University of Virginia Library

26. Esquimaux and their Children
BY WILLIAM DOUGLASS (1749)[69]

THE Esquimaux are a particular kind of American savages, who live only near the water, and never far in the country, on Terra Labrador, between the most outward point of the mouth of the river St. Lawrence and Hudson's bay.

The Esquimaux are entirely different from the Indians of North-America, in regard to their complexion and their language. They are almost as white as Europeans, and have little eyes: the men have likewise beards.[70] The Indians, on the contrary, are copper-colored, and the men have no beards.

Their houses are either caverns or clefts in the mountains, or huts of turf above ground. They never sow or plant vegetables, living chiefly on various kinds of whales, on seals, and walruses.

Sometimes they likewise catch land animals, on which they feed. They eat most of their meat quite raw. Their drink is water; and people have likewise seen them drinking the sea-water which was like brine.

Their shoes, stockings, breeches, and jackets, are made of seal-skins well prepared, and sewed together with sinews of whales, which may be twisted like threads, and are very tough. Their clothes, the hairy side of which is turned outwards, are sewed together so well, that they can go up to their shoulders in the water without wetting their under clothes.[71] Under their upper clothes, they wear shirts and waistcoats made of sealskin, prepared so well as to be quite soft.

I saw one of their women's dresses; a cap, a waistcoat, and coat, made all of one piece of seal-skin well prepared, soft to the touch, and the hair on the outside. There is a long train behind at their coats, which scarce reach them to the middle of the thigh before; under it they wear breeches and boots, all of one piece.

The shirt I saw was likewise made of a very soft seal's skin. The Esquimaux women are said to be handsomer than any of the American Indian women, and their husbands are accordingly more jealous in proportion.

I have likewise seen an Esquimaux boat. The outside of it consists entirely of skins, the hair of which has been taken off; and the sides of the skins on which they were inserted are turned outwards, and feel as smooth as vellum. The boat was near fourteen feet long, but very narrow, and very sharp-pointed at the extremities.

In the inside of the boat they place two or three thin boards, which give a kind of form to the boat.[72] It is quite covered with skins at the top, excepting, near one end, a hole big enough for a single person to sit and row in, and keep his thighs and legs under the deck. The figure of the hole resembles a semicircle, the base or diameter of which is turned towards the larger end of the boat. The hole is surrounded with wood, on which a soft folded skin is fastened with straps at its upper end.

When the Esquimaux makes use of his boat, he puts his legs and thighs under the deck, sits down at the bottom of the boat, draws the skin before-mentioned around his body, and fastens it well with the straps. The waves may then beat over his boat with considerable violence, and not a single drop comes into it; the clothes of the Esquimaux keep the wet from him. He has an oar in his hand, which has a paddle at each end; it serves him for rowing, and keeps the boat balanced during a storm. The boat will contain but a single person. Esquimaux have often been found safe in their boats many miles from land, in violent storms, where ships found it difficult to save themselves. Their boats float on the waves like bladders, and they row them with incredible velocity. They have boats of different shapes. They have likewise larger boats of wood covered with leather, in which several people may sit, and in which their women commonly go to sea.

Bows and arrows, javelins and harpoons, are their arms. With the harpoons they kill whales, and other large marine animals. The points of their arrows and harpoons are sometimes made of iron, sometimes of bone, and sometimes of the teeth of the walrus

Their quivers are made of seal-skin. The needles with which they sew their clothes are likewise made of iron, or of bone. All their iron they get, by some means or other, from the Europeans.

They sometimes go on board the European ships, in order to exchange some of their goods for knives and other iron. But it is not advisable for Europeans to go on shore, unless they be numerous; for the Esquimaux are false and treacherous, and cannot suffer strangers among them.

If they find themselves too weak, they run away at the approach of strangers; but if they think they are an over-match for them, they kill all that come in their way, without leaving a single one alive. The Europeans, therefore, do not venture to let a greater number of Esquimaux come on board their ships than they can easily master. If they are shipwrecked on the Esquimaux coasts, they may as well be drowned in the sea as come safe to the shore: this fate many Europeans have experienced.

The European boats and ships which the Esquimaux get into their power, are immediately cut in pieces, and robbed of all nails and other iron, which they work into knives, needles, arrowheads, &c. They make use of fire for no other purposes but working iron, and preparing the skins of animals. Their meat is eaten all raw.

When they come on board a European ship, and are offered some of the sailors' meat, they never will taste of it till they have seen some Europeans eat it. Though nothing pleases other savage nations so much as brandy, yet many Frenchmen have assured me that they never could prevail on the Esquimaux to take a dram of it. Their mistrust of other nations

is the cause of it; for they undoubtedly imagine that they are going to poison them, or do them some hurt; and I am not certain whether they do not judge right.

They have no earrings, and do not paint the face like the American Indians. For many centuries past they have had dogs whose ears are erected, and never hang down. They make use of them for hunting, and instead of horses in winter, for drawing their goods on the ice.

They themselves sometimes ride in sledges drawn by dogs. They have no other domestic animals. There are indeed plenty of reindeer in their country: but it is not known that either the Esquimaux or any of the Indians in America, have ever tamed them.

For the use of those who are fond of comparing the languages of several nations, I have here inserted a few Esquimaux words, communicated to me by the Jesuit Saint Pie. One, kombuc; two, tigal; three, ke; four, missilagat; water, sillalokto; rain, killaluck; heaven, taktuck, or nabugakshe; the sun, shikonak, or sakaknuk; the moon, takock; an egg, manneguk; the boat, kagack; the oar, pacotick; the knife, shavie; a dog, mekké, or timilok; the bow, petiksick; and arrow, katso; the head, niakock; the ear, tchiu; the eye, killik, or shik; the hair, nutshad; a tooth, ukak; the foot, itikat. Some think that they are nearly the same nation with the Greenlanders, or Skralingers; and pretend that there is a great affinity in the language.