THE PEOPLE OF THE POLAR NORTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13925, 5 December 1908, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE PEOPLE OF THE POLAR NORTH.

The Polar regions have always had a 6trange and enduring fascination for thcs9 on exploration bent, and many have been the volumes written upon and about that land of ice. and snow. The gleaming whiteness and the stillness of everything vapuld compose a paradise of purity and rest were it not that those very qualities are always present in excess, making a dreary and. monotonous waste of what otherwise would be a magnificent spectacle. Whilst numerous books containing various accounts of travel and adventure in the icy regions round the Poles havo appeared, not so much lias been written about the people who arc the most northerly dwelling people in the world but what another book is timely and welcome. So many people will welcome "The- People of the Polar North" (Kegan Paul), which is a record, compiled from the Danish, of the travels and observations of Knud Rasmussen. It is illustrated by Count • Harold Moltke, who accompanied the author on his journeys, which were chiefly undertaken in connection with the Danish Literary Expedition. The Eskimos are a dwindling race, and much of their origin and history is still conjecture. Mr. Rasmussen (says his editor, Mr. 0. Herring) -was peculiarly. fitted to win the Confidence and affection of the Eskimos, and to acquire an intimate knowledge of their religious beliefs, their legends, and their personal recollections, oecause he himself had been born and brought up in Greenland, had spoken the Eskimo language from his babyhood, and could claim racial kinship with the people among whom he was pursuing his investigations. In Mr. Herring's opinion, so far as the inner life, beliefs, and traditions of the people of the Polar North are concerned, Mr. Rasmussen must remain the last, as he was the first, competent seeker. Mr. Rasmussen was attracted not by the magnetic Pole, but by the Polar people, with whom, by knowledge of their language and still nearer ties, he was, and is, in sympathy. For that reason alone his book is worth buying and reading by all who are interested in the people of whom he has madeTweh a thorough study. This is Mr. Rasmussen's amusing account of his first meeting with the Polar Eskimos, the nomadic wanderers among the settlements who are located somewhere between 76 and 78 degrees north latitude: — "On one's arrival at a settlement in Danish West Greenland it is usual for the young women to help the newcomers off with their outdoor clothes. Now, for a moment, I forgot where I was, and, as the Greenlandic custom is, stretched out my foot towards a young girl who was standing by my side, meaning her to pull off my outer* boots. The girl grew embarrassed, and the men laughed. There was that winning bashfulness about her that throws attraction over all Nature's children ; a pale blush shot across her cheek, like a ripple over a smooth mountain lake; she half-turned away from, me, and her black eyes looked uneasily out over the frozen sea."' "What is thy name?" " Others will tell thee what my name is,'* she stammered. "Aininaq is her name," put in the bystander, laughing. A jovial, old paterfamilias then came up to hor, and said in gravity : "Do what the strange man asks thee!" And she stooped down at once and drew off my boots. "Move away, let me come!" called out an old woman from the crowd, and she elbowed the people aside and forced her way through to my sledge. "It was my daughter thou wast talking to!" she burst out eagerly. " Dost thou not think her beautiful?"" and , she rolled her little self-conscious eyes around. But Aininaq had slipped quietlv away from the crowd of curious beholders and hidden, herself. It was only later that I learnt my request to her had been construed into a proposal of marriage. There are no suffragists in Eskimo Land, nor, apparently, are there any tendencies that way. Says the author: — "A superficial consideration of the position of woman in Eskimo society might induce one mistakenly to believe that she leads exclusively a cowed and unhappy existence. . . Living amongst them, you see for yourself that cruel blows are not infrequent. But certainly no one would be more astonished than she herself if anyone came to the Eskimo woman and pitied her ; for her body is strong and healthy, her heart light, and her mind well-balanced : and so life seems to her worth living, and admirably and sensibly arranged. She herself has no consciousness whatever of being man's drudge. Easy come, easy go, seems the general rule of life and living away up in the Polar North. And religion is no exception.

"We observe our old customs," explained one of the leading men of the tribe to the author, " in order to hold the world up, for the powers must not be offended! . . If we did not take these precautions, we believe that great masses of snow would slide down and destroy us, that snowstorms would lay us waste, that the sea would rise in violent waves while we are out in our kayaks, or that a flood would sweep our houses into the sea.

" If anyone with a better teaching would come to us and demand that we believe his words, we would do so willingly, if we saw that his teaching was really better than ours, but then he must remain among us and lead us towards that which we do not know. Yes, tell us the right, and convince us that it is right, and we will believe you." That seems the very essence of sweet reasonableness, and there ought to bo excellent scope up there for missionaries of all cloth—if they can only stand the climate!