THE ESKIMO CHILD 



By Ale§ HbdliOka 

 Curator, Division of Physical Antliropology, V. 8. National Museum 



[With 10 plates] 



There is no more pleasing or richer study in the field of physical 

 anthropology than that of the human child ; and a study of the Eskimo 

 young is in some respects even more remunerative than that of the 

 white because the subject is less familiar, and because the surviving 

 Eskimo child is usually healthy, normal, and brought up without 

 modern artificialities. 



The Eskimo mother and father, though less demonstrative, love 

 their children at least as much as do the average mother and father 

 of our race. The Eskimo mother, in fact, sacrifices herself even more 

 for her babies than does the average white mother of our time. Her 

 children are more dependent on her, as under the hard conditions of 

 life in the North the father is of even less help than in our civiliza- 

 tion, and she wants to give them the best she has in every particular. 

 On the other hand, the Eskimo child, as long as it is healthy, is a very 

 contented little creature, giving but little trouble. 



The Eskimo woman as a rule loves to have as many children as 

 she can, and in every Eskimo community there are plenty of them; 

 but until recently many died from digestive disorders, exposure, and 

 infections brought in by whites. Various travelers and casual ob- 

 servers, seeing the frequently small Eskimo families, drew the conclu- 

 sion that the Eskimo woman was not prolific. This, actual observa- 

 tions and records have shown, was erroneous. There are, of course, 

 women among the Eskimo, as there are among all peoples, who for 

 some reason bear but a few children, and, rarely, even no child at all ; 

 but those are exceptions. The true conditions may be seen from the 

 records of the last United States censuses and from those taken by 

 special observers. I have given the available data in one of my 

 papers.^ According to the 1930 census ^ relating to the Alaskan Es- 



1 Fecundity of Eskimo women. Amer. Journ. Phys. Anthrop., vol. 22, p. 91 et seq., 1936. 

 » See also Anderson, H. C, and Eell, W. C, The Alaska natives : A survey of their 

 sociological and educational status, pp. 138-139. Stanford Univ. Press, 1935. 



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