ell knotted together, and at the
same time to give it the glistening appearance which is prized as a
beauty, they have furthermore the habit of steeping it in urine before
doing it up, thus making it moist and easier to tighten.

Mothers lick their children instead of washing them, or at least did so
in former days; and as to the insects they come across in the process,
their principle is, 'They bite, therefore they must be bitten.'

If any should be offended by these peculiarities in the manners and
customs of the Greenlanders, they ought to reflect that their own
forefathers, not so many generations ago, conducted themselves not so
very differently. Let them read the accounts of the domestic life of the
Teutonic peoples some centuries ago, and they will learn many things
that will surprise them.

Footnotes.

[8: Saabye: _Greenland; being extracts from a Journal kept in that
country in the years 1770 to 1778._ London: 1818.]

[9: _Meddelelser om Groenland._ Pt. 10, p. 58. Copenhagen: 1889.]

[10: Norwegian, _sennegraes_. _Trans._]




CHAPTER III

THE 'KAIAK' AND ITS APPURTENANCES


A superficial examination of certain details in the outward life of the
Eskimo might easily lead to the erroneous conclusion that he stands at
a low grade of civilisation. When we take the trouble to look a little
more closely at him, we soon see him in another light.

Many people nowadays are vastly impressed with the greatness of our age,
with all the inventions and the progress of which we daily hear, and
which appear indisputably to exalt the highly gifted white race far over
all others. These people would learn much by paying close attention to
the development of the Eskimos, and to the tools and inventions by aid
of which they obtain the necessaries of life among natural surroundings
which place such pitifully small means at their disposal.

Picture a people placed upon a coast so desert and inhospitable as
that of Greenland, cut off from the outer world, without iron, without
firearms, without any resources except those provid