The Labrador Eskimo. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 



THE SKRAELINGS. 



A correct understanding of the present habitat and con- 

 dition of the Labrador Eskimo is hardly obtainable without a 

 knowledge of their past history and the remarkable vicissitudes 

 of fortune through which they have passed. The wiping out 

 by the combined whites and Indians, of the entire southern 

 branch south of Hamilton inlet, which remained hostile and pagan 

 to the last, and the careful nourishing of the northern branch 

 by Christian missionaries, form one of the many paradoxes 

 with which the history of native races in their relation to the 

 whites abounds. 



The first mention of Eskimo, supposed to inhabit the present 

 Labrador, occurs in the Saga of Eric the Red, where the en- 

 counter of the Northmen with the Skraelings (which should 

 remind us that the Eskimo were probably the first people met by 

 the whites in America) is thus described : 



"They saw a great number of skin canoes, and staves were 

 brandished from their boats with a noise like flails, and they 

 were revolved in the same direction in which the sun moves."^ 



This is evidently an attempt of the Norse singer to describe 

 something so unusual to their economy as the appearance of 

 Eskimo in kayaks (skin boats). The sound of the double- 

 bladed paddles striking the water might be likened to the action 

 of flails; while the motion in the air, dipping on one side and then 

 the other, would give them the appearance of revolving to an 



' It is Interesting to note in passing that the movement "as the sun goes" is characteristic 

 of the turning of the dancers in certain Eskimo ceremonial dances, and that the actual words, 

 ' 'Turn as the light of day (the sun) goes," occur in one of their ceremonies. See Nelson, Eskimo 

 about Bering strait, 18th Annual Report B.A.E., p. 372. 



