POLAR REGIONS. 



Polar we must be understood as referring principally to the 

 Regions. Greenlamlers ; the habits of most of the other tribes, 

 ^ "Y***' as regards these subjects, not being sufficiently known 

 to enable us to speak with precision concerning them. 

 In their courtships, decorum requires that a girl should 

 not choose to marry, and that her parents should not 

 give their consent ; so that the suitor, aided by some 

 ot'liis friends, carries off the object of his affections by 

 force. Sometimes she has no previous knowledge of 

 her lover's attachment; but, whether or not, she must 

 make all possible resistance. When she arrives at the 

 house of her lover, she sits desponding ; with dishevelled 

 hair, and seizes the first opportunity to run away and 

 return home. She is fetched back, and often again 

 runs away. Sometimes she yields in a day or two; 

 at others, if her aversion be real, she continues to run 

 away until her lover gives up the pursuit. Formerly, 

 it was the barbarous practice for the suitor to cut slits 

 in the soles of the feet of the obstinate girl, to prevent 

 her from running away; and before these were healed, 

 he calculated upon overcoming her scruples to the 

 connexion. 



It is a principle with them, that the murder of a 

 father must be revenged by his posterity, however re- 

 mote the interval. When a woman dies in child-birth, 

 the infant is commonly buried alive along with her ; 

 a practice which they excuse by representing that they 

 have no one to nurse it, and it must necessarily die. 



Old persons are not unfrequently destroyed as wit- 

 ches. This takes place either when such a character is 

 really believed to exist, and to have been the occasion 

 of misfortune to any hunters or fishers ; or sometimes 

 from malicious or interested motives, when the person 

 fixed upon has no natural protectors, in children or re- 

 lations. He or she, in such case, is called out of the 

 house or tent, charged with the crime of being an Illi- 

 seelok, and summarily stabbed and cut to pieces. On 

 which each one present eats a piece of the heart of the 

 victim, that the ghost of the murdered person may not 

 return and frighten them ! 



Both women and men assist in the whale fishery, 

 when they attempt it. The former are the principal 

 rowers. They have large boats for the women ; the 

 men's boats or kaijaks being small, and so light as to 

 be easily carried under their arm, or on their head, 

 when on shore or upon the ice. 



When they happen to kill a whale, or to find a dead 

 one on the shore, it is an occasion of great rejoicing. 

 They cut it up as it lies ; each one slicing such of the 

 fat and flesh, and carrying it away, as he can undertake. 

 When the upper part is all flayed off, they actually dive 

 under water to cut away that which is below the sur- 

 face. Saabye, who witnessed a circumstance of this 

 kind, observes, that " often one stands on the shoulders' 

 of another to keep him under water, as his water-proof 

 cloak would otherwise cause him to rise. When he 

 who is under water can no longer hold his breath, he 

 makes a motion with his body, and the man who 

 stands upon his shoulders leaps off. He now thrusts 

 his knife upwards, and rises with a loud roar, which is 

 caused by the air being so long compressed." * 



What we have related of the Esquimaux refers prin- 

 cipally to those in their native state. Great improve- 



ments in their habits and moral condition, however, have 

 been accomplished by the indefatigable labour* of the 

 Moravian missionaries among the Esquimaux of Green* 

 land and Labrador. In Greenland these hardy and ex- 

 cellent people have now laboured for above a century, 

 and for a long period had little encouragement to per- 

 severe in a work of such danger and priv.itions, except* 

 ing an honest zeal for the propagation of the gocpel.t 



We shall conclude this part of our article with a few 

 particulars respecting the Esquimaux of the Arctic 

 Highlands, and those on the west side of Baffin's Bay, 

 derived from the visits of the whale-fishers, and which 

 have not heretofore been published. 



iSome of the Arctic Highlanders were visited by the 

 whale-fishers in 1821, on an island near Cape York. 

 They were generally in the occupation of their sum- 

 mer's residences, to which they had adjourned for the 

 sake of fowling and fishing; but their winter recesses 

 were close at hand. At one time, in the summer, there 

 were forty or fifty sail of whalers near this place, which 

 so alarmed the natives, that they retreated in a great 

 measure into the interior of the country. On the first 

 arrivals, however, when there were only two or three 

 ships, they had more frequent and more easy commu- 

 nication with the people, though they could never, ex- 

 cepting in one instance, prevail upon any of them to visit 

 the ships. Generally speaking, they were extremely 

 shy, and manifested a similarity of habit and dispo- 

 sition with those so well described by Captain Ross. 



One of our informants, a chief officer of a whaler, 

 was repeatedly on shore here, and saw much of the in- 

 habitants, while his ship lay for many days beset in the 

 neighbourhood. About fifty huts lay scattered along 

 the beach: Some of these were mere summer tents, 

 covered entirely with skins ; others were winter, or per- 

 manent residences, built of stone. Of the latter a part 

 was covered with stones, the roof being arched, but 

 the principal part was covered with turf, and support- 

 ed by bones. They appeared to have little or no wood. 

 The benches in the huts, which, among the Esqui- 

 maux in a more southern latitude, are always formed of 

 wood, with a space underneath, were here built up 

 solid of stone, and covered with slabs. Here the bones 

 of whales and the horns of narwals, were substituted for 

 wood in the supports for the roofs, and also in the ribs 

 of the roof. Some of the bones had been cut with some 

 sharp instrument. Their knives, as observed by Cap- 

 tain Ross, were made of native iron. Many of them were 

 composed of various pieces rivetted together. 



The women were cautiously kept out of the way of 

 the sailors. Very few were seen by the crews of all the 

 fleet during the whole of their stay. On an occasion, 

 when a party of sailors accidentally met with some 

 women in one of their excursions into the interior, they 

 all screamed and fled ; and some of the sailors getting 

 near them, the women turned about, shouted, and spat 

 on them. The sailors were invariably refused admit- 

 tance into the huts where the women were concealed. 

 The captain of one of the ships made every exertion to 

 prevail upon them to permit him to enter one of the 

 prohibited dwellings, but he could not succeed. A boy, 

 however, who had slipped through the land ice, and 

 got his clothes wet, was admitted without ceremony 



Saabye's Journal, p. 192. 



f It is not within our plan to enter into the history of these missions ; but we can with confidence refer the reader who is desirous of 

 information respecting them, to the interesting (and we had almost said classical) account of Greenland, by Crantz. In this work he will 

 also find the best account of West Greenland extr.nt, excepting the brief account by Sir C. Giesecke, (see our article GREENLAND,) and 

 we doubt not will be well repaid for the time spent in reading the work. To this work also, and to our article GREEXLAND, we must 

 refer the reader for an account of the Danish settlements in Greenland which began to be formed sooo after the first missionary, Htu 

 Egede, proceeded to the country. 



