CHRISTMAS CELEBRATED 157 



lies. A white man would have drawn a long face 

 and borrowed much unnecessary trouble from it. 

 But not so the Eskimos. It was a thing that had hap- 

 pened and could not be undone. No amount of 

 worry could help or remedy it in the least. Then 

 why worry? Worry is harmful, it begets depressed 

 spirits, and the mind in that condition affects the 

 physical system. This is Eskimo philosophy, and the 

 Eskimo, therefore, does not worry, no matter how 

 great the provocation for it. He nurtures optimism. 

 When anything goes wrong, instead of feeling badly 

 he treats it as a joke circumstances have played upon 

 him. So Kudlar and Kulutinguah laughed. The 

 dogs had played a huge joke on them. 



I called at all the igloos, and in each the men were 

 engaged in constructing stoves out of tin cracker 

 boxes, and improvising stovepipes out of tin cans 

 that had held baked beans or other provisions. Kud- 

 lar's was finished, and he had a fire in it of seal fat, 

 which made a good heat, but smelled exceedingly 

 strong. 



When I left the igloos not a breath of wind was 

 stirring, the heavens were never more bright, nor the 

 northern lights more brilliant. It was entrancing 

 and I walked for awhile along the ice foot. The 

 snow crunched beneath my feet with a sound differ- 

 ent from any I had ever heard before, and every now 

 and again there would be a loud report and I would 

 feel the ice tremble under me. Sometimes I would 

 stop to listen to the silence a silence beyond descrip- 

 tion or imagination, a calm and quiet deader than 



