THE ESKIMO AXD CIVILIZATIOX 199 



the Mackenzie Eskimo have decreased from two thousand to forty, these 

 Eskimo of northern Victoria Land have been hohhng their own. On the 

 well-known American principle that " the only good Indian is a dead 

 Indian," civilization in the Mackenzie delta is justified by its fruits. 



In the Mackenzie district at least, the main cause of the decrease of 

 population has been measles. There are on record, cases where out of a 

 family of thirteen, eleven have died within a single week. Consumption 

 was probably always present among the Mackenzie Eskimo, although its 

 virulence has almost certainly been increased by the unnatural conditions 

 under which the Eskimo have now been taught and forced to live. Syphilis 

 and other contagious diseases peculiar to Europeans have also had their 

 effect. Among the Coronation Gulf Eskimo I saw no signs of any of these. 

 It is certain that not only are these diseases now absent, l)ut that also they 

 will soon be introduced and that the effect on the population of Coronation 

 Gulf will be the same as it has been on the Mackenzie population. In other 

 words, if civilization is allowed to take its ordinary course, the two thousand 

 Eskimo of the Coronation Gulf district of to-day will fifty years from now 

 be represented by not more than two hunflred. A people such as the Eskimo, 

 have, through the evolution of a thousand years, become delicately adjusted 

 to the conditions of their environment. The coming in of civilization, 

 whether it be brought by whalers or by missionaries, will break that equi- 

 librium and the result will be essentially the same. Missionaries may not 

 bring in syphilis but they are quite as likely as whalers to bring in measles, 

 for wherever the missionary goes, supply ships must follow, and it can be 

 a question of only a few years until some white man's epidemic such as the 

 measles or smallpox will reach these hitherto isolated people. No change 

 of habits that the white men are likely to l)ring in will materially benefit 

 the Eskimo, while three sets of new conditions in particular will work for 

 his destruction — white men's houses, white men's foods and white men's 

 clothes. 



At present the Eskimo live in snow houses in winter and in tents in sum- 

 mer. Both of these kinds of dwellings are hygienic and are made more 

 especially so by the fact that they are never long located in one place. 

 Before a dwelling can become filthy, it is in the natural course of events 

 abandoned and a new one constructed. White men, howexer, when they 

 come to live among these people, will have their permanent houses. These 

 will be emulated by the Eskimo. They will build their poor hovels in as 

 near an imitation as they can of the white men's pretentious dwellings, and 

 they will live in these the year through exactly as they now <lo at Point 

 Barrow. The germs of tuberculosis and other diseases will lodge in these 

 dwellings. When one set of inhabitants have sickencfl and died, the 

 vacated house will be occupied by others and there will be a continuous 

 procession from the tent to the frame house and from the frame house to the 

 grave. 



