell trading station an Inuit who had lost his toes and fingertips. Though just able to grasp a paddle with his stumpy fingers, he was an expert kayaker and threw his javelin with the left hand. He said that he was from a place called Angmagsalik, and that between eight hundred and a thousand natives dwelt in that vicinity. For nearly a quarter of a century this report of the existence of an unknown tribe of Inuits remained unverified. In 1883, however, the exploration of this part of East Greenland was made by a Danish officer of extended and successful experience in the governmental surveys of southern Greenland, who fully recognized the hazardous and prolonged nature of such an expedition. The Inuits said that many lives had been lost in attempting the sh.o.r.e-ice of the east coast, and that a round trip to and from Angmagsalik--"Far, oh! so far to the north!"--took from three to four years.

Thoroughly familiar with the native methods of life and of travel, this officer, Captain G. F. Holm, Royal Danish Navy, adopted the safest, indeed, the only, method of coast transportation--in the _umiak_.

The _umiak_ (called the woman's boat, as it is always rowed by women) is a flat-bottomed, wooden-framed, skin-covered boat about twenty-five feet long and five feet wide. Only the framework, thwarts, and rowing benches are wooden, the covering being well-dried, blubber-saturated, hair-free skins of the _atarsoak_ (Greenland seal). Resembling in appearance the parchment of a drum-head, the seal-skin becomes quite transparent when wet so that the motion of the water is seen through it.

Sometimes a light mast carries a spread seal-skin for sail, but as a rule the boat is propelled by short, bone-tipped paddles which, in the hands of several strong women, carry the _umiak_ thirty miles a day through smooth, ice-free water. When going near the ice a heavy seal-skin is hung before the bow to prevent the delicate boat skin from being cut. When a little hole is worn through, the women deftly thrust a bit of blubber through it until the boat is hauled up on the sh.o.r.e, which must be done daily to dry the sea-saturated covering. These boats can transport from three to four tons of cargo, and are so light that they can be readily carried on the women's backs overland.

Holm knew that his journey must entail at least one winter among such natives as he might meet, so that his equipment was very carefully selected, with a view to the gifts and trading which are so dear to the native heart. The northward journey was full of incident and of interest. Not crowding his women rowers, Holm tarried here and there for the hunt; besides, he wished both to gather information from an occasional encampment and also to cultivate loyalty in his reluctant crew by permitting his women to show their west coast riches to the east-coast heathen.

Here seal were killed and there the polar bear was chased, while the sea-fowl, the narwhal, and the white whale were the objects of pursuit to the eager native hunters, who accompanied the _umiaks_ in their light, swift-flying kayaks.

In voyaging there was the usual danger from sharp ice cutting the _umiaks_ and necessitating repairs, and from lofty bergs and ancient hummocks as they crossed the ocean mouths of the ice-filled fiords, and alas! too often there were tedious, nerve-racking delays when on desolate islands or rocky beaches the _umiak_ fleet was ice-bound for days at a time.

Wintering near Cape Farewell, Holm, with Garde and Knutsen, put to sea May 5, 1884, his _umiaks_ being rowed by nineteen women and five men, while seven hunters followed in kayaks. Garde devoted himself to the precipitous, ice-capped coast, and between 60 and 63 N. found nearly two hundred living glaciers that entered the sea, seventy being a mile or more broad. In Lindenows Fiord, 62 15' N., were found almost impenetrable willow groves near old Scandinavian ruins. Fine new ice-fiords were discovered which put forth innumerable numbers of icebergs, the highest rising two hundred feet above the sea.

The western Eskimos were alarmed either at the ice difficulties which lengthened the voyage, or feared the _angekoks_, or magicians of the east coast, and nineteen of them insisted on turning back. Holm was obliged to send them back under Garde, but with determined courage to fulfil his duty as an officer of the Danish navy, he went on with twelve faithful women and men, although he was not half-way to Cape Dan.

As before told, Graah turned back in sight of Cape Dan, believing that he had reached the limit of human habitations. Great then was Holm's surprise to here find the last of the three missing polar tribes, who to the number of five hundred and forty-eight individuals were occupying the fertile hunting-grounds of the archipelago of Angmagsalik, which consists of about twenty ice-free islands to the west of Cape Dan, about 65 31' N., adjacent to the beautiful Sermilik ice-fiord. In this district the tides and currents keep open the inland water-ways, so that seals are plentiful and easily taken, thus making it an Inuit paradise.

Holm and Knutsen here wintered, 1884-5, and in their ten months'

residence with these people gathered a vast amount of ethnographic and historic material pertaining to the lives of these extraordinary Inuits, who had never before seen a white man.[25]

This missing polar tribe pertains to the stone age of the world, its weapons being almost entirely of bone, while its methods of hunting follow lines long since abandoned by Inuits who have had contact with whites. Their high sense of fidelity was shown by Navfalik, who was placed in charge of stores left for the winter at Kasingortok. That winter his family suffered from lack of food, but all through these days of terrible distress and prolonged hunger the stores of the white man were untouched by this faithful Eskimo.

Of these natives Rasmussen says: "There is no people with a history which, as regards the bitterness of its struggle for existence and the eeriness of its memories, can be compared with that of the Eskimo....

His mind can be calm and sunny like the water on a summer day in the deep, warm fiords. But it can likewise be savage and remorseless as the sea itself, the sea that is eating its way into his country."

Of their endurance of cold Poulsen records: "Inside the house both grown-up people and children wear, so to speak, nothing, and it does not inconvenience them to walk out into the cold in the same light dress, only increased by a pair of skin boots. I remember seeing two quite young girls walking almost naked on the beach, fifteen minutes' walk from the house, gathering sea-weed, though the temperature was about twenty-four degrees below the freezing-point."

As a dumb witness of their method of life in their permanent homes may be mentioned the house at Nualik, more than a hundred miles to the north of Angmagsalik (discovered by Amdrup), where an entire settlement of twenty or more perished, probably of ptomaine poisoning from semi-putrid meat (a delicacy among the Eskimos as is semi-putrid game with us).

"On the platform along the back wall, as shown by the skeletons, the inhabitants had once lain comfortably between the two bear-skins, the upper one with the hair down. On the five lamp-platforms stood the lamps and the stone pots. The drying-hatches above them had fallen down, but remains of bear-skin clothes still lay on them. Under the platform there were chip-boxes and square wooden[26] cases, and on the stone-paved floor large urine and water tubs. In front of one of the small side platforms there was a blubber-board and a large, well-carved meat-trough, and scattered about the floor lay wooden dishes, blood-scoops, water-scoops, besides specimens of all the bone utensils which belong to an Eskimo house.

"Near the house stood four long, heavy stones, placed edgewise, on the top of which the _umiak_ rested (protected thus from the dogs).

Scattered around were kayak frames and their bone mountings, hunting and other implements. Amongst the big heap of bones outside the house were the skulls of narwhals, dogs, and bears. Among the utensils was a blood-stopper ornamented with a neatly cut man's head, which, recognized by old Inuits at Angmagsalik, identified this party as a northerly migrating band from the main settlement."

Of the after life a glimpse is given by the talk of an east-coast Inuit to Rasmussen: "On a lovely evening a broad belt of northern lights shot out over the hills in the background and cast a flickering light over the booming sea. Puarajik said: '_Those are the dead playing ball. See how they fly about! They say that they run about up there without clothing on._'"

Of the seamy side of life he adds: "But in the winter, when people were gathered together, the larders were full, and desires centred on the shortening of the long, idle winter nights, things would be quite different [from the happy, industrious life of summer]. Much food and sitting still, the desire to be doing, the craving for change made people pick quarrels. Old grievances were resuscitated; scorn and mocking, venomous words egged on to outbursts of anger; and in winter feasts regrettable incidents occurred. Men and women, excited and goaded on by others, forgot all friendly feeling, and on most extraordinary pretexts often challenged each other to insult-songs, fought duels, and committed most appalling murders."

It is evident that among the people of the stone age there exists the same inclination to exploit and perpetuate deeds of individual and warlike prowess, that appears not only in modern history as a whole but also in news of current publication.

Acts of kindness, deeds of heroism, and displays of the fair and humble virtues that sweeten daily life are entirely absent from the old Inuit traditions. Yet these "True Tales" depict the honesty of Navfalik, the humanity of Kalutunah, the fidelity of Bronlund, and the devotion of Mertuk.

The total omission of similar tales of admirable and humane conduct from the legends and the folksongs of the Inuits of the stone age doubtless depends in part on the savage superst.i.tions, wherein magical powers and forces of evil are greatly exalted, and in part on the disposition to dwell on the unusual and the terrifying.

So there are reasons to believe that the survivors of the stone age in East Greenland exhibit in their daily life human qualities of goodness and of justice that were characteristic of their rude and virile ancestors.

Such, though inadequately described, are the newly found Inuits of the Angmagsalik district of East Greenland, the sole surviving remnant of the untutored aborigines of the north polar lands. Their human evolution is of intense interest, as it has been worked out under adverse conditions of appalling desolation as regards their food and their travel, their dress and their shelter, their child-rearing and their social relations.

That the world knows the last of the missing polar tribes, and that this remote, primitive people is now being uplifted in the scale of humanity, must be credited to the resolute courage, the professional zeal, and, above all, to the sympathetic human qualities of Captain Holm and his faithful officers and a.s.sistants.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] See map on page 235.

[25] The data relative to this expedition is not available in English, but has been published in full in vol. IX, "Meddelelser om Gronland (Communications on Greenland)," in Danish text. With its generous policy the Danish Government has taken these natives under its fatherly protection, so that their future welfare is a.s.sured against exploitation, degradation, and early extinction.

[26] The wood was obtained from the drift-wood along the east coast, supposed to come from Asia, along the line of drift shown by the voyage of the _Fram_.

THE FIDELITY OF ESKIMO BRoNLUND