THE NEW WHITE RACE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 31, 30 September 1912, Page 6

THE NEW WHITE RACE.

Sydney, September 14

Correspondence from Professor Stefanson bearing en his reported discovery of new tribes in the Arctic regions, has appeared in the Sydney papers. The particulars given are to the effect that Professor James Mayor, of the University of Toronto, has received some letters from Professor Stel'anson. The first was dated from Shingle Point, April 28th, i 1905, and the last from the mouth of the Dease River, January 20th, 1911. In a letter from Langton Bay Professor Stefan'son wrote that the expedition had in four years travelled by' sledge more miles than any other travellers in the Arctic, who had tried to livo in the country, and had discovered a dense population, as Eskimos go, in certain districts. They had found 1000 people in Victoria Land, who had never seen a white man,-a rifle, or a sulphur match. Continuing,, the writer stated: "We have lived, with a group of these people five months, and know their speech, habits and"-conditions. A point of some interest is our discovery of some people in South-Westeni Victoria Land who are'strikingly non-Eskimo, who, in fact look more like North Europeans than Eskimos. Their speech and culture is Eskimo,, though we found We or two words which might reasonably bo'from Old Norse. I have heard stories Which' led me to believe that one or more survivors of Franklyn's expedition lived for some years among the Eskimos .in Victoria Land, but, be that so, it will explain nothing, so far as South-west Victoria Land is concerned. Assuming that the typo of the people springs from -marriage of white men ,with Eskimo* women, then a thousand white married persons would be an insufficient number to produce the condition found. It seems to mo that if an admixture of white blood is the explanation of the origin of'this type in Western and Southwestern Victoria Land, then the only historical event that can explain it is the disappearance from Greenland of the Icelandic-Scandinavian colony of 3000 people." '•'.,• -.ln a letter dated Shingle Point the professor wrote: "There seems to be no ceremony among these people connected with entering into conjugal relations. The great majority of marriages seem to be temporary.. If they last beyond; a year the chances are they will become permanent, for divorces after more than a "year are rare, except where the. women have lefi/the native husbands, usually with the husband's :to> become 4/he i of white men. The habit of lending wives is confined to those who have two wives, and there were never many: of these in any Village. Three wives at one time; is .'the greatest number I have heard of. Exchange of wives is still practised, . but only;i among close friends. .1 have never seen anything approaching a quarrel between a man and his wife."': ';■?. .