GILBERTSON: ESKIMO CULTURE 35 



account the sparseness of the population.&quot; (30:87.) It does 

 not appear that he is here speaking as an eye-witness. And, in 

 another place, in relating several accounts of murders, given him 

 by the natives, he says that the stories are possibly only legends, 

 embodying the accumulated and exaggerated events of hundreds 

 of years. He also states that frequently they accuse each other 

 in their nith-songs of attempts at murder, with no basis in fact. 

 These considerations tend to throw doubt upon the accuracy of 

 his first statement. 



But, of course, it would be running in the teeth of facts to 

 assert that murders never take place. As Rink says, &quot;the 

 passions of the people tending to ambition, domineering, or the 

 mere fancy for making themselves feared, sometimes gave rise 

 to violence and murder. &quot; ( 53 : 34. ) In another connection 

 we discuss the punishments for murder. The place it occupies 

 in their criminal law is shown from the fact that it is practically 

 the only offense punishable by death. Nelson tells us that &quot;a 

 man who has killed another can be recognized by the restless 

 expression of his eye.&quot; (45:293.) 



Folk-lore abounds in stories of homicide and its revenge. But 

 this is no index to a corresponding frequency in real life. As 

 Matthews well says, 



It is nothing to us that a horrid crime (as we regard it) is described 

 in a tale, for the story-tellers of all ages and of all races have delighted 

 to thrill their hearers with such tales, and, as civilization advances, this 

 delight seems to increase rather than to diminish.&quot; (41: 2.) 



We may here say a few words about war and the Eskimo. 

 There is scanty support among this people for the thesis, &quot;War 

 is the normal condition of savagery.&quot; (Mooney, Catholic En 

 cyclopedia, VII, 751.) Paul Egede, long ago, wrote that &quot;the 

 Oreenlanders do not know of war, and therefore have no word 

 for it.&quot; (20:138.) According to Nansen, 



&quot;War is in their eyes incomprehensible and repulsive; . . . soldiers 

 and officers, brought up in the trade of killing, they regard as mere 

 butchers.&quot; (43: 162.) 



An instructive incident is told by Amundsen: 



An Eskimo, who had agreed to go with the expedition, suddenly be 

 came melancholy, and sobbing bitterly said he did not want to go to 

 the land of the white men, as they might kill him. Assurances were of 

 no avail, &quot;he would not be convinced, and pointed to some pictures of 

 the Boer War.&quot; (1. 2: 92.) 



