290 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



CHAPTER XXYII. 



THE ESQUIMAUX. 



Their wide Extension. — Climate of the Eegions they inhabit.— Their physical Appearance.— Their 

 Dress.— Snow Huts.— The Kayak, or the Baidar.— Hunting Apparatus and Weapons.— Enmity be- 

 tween the Esquimaux and the Red Indian.— The " Bloody Falls. "—Chase of the Reindeer.— Bird- 

 catching,— Whale-hunting. — Various Stratagems emploj'ed to catch the Seal.— The " Keep-kuttuk." 

 — Bear-hunting. — Walrus-hunting. — Awaklok and Myouk, — The Esquimaux Dog.— Games an<i 

 Sports.— Angekoks. — Moral Character. — Self-reliance.— Intelligence. — Iligliuk. — Commercial Ea- 

 gerness of the Esquimaux. — Their Voracity. — Seasons of Distress. 



OF all the uncivilized nations of the globe none range over a wider space 

 than the Esquimaux, whose various tribes extend from Greenland and 

 Labrador, over all the coasts of Arctic America, to the Aleutic chain and the ex- 

 treme north-eastern point of Asia. Many are independent, others subject to 

 the Russian, Danish, or British rule. In Baffin's Bay and Lancaster Sound they 

 accost the whale-fisher ; they meet him in the Icy Sea beyond Bering's Straits ; 

 and while their most southerly tribes dwell as low as the latitude of Vienna, 

 others sojourn as high as the 80th degree of northern latitude, and probably 

 roam even still higher on the still undiscovered coasts beyond — a nearness to 

 the pole no other race is known to reach. 



The old Scandinavian settlers in Greenland expressed their dislike for them 

 in the contemptuous name of Skraelingers (screamers or wretches) ; the seamen 

 of the Hudson's Bay ships, who trade annually with the natives of Northern Lab- 

 rador and the Savage Islands, have long called them " Seymos " or " Sucke- 

 mos," names evidently derived from the cries of " Seymo," or " Teymo," with 

 which they greet the arrival of the ships ; they speak of themselves simply as 

 " Inuit," or men. 



With few exceptions the whole of the vast region they inhabit lies beyond 

 the extremest limits of forest growth, in the most desolate and inhospitable 

 countries of the globe. The rough winds of the Polar Sea almost perpetually 

 blow over their bleak domains, and thus only a few plants of the hardest na- 

 ture—lichens and mosses, grasses, saxifragas, and willows — are able to subsist 

 there, and to afford a scanty supply of food to a few land animals and birds. 

 Ill indeed would it fare with the Esquimaux, if they were reduced to live upon 

 the niggardly produce of the soil ; but the sea, with its cetaceans and fishes, 

 amply provides for their wants. Thus they are never found at any considera- 

 ble distance from the ocean, and they line a considerable part of the coasts 

 of the Arctic seas without ever visiting the interior. 



It may easily be supposed that a race whose eastern branches have for sev- 

 eral centuries been under the influence of the Danes and English, while in the 

 extreme west it has long been forced to submit to Russian tyranny, and whose 

 central and northern tribes rarely come into contact with Europeans, must 



