A STRANGE PEOPLE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1389, 15 March 1912, Page 8

A STRANGE PEOPLE.

0 THE ESKIMOS. "MEDICINE MEN IN LABRADOR." Mr. ,1. C. Arnold, in reviewing in the "Daily News" two books, namely, "Among the Eskimos of Labrador," by !>. K. Ihitton, (ind "Down North on tho Labrador," by Wilfred T. Clrenfell, writes:— It is always interesting to hear doctors talk about their patients, and it becomes doubly so when their practice lies far I ruin llarlov Street, and brings them into touch with peonies whose lives and habit* are vastly different from our own. The two medical men whose books lie before us tell of conflicts against great, mills, nnil recount victories won against disease entrenched in snow and ice. Dr. Mutton's work was carried on among tho Eskimos of Honthorn Labrador, and Dr. Grenl'oll, whoso name is known the world over, plied his art in tho bays and seas of Newfoundland and Labrador, where European and American seamen draw a hard-oarnerl livelihood from the cod and whale fisheries which supply the world's markets with oil and whalebone. The Eskimo at Home. The Eskimos are a strange people, who seem to have chosen the most unattractive places of nature for thoir abode. At some lime in the world's childhood they would app?nr to have crossed to tho new world from Mongolia, nnil Ihough they may have been originally nf the snmo stock as, the American Indians, in outward appearance and habits they are now widely different, and the very 'name of an Indian makes their cheeks turn pallid with traditional dread. Childish and simple-minded to n degree, (licv slill retain almost all the faults and all the virturcs of a primitive people. In the brief summer, when ice and frost disappear, their homes are in tents that afford only a partial shelter against tho rain, and they never pitch these out of sight of tho coast. Tent life under these circumstances may in our eyes bo disagreeable enough, but. it seems on the whole preferable to tho lot of tho Eskimo in winter. They oscapo from some of tho hardships of lent life when tho lime comes to move into snow houses. It is generally on towards December before the snowlies hard enough for building; the time varies, of course, according to the weather. Mere snow is not enough; it must have been beaten to stony hardness by tho wind, and toughened by the cold, before if is fit to be cut into really durable blocks. A snow house for an odd night's shelter on a journey can bo put up in a couple of hours, but a Killinek snow house, which must stand for weeks or even months, takes a day or more in building. There are no jerry-workmen in Killinek. They shape the blocks with the greatest care, fitting and smoothing them into a tough wall in which no joints are to bo seen, and making the house into a perfect beehive shape without a weak spot in it. The floor is below the level of tho snow around, because the blocks for building are cut from within the circle of tho wall. This was not a very fertile soil in which to sow, the virtues of modem therapeutics, but Dr. Hutton seems to have wrought wonders by precept and perseverance. When he opened a small hospital in one of the villages, the patients at first came one by one to be treated, but soon his waiting-room was as thronged as that of any popular specialist. The people who came to be doctored had often great difficulty in describing their ailments, and one of the first was an old lady who wanted something to keep tho smoke of her pipe from hurting her eyes. When the Eskimo feels a pain anywhere he says that tho part is "broken," and a doctor has difficulty in prescribing for a man on hearsay, when he does not know whether the patient has a "broken" backoronlv an ordinary turn of lumbago. The 'only knowledge of anatomy possessed by most of the people was that derived from dissecting the carcass of a seal, and that is not always a good chart for pointing out tho location of tho human organs. The doctor montions'tho somewhat noteworthy circumstance that in districts where the Eskimo has. given up his original life ias a hunter by land and sea, his bodily frame becomes deteriorated accordingly, and he commends tho wisdom of the missionaries who have made no attempt to turn their converts into a new walk of life, but encourage them to pursue the one avocation that is suited to their health and development. Primitive Manners. Like most semi-civilised people, Eskimo parents spoil their children, and Eskimo wives spoil their husbands. In their caro for the old and feeble they set an example to bo followed by all, and the instinct of hospitality and kinship is !>o strong, that no orphan ever lacks a home, and no old person is without the shelter of a roof. The orphanages and asylums for the old of which wo boast would bo deemed by them a reproach upon human nature. The practice of adoption, which, except in the case of stray dogs, is nowextinct with us, forms a part of the Eskimo's domestic code, and while there is nmplo affection between wives and husband.?, they do not herald this to tho world by insisting that ladies shall always bo mentioned before gentlemen in public. The introduction of Christianity has, perhaps, done more for the health of the "body among theso people than it has done for tho welfare of the soul, for tho simple reason that they had few vices to be abandoned. The author makes it clear that a man may be an excellent Christian and yet retain many of his savage habits, and he quotes a striking instance to show howone mast carefully avoid confounding mere wildness of instinct with anything opposed to the teaching of the Bible. Ho was out on a shooting expedition with some of his men, and when they had bagged a seal, they immediately slit open its neck and drank its blood. "Our organist, who can render classical tunes from the oratorios for voluntaries in church, and who can play any instrument in the band that ho chooses; the schoolmaster, who can preach a sermon, and teach the youngsters their A B C, and their smattering of geography and arithmetic; the man who sings the tenor solos in tho choir—they were, after all, just Eskimos, with all tho instincts of the Eskimo still strong within them, not a whit spoilt for the rough life that is their inheritance. They bent in a group over that quivering seal, and quaffed the warm blood that welled out of it. That heartened them! That made them mighty hunters! That kept the cold out—and, after all. it was a custom of tho people. They picked up their oars and rowed on, and I was thankful for what T had seen. The Eskimos are Eskimos yet." Dr. Orenfell's little book is not tho less attractive, but he deals with a people whose character is less different from our own. and whose virtues are tho samo in kind if not in degree as those wo find practised all about us. It would he impossible to imagine a life more productive of good than that which ho has led in bringing health and comfort into lives whose lot is cast among the perils and dangers of tho deep. That ho has cnjoyeiPil, and never longedyor any other, is evident from tho enthusiasm with which he tells his story, and the instances of heroism and endurance which he recounts, should give the reader a fresh belief in (he virtues of human nature.