GILBERTSON: ESKIMO CULTURE 41 



13. GRATITUDE 



After stating that, according to travelers accounts, the feeling 

 of gratitude is &quot;lacking in many uncivilized races,&quot; Wester- 

 marck quotes the following from Lyon, concerning the Eskimo : 



&quot;Gratitude is not only rare, but absolutely unknown amongst them, 

 either by action, word, or look, beyond the first outcry of satisfaction.&quot; 

 (71. 2: 155; cf. 16. 1: 174.) 



A quite different, and I am sure more just, view is presented 

 by Murdoch (this, it should be said, is also quoted by Wester- 

 marck, 71. 2:162): 



&quot;Some seemed to feel truly grateful for the benefits and gifts received, 

 and endeavored by their general behavior as well as in more substantial 

 ways to make some adequate return. Others appeared to think only of 

 what they might receive.&quot; (42: 42.) 



This would do very well as a description of a high-class civilized 

 community. 



A favorite point for moralists with linguistic proclivities is 

 to deny the existence of a word for this or that virtue, in the 

 language of a primitive people. Among these &quot;gratitude&quot; is 

 one often found missing. Now we hold, to use the language of 

 &quot;Wundt: 



&quot;The phenomena of language do not admit of direct translation back 

 again into ethical processes; the ideas themselves are different from their 

 vehicles of expression, and here as everywhere the external mark is later 

 than the internal act for which it stands.&quot; (72: 44.) 



But it may be of interest to note that a word, given by 

 Amundsen as &quot;koyenna,&quot; meaning &quot;thanks,&quot; which a mission 

 ary in Alaska claimed was of Christian origin was found in 

 Greenland (spelled by Crantz &quot;kujonak&quot;), when the first 

 modern missionaries arrived there. 



Peary writes of his Eskimo acquaintance that &quot;their feeling 

 for me is a blending of gratitude and confidence&quot; (48: 48) and 

 &quot;they are keenly appreciative of kindness.&quot; (48:51.) Holm 

 says that the sick, when helped by the Danish expedition, were 

 very grateful and the patient s housemates &quot;showered us with 

 thanks and gifts.&quot; He adds that this may not have been so 

 much from gratitude, as from the feeling the angokoks had 

 instilled in them, that all aid must be paid for. The explanation 

 is dubious. He himself gives other instances of thankfulness 

 where no such interpretation is admissible. (30:173.) 



