138 CRUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 
(sagdlingmiut) being armed only with bow and arrows and 
spears, were unable to compete with the better armed strangers, 
and as a result the entire tribe, who numbered 68 souls in 1900, 
died of starvation and disease during the winter of 1902. The 
whaling station was abandoned in the summer of 1903, after 
the death of the original natives, and the great island is now 
uninhabited except by a few natives from Big island who stay 
at the old whaling station. 
The white men belonging to the whaling station have now 
been quartered at repulse bay, and a number of the Big island 
natives have also been taken there; it is likely, therefore, that 
they will spread disease and disaster among the Aivilliks and 
Nechilliks of that region. Some regulation should be made to 
prevent this unauthorized movement of the natives, or similar 
wholesale slaughter will again occur. 
The Eskimos of the Atlantic coast of Labrador have long 
been under the direct influence of the Moravian missionaries, 
and are in consequence much more civilized than the others. 
The Moravians first arrived on the coast in 1770, and since then 
have established mission stations along the shores from Ham- 
ilton inlet northward to Cape Chidley. Their policy has been 
to collect the natives into bands about these stations. To accom- 
plish this, they have erected each mission at some place where 
the natural resources are abundant. The missionaries have 
kept the Eskimos as free as possible from contact with the float- 
ing, white, fishing population, and to do so, have obtained 
exclusive trading rights from the Newfoundland Government. 
Their scheme is a sort of parent-hood, by which they supply the 
natives with food and clothing, taking the product of their hunt 
in exchange; this scheme seems to work very satisfactorily, the 
natives being content, while their welfare is attended to without 
their being pauperized. There is no premium put on laziness 
and false piety, as is so often the case where the missionary 
makes a free distribution of food and clothing to the natives. 
