38 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS PSYCHOLOGY 



How untruthfulness is regarded as a disgrace is strikingly 

 shown in an incident related by Cartwright. After the Eskimo 

 he brought to London had seen St. Paul s, he asked them how 

 they would describe the cathedral to their countrymen in 

 Labrador ; to which they replied that they would mention neither 

 it, nor many other things that they had seen, lest they be called 

 liars, from the seeming impossibility of such facts. (12:124; 

 cf. 26 : 348.) There is truth as well as poetry in an Eskimo song, 

 whose burden is, * We are accustomed to have trustworthiness. 

 (63:309.) Tales like &quot;The woman who told a lie,&quot; show the 

 Eskimo attitude reflected in folk-lore. (50: 60.) 



Especially do the Eskimo appear in a favorable light in their 

 faithfulness to a promise or contract. Peary asserts, &quot;An 

 Eskimo never forgets a broken promise nor a fulfilled one.&quot; 

 I have not discovered a single charge against an Eskimo of 

 breach of good faith, using this last term in the sense of fidelity 

 to promises, which should make facts correspond with our em 

 phatic assertions as to our conduct in the future.&quot; (71. 2: 72.) 



Rink s statement that &quot;nothing was sold on credit, at least not 

 without being paid for very soon&quot; (53:29) is uncorroborated 

 by other authorities. According to Crantz, &quot;the purchaser can 

 take a thing on credit if he has not the means of payment.&quot; 

 And that considerable time is allowed for payment may be 

 inferred from the fact that if the debtor dies before the debt is 

 discharged, 



The creditor must not afflict the disconsolate mourners by remem 

 brance of the deceased, but after some interval he may reclaim the article 

 bartered, provided it is not lost in the scramble which usually succeeds 

 the funeral. This lenient system goes so far that, if a person loses or 

 breaks an article taken upon credit, he is not held to his agreement.&quot; 

 (16: 1: 167; cf. Dalager, quoted 43: 111.) 



The Eskimo of Bering Strait commonly demanded their pay 

 in advance when asked to do anything for white men, and 

 hesitated or even refused to give white men any article of value 

 without being paid at the time. Nelson attributes this to a 

 distrust of strangers ; is this another instance of unpleasant 

 memories 1 Amundsen tells us his credit among the Nechilli was 

 1 really flattering. &quot; &quot;In the beginning the Eskimo were rather 

 astonished at receiving a piece of paper instead of a knife or 

 fifty cartridges, but when they understood the meaning of it my 

 paper was always accepted as good as payment.&quot; Some were 



