STARTING THE HOSPITAL 



requests odd and ludicrous and touching by turns. 

 One of the very first visitors was old Maria, the village 

 " character," a well-meaning old body, no doubt, 

 amiable and friendly, but not over-endowed with 

 reasoning powers. She gave a very characteristic hint 

 of her idea of the functions of a hospital by asking 

 for "eye-medicine," and rambling off immediately 

 into a long explanation. " I have lost the cover of 

 my pipe," she said, and between the words she stooped 

 down and hitched a dingy and battered-looking 

 tobacco-pipe out of the leg of her boot. " I have lost 

 the cover of it," she repeated, " and the wind blows 

 the smoke into my eyes and makes them smart. I 

 want good medicine to cure that " ! That word for 

 "medicine" was one of the first of the many 

 curiosities of the Eskimo language that I learnt. 

 Their plan is to tack the ending " siumik " on to the 

 name for any part of the body where they have 

 pain, and so build up a word that means medicine 

 for that particular pain. Maria's request was a 

 simple one ije-siumik (eye-medicine) but some of 

 the others were not so plain. I remember one 

 square- shouldered little man, with a heavy mop of 

 hair streaked with grey, who marched solemnly in 

 and asked for " tooth-medicine." The offer of some 

 toothache tincture caused him to shake his head 

 resolutely. " Oukak " (no), he said, " kikkiamik 

 piumavunga" (I want the iron sort), and down he 

 sat, pointing a stubby finger at a huge molar. 

 There was no mistaking his meaning, though it 

 may seem queer " medicine " ; and very soon he 

 was ambling home with many smiles and mutterings 

 of " Thankie " after the " iron sort of tooth medicine " 

 had pulled out the offending tooth. 



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