A HARD-WORKING PEOPLE 



nearest to any such thing was the case where a man, 

 long years before, had stolen an axe from anothei 

 man's house, and the descendants of these two mei 

 used to remind each other of the episode whenevei 

 they happened to have a quarrel in hand. Whei 

 they do quarrel it is next to impossible to avoi< 

 hearing them, for they stand out of doors, pourin/ 

 forth voluble streams of grammatical language b; 

 turns, at the top of their voices. The horrible ol< 

 heathen blood-feuds have gone, and a peaceful an< 

 friendly tone, both among themselves and towards 

 strangers, is one of the characteristics of the Eskimo 

 people to-day. 



There is just a little reserve with strangers, but I 

 found as I went in and out among them that their 

 shyness wore off, and I was able to watch them at 

 their work and learn their characteristic ways. I 

 was rather surprised at first to find so many of the 

 men asleep in the daytime ; and when I went into a 

 hut and saw the father of the family, a lusty middle- 

 aged Eskimo hunter, sprawling snoring over a box, 

 or curled up on the bed or the floor, I could not 

 help thinking him a lazy fellow. This is the usual 

 first impression. But I know that the Eskimo is a 

 hard-working man : if he is asleep in the daytime he 

 has earned his rest by trudging through the soft 

 snow of the woods to his fox-traps, or driving his 

 dogs to fetch seals. 



The Eskimos are a hard-working people, but 

 they have their lazy side : they are apt to dawdle 

 over work to which they are not accustomed. I had 

 to employ a good many men at carpentering and 

 building, and I found that they needed almost 



constant supervision if the work was to go ahead 



104 



