The Native Races (Complete 5 Part Edition). Hubert Howe Bancroft

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СКАЧАТЬ Eskimos are essentially a peculiar people. Their character and their condition, the one of necessity growing out of the other, are peculiar. First, it is claimed for them that they are the anomalous race of America—the only people of the new world clearly identical with any race of the old. Then they are the most littoral people in the world. The linear extent of their occupancy, all of it a narrow seaboard averaging scarcely one hundred miles in width, is estimated at not less than five thousand miles. Before them is a vast, unknown, icy ocean, upon which they scarcely dare venture beyond sight of land; behind them, hostile mountaineers ever ready to dispute encroachment. Their very mother-earth, upon whose cold bosom they have been borne, age after age through countless generations,8 is almost impenetrable, thawless ice. Their days and nights, and seasons and years, are not like those of other men. Six months of day succeed six months of night. Three months of sunless winter; three months of nightless summer; six months of glimmering twilight.

About the middle of October9 commences the long night of winter. The earth and sea put on an icy covering; beasts and birds depart for regions sheltered or more congenial; humanity huddles in subterraneous dens; all nature sinks into repose. The little heat left by the retreating sun soon radiates out into the deep blue realms of space; the temperature sinks rapidly to forty or fifty degrees below freezing; the air is hushed, the ocean calm, the sky cloudless. An awful, painful stillness pervades the dreary solitude. Not a sound is heard; the distant din of busy man, and the noiseless hum of the wilderness alike are wanting. Whispers become audible at a considerable distance, and an insupportable sense of loneliness oppresses the inexperienced visitor.10 Occasionally the aurora borealis flashes out in prismatic coruscations, throwing a brilliant arch from east to west—now in variegated oscillations, graduating through all the various tints of blue, and green, and violet, and crimson; darting, flashing, or streaming in yellow columns, upwards, downwards; now blazing steadily, now in wavy undulations, sometimes up to the very zenith; momentarily lighting up in majestic grandeur the cheerless frozen scenery, but only to fall back with exhausted force, leaving a denser obscurity. Nature's electric lantern, suspended for a time in the frosty vault of heaven;—munificent nature's fire-works; with the polar owl, the polar bear, and the polar man, spectators.

In January, the brilliancy of the stars is dimmed perceptibly at noon; in February, a golden tint rests upon the horizon at the same hour; in March, the incipient dawn broadens; in April, the dozing Eskimo rubs his eyes and crawls forth; in May, the snow begins to melt, the impatient grass and flowers arrive as it departs.11 In June, the summer has fairly come. Under the incessant rays of the never setting sun, the snow speedily disappears, the ice breaks up, the glacial earth softens for a depth of one, two, or three feet; circulation is restored to vegetation,12 which, during winter, had been stopped—if we may believe Sir John Richardson, even the largest trees freezing to the heart. Sea, and plain, and rolling steppe lay aside their seamless shroud of white, and a brilliant tint of emerald overspreads the landscape.13 All Nature, with one resounding cry, leaps up and claps her hands for joy. Flocks of birds, lured from their winter homes, fill the air with their melody; myriads of wild fowls send forth their shrill cries; the moose and the reindeer flock down from the forests;14 from the resonant sea comes the noise of spouting whales and barking seals; and this so lately dismal, cheerless region, blooms with an exhuberance of life equaled only by the shortness of its duration. And in token of a just appreciation of the Creator's goodness, this animated medley—man, and beasts, and birds, and fishes—rises up, divides, falls to, and ends in eating or in being eaten.

      PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

The physical characteristics of the Eskimos are: a fair complexion, the skin, when free from dirt and paint, being almost white;15 a medium stature, well proportioned, thick-set, muscular, robust, active,16 with small and beautifully shaped hands and feet;17 a pyramidal head;18 a broad egg-shaped face; high rounded cheek-bones; flat nose; small oblique eyes; large mouth; teeth regular, but well worn;19 coarse black hair, closely cut upon the crown, leaving a monk-like ring around the edge,20 and a paucity of beard.21 The men frequently leave the hair in a natural state. The women of Icy Reef introduce false hair among their own, wearing the whole in two immense bows at the back of the head. At Point Barrow, they separate the hair into two parts or braids, saturating it with train-oil, and binding it into stiff bunches with strips of skin. Their lower extremities are short, so that in a sitting posture they look taller than when standing.

      IMPROVEMENTS UPON NATURE.

      Were these people satisfied with what nature has done for them, they would be passably good-looking. But with them as with all mankind, no matter how high the degree of intelligence and refinement attained, art must be applied to improve upon nature. The few finishing touches neglected by the Creator, man is ever ready to supply.

      Arrived at the age of puberty, the great work of improvement begins. Up to this time the skin has been kept saturated in grease and filth, until the natural color is lost, and until the complexion is brought down to the Eskimo standard. Now pigments of various dye are applied, both painted outwardly and pricked into the skin; holes are cut in the face, and plugs or labrets inserted. These operations, however, attended with no little solemnity, are supposed to possess some significance other than that of mere ornament. Upon the occasion of piercing the lip, for instance, a religious feast is given.

On the northern coast the women paint the eyebrows and tattoo the chin; while the men only pierce the lower lip under one or both corners of the mouth, and insert in each aperture a double-headed sleeve-button or dumb-bell-shaped labret, of bone, ivory, shell, stone, glass, or wood. The incision when first made is about the size of a quill, but as the aspirant for improved beauty grows older, the size of the orifice is enlarged until it reaches a width of half or three quarters of an inch.22 In tattooing, the color is applied by drawing a thread under the skin, or pricking it in with a needle. Different tribes, and different ranks of the same tribe, have each their peculiar form of tattooing. The plebeian female of certain bands is permitted to adorn her chin with but one vertical line in the centre, and one parallel to it on either side, while the more fortunate noblesse mark two vertical lines from each corner of the mouth.23 A feminine cast of features, as is common with other branches of the Mongolian race, prevails in both sexes. Some travelers discover in the faces of the men a characteristic expression of ferociousness, and in those of the women, an extraordinary display of wantonness. A thick coating of filth and a strong odor of train-oil are inseparable from an Eskimo, and the fashion of labrets adds in no wise to his comeliness.24

      ESKIMO DRESS.

For covering to the body, the Eskimos employ the skin of all the beasts and birds that come within their reach. Skins are prepared in the fur,25 and cut and sewed with neatness and skill. Even the intestines of seals and whales are used in the manufacture of water-proof overdresses.26 СКАЧАТЬ