THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 429 



returned home he could show the rest of the village that he could 

 make it and drink it. 



One of the most universal Eskimo traits is the dislike for any- 

 thing very hot. During the last twenty or thirty years tea drink- 

 ing has come in on the entire north coast of Canada and Alaska 

 west of Cape Bathurst, and it is drunk as hot as we should drink it, 

 but all the old people know that when it was first introduced it 

 used to be drunk lukewarm. We found it so with our visitors. 

 While they were able to drink the tea, they waited till it was so 

 much cooled that most white men would have considered it unfit 

 to drink. In general Eskimos eat more hot food in summer than in 

 winter because cooking is then more convenient. At the Mackenzie 

 River until some forty years ago no cooked food or warmed drink 

 was used during the entire period of the absence of the sun. This 

 extraordinary custom I had inquired about carefully. At first I 

 imagined it was a taboo but all the old people have assured me that 

 it was not. When white men began to come in the Eskimos felt no 

 prejudice against eating warmed food and merely cared little for it 

 because they were not used to it. An Eskimo is clear in distinguish- 

 ing between things that are not done because they are taboo and 

 others that are not done simply because they never have been done. 



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