The People of the Polar North/Chapter 17
These rules, some of which are observed at birth, and others at death, are the moral foundation of the Eskimo mode of life, and form the nucleus of their religious ideas. These latter may be explained more clearly through the remarks of the Polar Eskimos themselves.
After a conversation with a Polar Eskimo on the Christian faith, I asked him, "But what do you believe?"
"We do not believe in any God, as you do," said he. "We do not all understand the hidden things, but we believe the people who say they do. We believe our Angákut, our magicians, and we believe them because we wish to live long, and because we do not want to expose ourselves to the danger of famine and starvation. We believe, in order to make our lives and our food secure. If we did not believe the magicians, the animals we hunt would make themselves invisible to us; if we did not follow their advice, we should fall ill and die."
A little episode that occurred during the winter will illustrate this.
We had taken into our tent a young fellow whose parents had recently died. We had taken him in, partly because he had no home, and partly because we thought we should get some help from him in our household. But it was very soon to be seen that it was we who had to wait upon him in everything. One day that some one was wanted to fetch ice to melt, our Greenlandic companion, Jörgen Brönlund, had, without our knowledge, told him to do it. He might well let his old traditions slide for one day, thought Jörgen. And so Agpalinguaq (that was his name) had fetched the ice.
He was seen, however, by some old women, and they were very much concerned about this breach of rule.
Something would happen, they declared.
And it did,—a few days afterwards, a south-west gale rose, and the swell was so violent that the waves broke far inland and destroyed every house in the village.
The result was that one of the leading men in the tribe came to us and begged us not again to cause the old customs to be contravened.
And he explained to me—
"We observe our old customs, in order to hold the world up, for the powers must not be offended."
(I have translated the word sila the first time as "world and the next as "powers." The sentence in Eskimo runs: Sila najúmivdlugo, sila ajuatdlangnertórssûngmat. Sila means not only "the whole," "the universe," but likewise the "individual powers or forces of Nature," for instance in the sentence, Sitdlardlugpagssualeqimioq—Bad weather has come on.)
"We observe our customs, in order to hold each other up; we are afraid of the great Evil, perdlugssuaq. Men are so helpless in face of illness. The people here do penance, because the dead are strong in their vital sap, and boundless in their might."
"If we did not take these precautions," say the Eskimos, "we believe that great masses of snow would slide down and destroy us, that snowstorms would lay us waste, that the sea would rise in violent waves while we are out in our kayaks, or that a flood would sweep our houses out into the sea."
"If any one with a better teaching would come to us and demand that we believe his words, we would do so willingly, if we saw that his teaching was really better than ours, but then he must remain among us and lead us towards that which we do not know. Yes, tell us the right, and convince us that it is right, and we will believe you."
A remark like this best proves how wavering their religious conceptions are.
They are to them, not the only possible ones, but merely the best that they know, through the traditions of their forefathers.