A HARD-WORKING PEOPLE 



with any speed. Even with supervision the work 

 came foreign to their nature, and more than once on 

 fine mornings the workmen failed to turn up, and I 

 learnt later in the day that they had been tempted 

 by the beautiful weather or by a report of seals in the 

 bay, and had gone for a change in the form of a day's 

 hunting. Women scrape sealskins or sew boots from 

 morning till night ; but set them to pile the firewood 

 to dry on the hillside, and they sit and chatter, or 

 even, some of them, fall asleep, unless you keep an eye 

 upon them. But I could never call the Eskimos lazy 

 after seeing them trot forty miles or more in a day, or 

 sit rowing for twenty-four hours at a stretch, or work 

 like Trojans the whole day through to let the Mission 

 ship catch a favourable tide for sailing. 



No, my impression of them is that they are a 

 hard-working people. On stormy days the men sit 

 at home, smoking and talking ; they make nets or 

 plait strips of walrus hide into dog- whips, or do any 

 bits of work that may be necessary ; they may even 

 be busy carving ivory. If there is no work to be 

 done, they sprawl and chat and smoke and slumber. 



Ivory carving is practically a lost art among the 

 Eskimos. For one thing, walrus tusks are too scarce 

 since the walruses have been scared away northward, 

 I and the people need all they can get for the making 

 lof harpoon heads; for another thing, time is too 

 I precious nowadays, and there is not a good enough 

 I market for the quaint little figures of men and 

 Pledges and birds, and all the animals that an Eskimo 

 jknows ; so it comes about that the modern Eskimo 

 iyoung man does not bother to learn ivory carving. 



There is a little figure standing on my table as I 



write, a tiny white bird, and it carries me back to the 



105 



