THE ESKIMOS 



balanced in tiny skin canoes they followed the seal 

 and the walrus, with flint harpoon ready to hand; 

 they looked after the needs of their bodies, and that 

 was all. They superstitiously dreaded some vague 

 and malignant Power ; they paid tribute to the men 

 who were supposed to live in league with this 

 Being; they lived their hopeless life and passed 

 away into the dark. Generation followed generation 

 in the same dismal course : they made no progress. 

 It was to this people that the missionaries of the 

 Moravian Church came in the year 1771, bringing the 

 good news of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world, 

 and bringing a power into the hearts of the Eskimos 

 that has elevated them to a life of hope and progress, 

 and made them law-abiding, Christian citizens. 



The nearest glimpse we can get of the Eskimos 

 as they were in olden times, is among that tribe 

 which has settled at Killinek, the northernmost tip 

 of Labrador. I have thought it well, therefore, to 

 write first of them, and then to turn back to my old 

 home at Okak, and write of the Eskimos as I knew 

 them so well a people born and brought up in 

 Christian villages, and living the life which God 

 intended them to live on their bare and inhospitable 

 coast, unspoiled by that darker side which so often 

 shows uppermost when civilization reaches nature 

 peoples. 



