374 



How the folk-lore of the Polar Eskimos, their fables, forms, 

 customs, amulets, stand in relation to corresponding pheno- 

 mena among other Eskimo tribes, and how far their origin 

 can be traced back to other cultures and races of people, need 

 not be further discussed here. I may simply mention, that in 

 various cases we can still detect sometimes a natural instance 

 of adaptation, sometimes a simple analogy, under the influence 

 of which the custom has been formed. Reasoning by analogy 



seems especially to play a 

 great part, a superflcial point 

 of resemblance becoming 

 determinative of the whole 

 matter; for example, when 

 the women make up the soot 

 scraped from the bottom of 

 the cooking-pot into an amu- 

 ,i^ let sewed into their neck- 



^ЙИ^^^ band (Fig. 30), following the 



reasoning, that lamp-soot is 

 stronger than the fire itself, 

 as the fire has not been able 

 to destroy the soot, and con- 

 sequently that the lamp-sootis 

 the strongest stuff in the world 

 and able to give protection. 

 The method of reasoning of the Eskimos gives us the impres- 

 sion of being very superficial, because they are not accustomed to 

 retain what we call a definite line of reasoning or a single, isolated 

 subject for any length of time; their thoughts, namely, do not rise 

 to abstractions, or logical formulae, but keep to pictures, of ob- 

 servation or situations, which change according to laws we find it 

 difficult to follow. Their ability to draw is evidence of the nature of 

 this mode of thinking, as also their power of their own accord to 

 choose subjects for reproduction, in spite of the fact, that they never 



Fig. 42. 



Two women in conversation and a dog; 

 scene from the settlement (drawn by the 

 Eskimo woman Alakrasina). The woman 

 to the left has the hood of the outer 

 pelt drawn up over the head; the woman 

 to the right has a child in the "amaut" 

 and the loose, helmet-shaped hood on 

 the head. 



