NATIVE DOCTORS 



accordingly he carries out his treatment by means of 

 lengthy and mysterious manipulations. The Eskimos 

 have a general idea of the constitution of the body ; 

 their constant work upon the seals gives them that ; 

 they know whereabouts the various organs are, but 

 of the marvellous way in which those organs work 

 together in the bodily economy they have no idea. 

 The wonders of physiology are beyond the grasp of 

 their child minds ; they do not puzzle their heads 

 over what they do not understand: "Taimaipok" 

 (it is so), they say, and are content. 



The native rubbers are rather shy of letting 

 Europeans see them at their work, but this is merely 

 the natural shyness of letting others see them at their 

 peculiarly Eskimo habits. I have been a privileged, 

 and sometimes unexpected, spectator a time or two, 

 and found the manipulator surrounded by a crowd of 

 men, all eager to see "how it is done." 



There was a very famous rubber in Okak during 

 my time, a weird old fellow, respectable and hard- 

 working enough, rather primitive in his habits, but 

 possessed of a deformity of the roof of his mouth 

 which gave his speech an almost un-understandable 

 twang. 



I dare say his peculiarity was something of an 

 asset, for he got frequent employment as a " mender " 

 of "broken" backs and lame joints. There is no 

 doubt that the rubbing was good for many things, 

 but I think that the native doctors owe some of their 

 popularity to the old Eskimo conservatism. I have 

 known people come to hospital with such a tale as 

 this : "I broke my back yesterday at my work. 

 Old Jakko mended it last night, but it is no better ! " 



The work of the native doctors is an innocent 



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