138 CRUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 



(Sagdlingmiut) being armed only with bow and arrows and 

 spears, were unable to compete with the better armed strangers, 

 and as a result the entire tribe, who numbered 68 souls in 1900, 

 died of starvation and disease during the winter of 1902. The 

 whaling station was abandoned in the summer of 1903, after 

 the death of the original natives, and the great island is now 

 uninhabited except by a few natives from Big island who stay 

 at the old whaling station. 



The white men belonging to the whaling station have now 

 been quartered at Repulse bay, and a number of the Big island 

 natives have also been taken there ; it is likely, therefore, that 

 they will spread disease and disaster among the Aivilliks and 

 Nechilliks of that region. Some regulation should be made to 

 prevent this unauthorized movement of the natives, or similar 

 wholesale slaughter will again occur. 



The Eskimos of the Atlantic coast of Labrador have long 

 been under the direct influence of the Moravian missionaries, 

 and are in consequence much more civilized than the others. 

 The Moravians first arrived on the coast in 1770, and since then 

 have established mission stations along the shores from Ham- 

 ilton inlet northward to Cape Chidley. Their policy has been 

 to collect the natives into bands about these stations. To accom- 

 plish this, they have erected each mission at some place where" 

 the natural resources are abundant. The missionaries have 

 kept the Eskimos as free as possible from contact with the float- 

 ing, white, fishing population, and to do so, have obtained 

 exclusive trading rights from the Newfoundland Government. 

 Their scheme is a sort of parent-hood, by which they supply the 

 natives with food and clothing, taking the product of their hunt 

 in exchange ; this scheme seems to work very satisfactorily, the 

 natives being content, while their welfare is attended to without 

 their being pauperized. There is no premium put on laziness 

 and false piety, as is so often the case where the missionary 

 makes a free distribution of food and clothing to the natives. 



