January 14. 1909] 



NA TURE 



THE AyTHROPOLOGY OF THE GREENLAND 

 ESKIMO.' 



THIS work deals in a very thorough fashion with 

 the psychology and culture of the three distinct 

 branches of the Eskimos which make up the popula- 

 tion of Greenland, namely, the West Greenlanders, 

 the East Greenlanders and the Polar Eskimos. The 

 book is splendidly illustrated by Count Harald Moltke. 



The greater part of the book is devoted to a descrip- 

 tion of the Polar Eskimos, who live on the strip of 

 land north of Cape York, and are the most northerly 

 people in the world. Mr. Rasmussen, who was born 

 in Greenland, appears to have thoroughly understood 

 the people and how to gain their confidence. The 

 consequence is that during his ten months' residence 

 among them he has been able to collect a vast amount 

 of interesting information about their daily life, their 

 beliefs about the origin of the universe, and their 

 fables and legends. 



Even the Polar Eskimos, though the least advanced 

 of the three groups of Green- 

 landers, appear to have pro- 

 gressed well beyond the stage 

 of primitive savagery; they 

 have fullv entered the magical 

 stage and to .some extent 

 passed into the supernatural. 

 The magician is a man of 

 mighty power amongst them. 

 Their religious beliefs consist 

 of a series of commandments 

 and rules of conduct control- 

 ling their relations with un- 

 known forces hostile to man. 

 The magician makes these 

 powers subservient to himself. 

 He has developed his faculties 

 so that he can put himself 

 in communication with the 

 spirits. He uses a special 

 spirit language in his incanta- 

 tions. Magic is said, however, 

 to be degenerating among 

 these Eskimos, because they 

 are not nowadays much e.\- 

 posed to danger. 



Some of their beliefs tliat 

 have apparently been h.nided 

 down by oral tradition 

 through untold generations are 

 by no means primitive, and 

 have a remarkable resem- 

 blance to the beliefs of some 

 peoples in a much more 

 advanced stage of civilisation. The Polar Eskimo 

 believes that every person has a soul, a bodv and 

 a name. He believes that the soul is immortal', 

 that when the soul leaves the body the body dies, and 

 that on the death of the body the soul ascends into 

 heaven. It is believed that the soul of a man, on his 

 death, may pass into one of the lower animals; the 

 doctrine of the transmigration of souls appears, in 

 fact, to be fully developed among the Eskimos. 



The body of the Eskimo at death is buried by his 

 relatives along with all his implements, and his 

 dogs are slain harnessed to a sledge which is 

 placed by his grave. For a woman onlv one dog is 

 slain. 



1 "The People of the Polar North." By Knud Rasmussen. Comoilid 

 from the Danish originals and edited by G. Herring. Illustrations by Count 

 Harald Mollke. Pp. xix + 358. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner 

 and Co., Ltd., 1908.) Price £1 is. net. 



NO. 2046, VOL. 79] 



The name was originally believed by the Eskimo to 

 be a kind of soul, which transferred the qualities of a 

 dead person to the living person who received the 

 name. 



As regards the personal character of the Polar 

 Eskimo, he appears to take a very practical view of 

 life. The boys learn the main business of life, 

 namely, hunting, in their play, and abstract reflection 

 appears to be unknown. They are very fond of their 

 dogs ; one has been known to attack a bear at great 

 personal risk in order to avenge the death of a 

 favourite dog. 



Polygamy is rare among them, but there survives a 

 curious custom of exchanging wives which appears 

 to have the full sanction of public opinion. 



A very complete collection of the fables and legends 

 of this interesting people will be found in Mr. Ras- 

 mussen 's volume. These were all collected from the 

 natives by the author, and great care, apparently, was 

 taken to get the correct versions. This material will 

 be invaluable to the folklorists. But whether they 



Fi<;. I.— Elevation and Plan of an Eskimo Hut. From " The People of the Polar North.' 



will be of much value, as suggested by Mr. Herring, 

 in tracing the racial origin of the people is doubtful, 

 for very close analogies to some of these tales will be 

 found in the lore of the most distant parts of the 

 earth. For example, the tale of the man who married 

 the goose by stealing her coat of feathers, which she 

 had laid off while bathing, is paralleled by a very 

 similar tale in the "Arabian Nights." 



Very little information about the physical charac- 

 teristics of the Eskimos is given in this book, except 

 what can be derived from the excellent representations 

 of typical natives by Count Harald Moltke. The faces 

 of the Polar Eskimos appear to be decidedly mongo- 

 loid. But all measurements of Eskimos hitherto made 

 show that they have a very low cephalic index, not 

 higher than 77, and in some groups as low as 73. 

 This would appear to point to a cross between a 

 mongoloid and some dolichocephalic race, such as was 



