410 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



when one dreams the eyes travel. If you remember on waking 

 that you have dreamed about things at a great distance it is be- 

 cause your eyes have actually been there while you were asleep. 

 In this connection I asked whether the fact that we dream about 

 hearing things did not imply that the ears traveled also. They 

 both agreed that seemed reasonable but that they had never heard 

 it so stated; privately they considered that in all probability the 

 ears as well as the eyes travel. Still, that would not be the outer 

 ear, for they had frequently observed that those remain while 

 persons are asleep. When I pointed out that some sleepers have 

 their eyes partly open with the eyeballs visible, they asserted that 

 such people would not be dreaming at the time. In genera] they 

 admitted when I cross-questioned them that their belief about the 

 eyes traveling presented difficulties. For instance, you could press 

 on the eyelids and assure yourself that the eyeball was under- 

 neath. They said, however, that it was generally true about many 

 things known to be so that there were other things which appeared 

 to be contrary. Nothing which they had ever observed had 

 shaken their belief that in dreams the eyes do travel. 



On October 15th I learned from Kutok that women who have 

 children as often as one every other year lose their hair rapidly. 

 As the beliefs of whites here correspond, it seems the Eskimos 

 have here observed correctly. Kutok said Eskimos consider that 

 childless women and those who have few children have better hair 

 than those who have many children. It is of course a fact that 

 there are few Eskimo women who have many children. Kutok's 

 own mother had had more children than any other women known 

 to any of my informants, and they numbered eleven. Four chil- 

 dren is considered a large family among any Eskimos known to me. 



It is not unreasonable to suppose that the falling out of hair 

 may have something to do with the condition of general health. 

 I can say from my own experience that my general health appears 

 to be much better when I am in the North than it is in civilization, 

 and that the condition of the hair corresponds. My hair com- 

 menced falling out when I was in college and continued until it 

 had become noticeably thinner up to the point of my first going 

 North when I was twenty-seven. Four or five months after I com- 

 menced the journey I noticed that my hair had ceased falling out 

 and it did not begin again until four or five months after I re- 

 turned to New York in 1907. In 1908 I left New York in May, 

 reaching the Arctic in late June, and I think it was in September 

 or October that I noticed my hair had stopped falling. It did 



