16 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS PSYCHOLOGY 



conduct of Europeans, seldom or never occur amongst them.&quot; 

 He assigns this as the cause of their usual remark on seeing a 

 foreigner of gentle and modest manners : He is almost as well- 

 bred as we, or He begins to be a man, that is, a Greenlander. 

 (16. 1:126.) In like manner, Paul Egede, also a missionary, 

 observes that 



they lived less culpably than most of the Christians sent here, ; and 

 quotes an Eskimo as saying, &quot;Perhaps if we got the knowledge you 

 have, we would become as bad as your people. 



Egede adds: 



They have even thought there could not be found decent people 

 among us, unless they had been some months in Greenland and learned 

 good manners, and it is certain that these heathen put many of our Chris 

 tians to shame by their good behavior. 7 (20: 150; cf. 49.) 



The &quot; ethnocentrism &quot; of the Eskimo, like their other mental 

 traits, is bound up with what Dewey has described as the hunting 

 psychosis, which is one type of what we may designate the occu 

 pational psychosis. This furnishes the key to many otherwise 

 puzzling ideas and practices. They make ability in the 

 sphere of their peculiar activities the standard of both individual 

 and national worth. Of the Greenlanders we are told that 



&quot; their own inimitable dexterity in seal-catching, the main business of 

 their lives, and the only pursuit which is indispensably necessary to them, 

 supplies sufficient food for their over-weening self-conceit.&quot; (16. 1: 125.) 



In order to be respected, Europeans had to learn their arts, 

 especially the use of the kayak with Eskimo dexterity. They 

 inquired if the king of Denmark and Norway had captured many 

 whales, or if he was a great angakok, the two supreme attain 

 ments known to them. (20: 30; cf. 12: 123; 46: 52, comments 

 by Eskimo.) 



6. TABOOS AND THEIR EELATION TO RELIGION 



A prominent place in the customary morality of the Eskimo 

 is occupied by the prohibitions known as taboos. They are 

 restrictions chiefly of diet and work, food-taboos and rest-taboos. 

 The occasions which are hedged about with taboos are various 

 critical events, such as birth, death, and the chase. So-called 

 puberty rites, with accompanying taboos, seem to be unknown, ex 

 cept among certain Alaskan Eskimo, and then only pertaining to 



