112 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



door with a hatchet. For the first time the Eskimos 

 began to lock their doors. The thing was a terror. 

 But the secret brewing went on. 



Then the elders of the village took action. " This 

 thing is bad," they said; "the Word is true, for 

 strong drink is certainly raging. It will ruin the 

 people ; it must surely cease." 



They called a mass meeting of the men in one of 

 the huts, and if you can imagine a mass meeting 

 of seventy or eighty Eskimos in a hut which would 

 seem crowded with half the number, you may know 

 a little of such a meeting as that. The men stood 

 round the walls, they sat in a heap upon the bed, 

 they crowded on the floor, standing, sitting on 

 corners of boxes, leaning over one another ; and you 

 may conjure up that mob of faces, all browned with 

 the winter air and the frost, lighted by the glimmer 

 of a smoking seal-oil lamp, in an atmosphere 

 stuffy with the smell of fish. But it was a mass 

 meeting, a meeting of men in a good cause, and 

 better work could not have been done in the widest 

 amphitheatre or the most resplendent council 

 chamber. 



Big Josef took the lead big Josef, the tallest of 

 the Eskimos and a mighty hunter. 



" The drinking is bad ; it will spoil the people," 

 he said ; ' ' our village cannot be if such things are 

 allowed. There never v/as such among the Eskimos, 

 never." 



One after another spoke, asking, answering, 

 calling up days gone by for the Eskimos like to 

 remember what their forefathers did. The palaver 



