St. Landry democrat., 1888-02-18

Best Girl Out Sledging or Crawls Into
Snow Kennel and Goes to Sleep.
On one of the coolest days of last
week a friend asked ME to tell him
something about the peculiar powers OF
the Eskimo which enabled them to en-
~durc the intense cold of which citizens
of this country know nothing by expe-
rience. I told my friend that there
was nothing phenomenal about the
ability Of the Eskimo to endure cold.
We look upon thirty to forty degrees
below zero, which our Northern neigh
bors occasionally see, as a temperature
that is about the limit of human en-
durance with any degree of comfort
(and probably it is even with our best
methods of combating it, and SO we
stand aghast when we hear Of the Es-
kimo out sledging and hunting at fifty,
sixty and even seventy degrees below
zero, forgetting all the time that these
people have a clothing which is pro-
portionately much warmer than their
lowest temperature is colder than ours;
and this, too, with equal if not less
weight than in our clothing. They
are, therefore, better prepared to en-
-dure it than we can possibly be. Be-
You'd this, every thing else being equal,
their plane Of comfort and pleasure, SO
to speak, is one on much lower level
than ours; that is. what we find a
great hardship would to them be no
more than q trivial discomfort, while
our so-called discomforts could even be
enjoyed by them under most circum-
stances.
1t might be interesting, however,
leaving out the subject Of great endur-
ance for a moment, to speak briefly of
the temperature the Eskimo most en-
joys, for, while he does not consider
the lowest as any hardship to bear, it
is not that which he likes the best, and
in which choice he has decided pref
,erence. Taking it all around, would
say that at about twenty to thirty de-
grees below zero Cleaning toward the
latter if any, with little or no wind
blowing at the time, and the sky clear
or covered by only light, feecy clouds.
has given rise to more expressions Of
satisfaction from the Eskimo, as far as
i observed while among them, than
any other. / mean this, of course, as
relating wholly to the weather itself,
unaccompanied by any other condition
than that of temperature, for the Es-
kimo will praise the vilest storm or
welcome the worst weather if it bring
with it number of seal or walrus,
descending drove of reindeer, or any
thing else that makes life easy to sus-
tain, SO little does he care for the me-
teorological part in which he has to Sc
cure it At about minus thirty of the
Fahrenheit scale he will stick his nose
out of his snow house, rub his hands
together as he Strengthens up, look up at
the uncloudcd sky with broad grin,
and send a shout back through the long
.snow-house entrance to those inside of
Ma-nok-pook, Ma-mo-poo-u-ad-loi,
(Fine weather. Very fine weather!D
/ have visited one tribe, the Kinne-
patoos, living inland and northwest
from Hudson's Bay, that kill no walrus
and few seal, and as consequence
have but little oil with which to warm
their houses Of snow, experiencing in
side almost the temperature prevailing
outside; and in this kind of abode these
people enjoy themselves. A medicine
man of the tribe, in order to prepare
for himself a drum or drunl-head to
accompany his peculiar religious rites,
has been known to take a reindeer
skin, soak it in the water until the hair
was loose, and when it was frozen as
stiff as a board place the pleasant thing
against the bare skin of his body until
it was thaWed out and then hold it
there an hour or two until it was as
dry as bone. There is little wonder
that such people need no seal or wal
rus oil to warm their habitations Of
snow. The only singular thing is that
they do not slcep out of doors all win
ter to prevent being overcome by the
heat in the snow houses. Whenever
these cold-proof nomads Of the North
find themselves SO far away from home
that they can not conveniently reach it
before late at night, they build a small
snow house (snow kennel would be a
better name for it), crawl in and shut