ESKIMO LIFE
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE FIRST CROSSING OF GREENLAND
With numerous Illustrations and a Map
Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
London: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
and NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET
ESKIMO LIFE
BY
FRIDTJOF NANSEN
AUTHOR OF ‘THE FIRST CROSSING OF GREENLAND’
TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM ARCHER
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET
1893
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
Before placing his ‘Eskimoliv’ in my hands for translation, Dr.Nansen very carefully revised the text, and made numerous excisionsand additions. Thus the following pages will be found to differ inseveral particulars from the Norwegian original. I also requested andreceived Dr. Nansen’s permission to suppress one or two especiallynauseous details of Eskimo manners, which seemed to have no particularethnological significance. The excisions made on this score, however,probably do not amount to half a page in all.
Dr. Nansen suggested that I should follow the example of Dr. Rink inhis ‘Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo,’ and treat the word ‘Eskimo’as indeclinable. I have ventured, however, to overrule[vi] his suggestion.There is precedent for both ‘Eskimo’ and ‘Eskimos’ as the plural form;and where there is any choice at all, it seems only rational to preferthe regular declension.
In Chapters XIII. and XIV. Dr. Nansen naturally makes numerousreferences to that great storehouse of Greenland folk-lore, Dr. Rink’s‘Eskimo Sagn og Eventyr,’ which has been translated and condensed by theauthor himself, under the above-mentioned title. Where it was possible,I have given the reference to the English edition; but in cases wherethe text has been very freely condensed or expurgated, I have referredto the Danish original as well. Even where I have not done so, studentsof folk-lore may be advised to go back to the original text, which isoften fuller and more characteristic than the English version.
W. A.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
For one whole winter we were cut off from the world and immured amongthe Greenlanders. I dwelt in their huts, took part in their hunting, andtried, as well as I could, to live their life and learn their language.But one winter, unfortunately, is far too short a time in which toattain a thorough knowledge of so peculiar a people, its civilisation,and its ways of thought—that would require years of patient study.Nevertheless, I have tried in this book to record the impressionsmade upon me by the Eskimo and his polity, and have sought, as far aspossible, to support them by quotations from