Religion

If you ask the missionaries working among the Alaskan or the Mackenzie River Eskimo whether they have been Christianized, they will say yes; if you ask the Eskimo themselves whether they are Christians, they also will answer in the affirmative; and if you ask me, too, then so will I. But to supplement my answer I would like the privilege of explaining what kind of Christians they are, to explain which fact has been the purpose of this article. 

I am so great an admirer of the Eskimo before civilization changed them that it is not easy to get me to say that civilization has improved them in any material way, leaving aside, of course, the question of whether it profiteth a man that he gain the whole earth if he lose his own soul. But although it is not easy to get me to admit that the present-day Eskimo are far better men than their forefathers, it is easy to get them themselves to admit it. In fact, they are of late years rather prone to assert that they are better men than their ancestors. To quote my man Ilavinirk again, he said to me one day : 

“The people of Kotzebue Sound were formerly very bad, but they are all good now. In my father's time and when I was young they used to lie and to steal and to work on Sunday.” 

“ But," I asked him, “don't they, as a matter of fact, tell lies now occasionally ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, they sometimes do. ” 

“ Well, don't they really, as a matter of fact, tell about as many lies now as they ever did ?” 

“ Well, yes, perhaps they do. ” 

“ And don't they, as a matter of fact, steal about as frequently as ever ?” 

“ Well, possibly. But they don't work on Sunday.”

Guninana was not only well informed, but was also, fortunately for me, not such a good Christian as the rest of her countrymen. She had not yet learned that the native lore of her people was essentially wicked and needed to be forgotten, and she told me of how diseases were controlled, how famines were averted, how people were killed or cured by magic, how the future could be foretold and the secrets of the past uncovered, how people could see through hills and fly to the moon, and various things of that sort of which the Christian Eskimo pretend an ignorance and of which they will either tell you nothing or else half truths and untruths. Personally I have always been unable to see why the creations of the Eskimo's imagination should be any more wicked than our “blue-beards," or why the knowledge of the Eskimo method of reading the future should be any more likely to lead to damnation than our palmistry or the reading of the grounds in the bottom of a teacup ; but so it seems to be. And if there are only some of the missionaries who think the native lore wicked , that minority have impressed their views so completely on the Eskimo that no Eskimo who values his immortal soul (and most of them value their immortal souls extravagantly) will defile himself or endanger his eternal welfare by telling the things which they still believe quite as much as they ever did, but which they now consider to be wicked, and which they have abjured on the principle of its not profiting a man to gain the whole earth if he lose his own soul. Most of the Eskimo are a bit regretful over having surrendered the familiar spirits which formerly served them and did their every bidding: changed for them the winds, cured their children when they were ill , and brought caribou to be killed at the very front doors of the houses. Many of them express freely their regret that the use of such useful magic should be incompatible with salvation.

Another of our Eskimo, Tannaumirk, was considered by his countrymen, the Mackenzie River people, as exceptionally well versed in the truths of the new religion. He was, on the whole, a very sensible boy and a bit philosophical, although not very resourceful or self-reliant in every-day affairs. He liked to have long talks on the whys and wherefores of things. It was during the convalescence of Dr. Anderson from pneumonia at Cape Parry that Tannaumirk and I one day were discussing the religion of his people and mine. "Is it true, ” he asked me, “that Christ was the only white man who could raise people from the dead?” 

“Yes,” I told him, “He was the only one; and some of my countrymen doubt that even He could.” 

Said Tannaumirk: “I can understand how that might easily be so with your countrymen. If Christ was the only white man who could do it, and if you never knew of any one else who could, I can see why you should doubt His being able to do it. You naturally would not understand how it was done. But we Eskimo do not doubt it, because we understand it. We ourselves can raise people from the dead. You know that some years before you first came to the Mackenzie district Taiakpanna died. He died in the morning, and Alualuk, the great shaman, arrived in the afternoon. The body of Taiakpanna was still lying there in the house; Alualuk immediately summoned his familiar spirits, performed the appropriate ceremonies, and woke Taiakpanna from the dead, and, as you know, he is still living. If Alualuk could do it, why should we doubt that Christ could do it, too?” 

This Alualuk referred to by Tannaumirk is a Point Barrow Eskimo living among the Mackenzie people. I have known him for many years, and I also knew Taiakpanna during the winter of 1906–07. He was then an old man, possibly sixty years of age. The spring of 1912, on my way from Langton Bay to Point Barrow, I visited Alualuk's house and stayed there overnight. Among other things, he told me, about as Tannaumirk had related it, the story of how he had waked Taiakpanna from the dead a few years ago, tinued, with evident regret, to the effect that now Taiakpanna had died again last year, and that he had this time been unable to wake him from the dead because he ( Alualuk) had now renounced his familiar spirits and had become a Christian. I asked him whether he could not possibly have summoned back his familiar spirits and awakened Taiakpanna. He said that possibly he might have; he did not know. The spirits had been rather badly offended by his having renounced them in favor of Christianity, and while they might have been willing to return to him again had he summoned them, it was more likely they would not have responded. But any way, he was a Christian now, and he knew it was wicked to employ familiar spirits. For that reason he would not have been willing to undertake to revive Taiakpanna even had he been able. After all, he pointed out to me, Taiakpanna was an old man, and it was time for him to die. He had been converted and had died in the true faith, and no doubt his soul had been saved and was now dwelling in everlasting bliss; and why should he interfere to confer a doubtful benefit on Taiakpanna, especially when it was at the risk of his own salvation ? 

This statement of Alualuk's puts fairly clearly the attitude of his people toward things of the old religion. When the Norsemen accepted Jehovah they did not cease to believe in Thor and Odin, but they renounced them in favor of the higher new God and the preferred new religion. Thor and Odin continued to exist, becoming in the minds of the people the enemies of the new faith and of all who professed it. Just so the Eskimo still believe in all the spirits of the old faith and in all its other facts, and they believe all the Christian teachings on top of that. They have not ceased to have faith in the heathen things, but they have ceased to practice them because they are wicked and lessen one's chances of salvation. The familiar spirits have been renounced, but they still exist, and are in general inimical to the new faith and angry with their former patrons who have renounced them.

I was especially interested in meeting Mr. Fry, because I wanted to learn from him his attitude with reference to certain matters which I had often discussed with various Eskimo, most often with our own employees, notably the form which certain Christian doctrines have taken in their minds, as described by me in Chapter XXVII of this book headed “ On the Conversion of the Heathen .” I found, as I had expected, that although Mr. Fry's ideas of Christianity were more those which one might have expected forty years ago than those in vogue in our enlightened churches of today, still he is in no way intentionally responsible for most of the curious ideas which the Eskimo hold of his teachings and those of his senior, Mr. Whittaker.

In the village near Captain Anderson's ship was, among others, a young boy who had been for several months in Mr. Fry's house for the purpose of learning English as well as mastering the elements of Christianity. Mr. Fry and I had various talks while he was with us about whether the Eskimo still retained the doctrines of their old system, my point of view being that they believed now everything which they had ever believed , and all the doctrines and facts of Christianity on top of that. Mr. Fry felt certain that this young man at least had quite relinquished all the old beliefs. The day before I left Captain Anderson's place Mr. Fry left for the Baillie Islands. It was unfortunately not until after he had gone that Captain Anderson and I got into a talk with the young man who had so long lived with Mr. Fry in his house and who was therefore considered by the rest of the Eskimo to be an authority on the doctrines of the Church . I asked him whether he believed his countrymen were able to fly to the moon, or from one village to another, magically. He said, and there were half a dozen other people in the house at the time who agreed with him, that the fact of many people being able to fly to the moon was a matter of common knowledge, just as their ability to walk on snow -shoes or to snare ptarmigan was a matter of common knowledge. We asked the boy to specify some of the people who could do this, and he named among others Alualuk, at whose house I would sleep on my way west the first day after leaving Captain Anderson's place. He also specified a young man whom I knew well, named Kublualuk, who had long been in the employ of the mounted police at Herschel Island. Alualuk, he said , had unfortunately embraced Christianity and had since then ceased to fly, but Kublualuk, he thought, had not yet been converted and would still have his old powers. There were others who could do it too, some of them right in the village beside us ; but he thought that perhaps none of them would fly even if I asked them to, because they now understood that to employ familiar spirits is wicked and that a man cannot employ them without endangering his prospects of salvation.

After he had given us all the information he had with regard to flying, the boy asked me what I would give anyone who would perform the magic flight for me, and I suggested my rifle and field glasses, both of which were of a kind and quality much coveted by the Eskimo. The young man thought he would very likely be able to find someone who would fly for me in order to get these articles, although he said that the risk of offending God was considerable and the pay small in proportion to the risk. Upon hearing this, Captain Anderson volunteered to give any of them the schooner North Star with her entire cargo , suggesting at the same time that the risk of damnation was not very great, especially if some young man did the flying, for he would no doubt have ample time in which to repent of his wickedness before he died . Of course nothing came of the conversation, for the boy canvassed the village without finding any one who would weigh the prospect of gaining a schooner against the prospect of losing his soul. Captain Anderson said , however, he would be sure when Mr. Fry returned to inform him in exactly how far his favorite disciple and housemate had renounced the beliefs of his Eskimo forefathers.

On the morning of April 11th early we started on our westward march again. By fast travel we reached the eastern edge of the Mackenzie delta proper at eight in the evening and lodged at the house of an old friend of mine, Alualuk (mentioned before), whom I had known on my first expedition in 1906. Alualuk had then been a shaman in possession of half a dozen familiar spirits which enabled him to cure diseases, wake people from the dead, and perform various miracles with the greatest ease. He told me now that since I saw him last he had become a Christian, had renounced all his familiar spirits, and was now as powerless as I or any other man in dealing with the things of the other world. He told me that not only had he found it an inconvenience to be without the assistance of the spirits which had served him so long and efficiently, but he also missed them as one misses a friend who is dead or who has gone away , for his association with them had been so intimate. Also, he said, the spirits grieved at having been separated from him and he pitied them in their loneliness . Some of them had been moved to anger rather than to grief at being cast out; one or two of them, in fact, would lose no opportunity of doing him harm if they could, so that he had to be very watchful in saying his prayers and keeping the commandments of the Christian Church in order to assure himself of the protection of Jesus from the wiles and meditated attacks of these his former servants. He reminded me that, as I no doubt knew , he had waked Taiakpanna from the dead when he had died a few years ago. That was while the spirits served him. Now Taiakpanna had died again and this time he ( Alualuk ) had been powerless to wake him from the dead. He could now only weep for the loss of his friend and pray that his soul might have found salvation . We were entertained for a day most hospitably by Alualuk's family. They were living comfortably for the present, with an abundance of fish to eat, but they complained much of prospective poverty, for they had been able to get very few foxes and would have little with which to buy tea and tobacco the following summer.