PECULIARITIES OP ESKIMO LIFE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2085, 8 February 1894, Page 41

PECULIARITIES OP ESKIMO LIFE.

The women in Greenland knot their hair in a tuft upon the crown of the head. This they do by gathering it tightly together from all sides and tying it vp — on the east cjoaßfc with a thong, on the west coast with ribbons of various colours. Unmarried women wear a red ribbon, which they exchange for green it they have had a child. Married women wear a blue and widows a black ribbon. IE a widow wants to marry again she will probably miDgle a little red with the black ; elderly widows who have given op all thought of marriage often wear a white ribbon. One feature of the Greenlander's daily life which to us Beems sirange enough is that they have no fixed meal times ; they simply eat when they are huugry, if there is anything to he had. They have a lemarkable power of doing without food, but to made up for this they can consume at a sitting astonishing quantities of meat, blubber, fish &c There are no table B in the Greenland house; therefore the dish is placed in the middle of the. floor, and, the people eit on thq

benches around, and dip into it with the forks provided by nature. Next to coffee the Eskimo are devoted to tobacco and bread. On the west coast tobacco is for the most part smoked or chewed, while snuff is the East Greenlanders' weakness. The women on the west coast, too, are 'given to snuffing, and it is often an unpleasant surprise to observe an attractive young woman blackening her nostrils and upper lip with a copious pinch. The people are passionately fond of brandy — women as well as men — not because they like the taste of it, but because it is so delightful to be drunk, and they get drunk whenever an opportunity offers, which is happily not very often. The Greenlander is, on the "whole, like a sympathetic child with respect to the needs of others ; his first social law is to help his neighbour. It is unfortunate that, as he advances in civilisation, this commandment seems to lose its power over him. According to the primitive Eskimo conception a wife is practically regarded as the property of the husband, who has either carried her off, or sometimes bought her, from her father. He can therefore send her away when he pleaseF, or lend her, or exchange her for.another, and when be can afford it, he can have more wives than one. Lying and back-bitiog are chiefly to be found among the women. The men, on the other hand, are much more honest, and shrink from relating anything which they are unable to substantiate. The sinews of seals, whales, and reindeer are used as thread in making garments out cf ekins. Greenland women are very capable at their work, and are especially skilful with their needle. That women are not held in such high esteem as men is evident from the fact that when a boy is born the father ia jubilant, and the mother beams with pride, while if ifc ba a girl they both weep, or are at any rate very ill-content. Even in death women seem to be placed at a disadvantage, as it sometimes happens that a woman of no importance when mortal sickness falls upon her is buried alive. Marriage in Greenland was, in earlier time 3, a very simple matter. When a man had a mind to a girl, he went to her house or tent seized her by the hair or wherever he could best get hold of her, and dragged her without further ceremony home to his house. As a well-conducted bride among us feels it her duty to weep as she passes up the church, so the Eskimo bride was bound to-strugele agiinst her captor, and to wail and bemoan herself as^ much as ever she could. Among the heathen Greenlanders divorce is as simple an affair as marriage. When a man grows tired of his wife— the reverse is of rarer occurrence — he need only lie apart from her on the sleeping benches without speaking a word. She at once takes the hint, and next morning gathers all her garments together and quietly returns to her parents house, trying' as well as she can to remain indifferent. Of our Commandments the seventh is that which the Greenlanders are most apt to break, for virtue and modesty are not held in high esteem among them. According to the Eskimo code marriage between first cousins or between any near relatives is prohibited. # The conceptions of good and evil in tnis world are exceedingly divergent. As an example let me cite the case of the Eskimo girl who, when Niels Egede spoke to her of love of God and her neighbour, said to him : »I have given proof of my love for my neighbour. Once an old woman who was ill, but could not die, offered to pay me if I would lead her to the top of the steep cliff from which our people have always thrown themselves when they were tired of living ; but I, having ever loved my neighbours, led her thither without payment, and cast her over the cliff."— " Eskimo Life," by Dr Nansen.