Newspaper Page Text
Entered according to Act of Congress, in June, 1867, by J. W. Burke & Cos., in tho Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the So. District of Georgia
Vol. I.
Written for Burke’s Weekly.
THE ESQUIMAUX.
FEW weeks ago wc gave
our readers a picture of an
iceberg, and told them
Bwi something about the fro
zen regions surrounding
Wg*? the North pole. Those regions are
wJ? inhabited by a race of people known
as the Esquimaux, who are spread
£7 across the continent of America,
' from Greenland in the East, to Beh
ring’s Strait on the West. “ The narrow
belt subjected to the nomadic
range of these poor people,”
says Dr. Kane, “ cannot be less
than six hundred miles long;
and throughout this extent of
country every man knows ev
ery man. There is not a mar
riage, or a birth, or a death,
that is not talked over and
mentally registered by all. —
Destitute as they are, they ex
ist, both in love and in commu
nity of resources as a single
family.
“The sites of their huts—
lor they are so few in number
as not to bear the name of vil-
lages—are arranged with reference to the
length of the dog-march, and Ihc seat of
the hunt; and thus, when Winter lias
built her highway and cemented into one
the sea, the island and the main, they in
terchange with‘one another the sympa
thies and social communion of man, and
diffuse through the darkness a knowledge
of the resources and condition of all.”
During the long Arctic night, of four
months, which is also the Arctic winter,
the main line of travel between these
huts is like a well-broken road in other
countries, and the dogs speed from hut to
hut almost without guidance from their
drivers. “Every rock has its name; ev
ery hill its significance,” and there is not
MACON, G-A., SEPTEMBER 14=, 1867.
a spot of snow covered territory any
where on tho line, that is not thoroughly
familiar to the youngest hunter in tho
nation.
The Esquimaux travel altogether in
sleds, drawn by dogs, and without these
useful animals it would be almost impos
sible to traverse this snowy wilderness.
Dr. Hays thinks that they are reclaimed
wolves, having all the wolfs fierceness
when inflamed by hunger, but with all
his timidity and cowardice when prompt
ly met by a fearless man, well armed. —
On one occasion Dr. Hays came very nea r
/
M . ■ : ’ '
losing bis lite, from a pack of thiitcen
hungry dogs, who came upon him when
he had nothing to defend himself with,
and nothing saved him but pro\ identially
finding a lost whip, half buried in the
snow. Under a series of well directed
blows from this slender but effective wea
pon, the dogs retreated, and finally skulk
ed behind the rocks.
“ Even the hunter who has been accus
tomed to them for years, and has fed
them and driven them, has to watch them
closely when they are hungry. His whip
is then his constant companion. Except
in rare cases, they are capable of no at
tachment to their master, bo he never so
kind ; and they will follow the niali who
last fed them. A little child or a disabled
person is never safe among them in times
of scarcity.”
A story was told Dr. Hays, at Proven,
of a little boy, grandson of the Governor,
who started to walk from one house to
another, about twenty yards distant, and
who, falling midway, was immediately
pounced upon by more than a hundred
dogs, torn to pieces, and devoured in an
instant, under the eyes of his mother who
had scarcely time even to scream.
Dr. Hays thus describes an Esquimaux
snow T hut: “Bight abreast of the ship there
was a narrow gorge, in which
the wintry winds had piled the
suow to a great depth,
as it whirled through the open
ing, a sort of cavern —tho curv
ing snow bank on the right and
overhead, and the squaro sided
rock on the left. Starting at
the inner side of this cavern,
Tcheitchenguak began to bury
himself in the snow, very much
as a prairie dog would do in
the loose soil—digging down
into the drift and tossing the
lumps behind him with great
rapidity. After going down
ward for about five feet, he ran
off horizontally for about ten feet moie,
and then began to excavate his den. Af
ter throwing out the snow until he had
room enough to stand upright, he was
satisfied with the size of his cave, and
smoothed it off to suit his fancy. The
doorway was now fixed up and made just
large enough to crawl through on all
f ourg —the floor was covered with a layer
of stones and afterwards with reindeer
skins; two native lamps were lighted
reindeer skins hung around the walls and
across the doorway, and the Esquimaux
and his family were perfectly “at home.”
Vnd this was the winter residence of a
couple so old that no one could tell their
ages.
No. 11.