FEEDING THE SICK FOLKS 



One of the greatest problems that presented 

 itself in those early days of Okak Hospital was the 

 problem of food. 



So often the people had said " We are Eskimos 

 we are different from Europeans," that I felt certain 

 that there was a great truth in it. The missionaries 

 have done the people a good service in persuading 

 them to remain Eskimos in their food and clothing : 

 there has been no attempt to force European ways 

 upon them ; and I am convinced of the wisdom of 

 this attitude because I have seen how the natives 

 degenerate when they take to European food. They 

 lose their natural coating of fat to a great extent, 

 and need more clothing to withstand the cold ; they 

 become less robust, less able to endure fatigue, and 

 their children are puny. 



Perhaps it is their great tendency to imitate that 

 explains why, at the more southern of the stations, 

 where English-speaking settlers live among the 

 people at their villages, the Eskimos are not so fine 

 physically as those living in the north. Whatever 

 the reason, the fact remains : and so I tackled the 

 feeding problem. When a sick man came to hospital 

 I told his friends " You may bring Eskimo foods for 

 him," and they hailed the suggestion with delight. 

 I found them a little shy, at first, of letting me know 

 what Eskimo foods really were. I knew from hearsay 

 that seal meat and codfish are the staple things ; and 

 for a while the sick folks were supplied with those : 

 but presently friends began quietly to bring other 

 things Eskimo dainties, I might call them. 



I went into a ward one day, and found a woman 

 sitting up in bed sucking and chewing at a pile of 



raw fish-heads which she hastily set aside when she 



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