Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo - Alternative Religions ...

Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo - Title Page
have had no intercourse whatever since these regions have been known to Europeans.
3. The Northernmost Greenlanders, or inhabitants of the west coast to the north of Melville Bay, or what
Sir John Ross called the "Arctic Highlanders."
4. The Labrador Eskimo.
5. The Eskimo of the middle regions, occupying all the coasts from Baffin and Hudson Bays to Barter
Island near Mackenzie River. This division is the most widely spread of them allits territories
representing an extent of land, traversed and intercepted in many directions by the sea, measuring 2000
miles in length and 800 miles in breadth. Perhaps there may be reasons for establishing subdivisions of
this section, but they do not appear anywhere to exhibit such mutual differences as those separating them
from the next tribe, with whom they have regular meetings on Barter Island.
6. The Western Eskimo, inhabiting the remaining p. 4 coast of America from Barter Island to the west and
south. They seem to deviate from all the former in respect of certain habits, such as the labial ornaments
of the men and the head-dress of the women. They must also be considered as the nearest akin to the
Aleutians and the inland Eskimo, and in the vicinity of Alaska they show traces of intermingled Indian
blood. This may be owing to the Indian women captured in war with the Eskimo having been married
into the nation.
7. The Asiatic Eskimo.
As regards their development when they first became known to modern Europeans, the Eskimo may be
classed with the prehistoric races of the age of the ground stone tools with the exceptional use of metals.
It has been usual to designate all nations of this kind as "savages;" some authors have even described
them as being totally destitute of those mental qualities through which any kind of culture is manifested,
such as social order, laws, sciences, arts, and even religion. That those opinions find utterance can
scarcely be wondered at when we observe the carelessness with which such important questions are
discussed, and see travellers who merely go on shore from a ship and spend a couple of hours with the
inhabitants proceed to make inquiries as to their ideas of God and the origin of the world; and also how
European settlers among natives whose language they are quite unconversant with pretend to have found
them altogether without religion. Such views, however, resting upon the prejudice of race and on
superficial observation, are now being abandoned. We have gradually been finding out that
manifestations of culture must be supposed to exist in every nation, although they may not assume the
same form as those we observe among more advanced races. We think it a great mistake to suppose any
people devoid of religion; and it seems to us equally unreasonable p. 5 to fancy a community of men
living altogether without laws, if by laws we understand bonds or restrictions by which the community
voluntarily limits the free actions of its members. In the lower stages of development, the laws, being
principally represented by habits and customs, leave the individual perhaps even less free than in a more
civilised state, inasmuch as they dictate his mode of life, and not even in his most private and domestic
affairs is he left to act at liberty. These habits and customs are closely allied to the religious opinions, by
which they are still more powerfully influenced. When laws and religion were asserted to be wanting,
there was still less likelihood of art and science being observed. In the following introduction we shall
endeavour to explain how these utterances of culture are for the most part embodied in the traditional
tales.
It is in accordance with the views here stated that the author has been guided in attempting to divide and
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