The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1891-07-15
SPORT OF The ESKIMO.
Tho Men Like TO Gamble, WrcstIc, TeH
Stories, Sing and Dance.

ike 10 WreSttc. Inc usual way OF
doing this is test rather Of strength
than skill The wrcstlers sit down on
the floor, or in any convenient place,
side by side, and facing in opposite
directions, say, with their right elbows
touching. Then they lock arms, and
each strives to straightcn out the
others arms AS tho match is usually
made barc-armed they not infrcqucntly
peel up the skin in the struggle. In the
old days when stranger arrived ut n
settlement he was invited to wrcstlo in
some way with villager. and the
winner was allowed to kill the loser if
he chose to do so.
If less exciting, storytelling is really
almost as common for an evenings
diversion as gambling, says writer in
the New York Sun. The Eskimo
traditions arc told over and over again
Everyone knows them word for word,
and should the rclater omit or add q
single syllable he would be corrected
instantly by some ono of the audience
There is nothing like these rcctals in
America, except in the work, so called,
of certain secret societies, where pre-
cisely the same care in repetition is ex-
one side of the room, and, covering his
head, turns his face toward the wall
away from the audience before he bc-
gins. There is no applause during the
recital nor when he is finished. There
are traditions that relate to the carly
Morse settlers of Greenland, to the
origin of the seal and other valuable
animals, to the red Indians of North
America, beside many stories CT love
and valor that seem to have no great
value to cthnologists, though very in
tcresting as specimens of what may be
called the literature of peculiar people.
The native songs can scarcely be called
musical, though the Eskimo voice is
naturally sweet and fine. The native
tunes arc monotonous chants, but the
Eskimo readily learns the tunes of the
whites In an Arsull village were
two good violins, three or four con-
ccrtiias, and some French harmonious,
most of them out of order but the skill
of the owners of those that were in
order was equal to that of the best mu-
sicians to be found at rural dances in
Yankee land.
The Esllimos like the reels better than
any other forms OF dances, and all, old
and young, dance with zest and aban-
don that is mspiriting to the spectator.
Under the Danish Lutheran teachino
this form of amusement has been in no
wise discouraged, but the Moravians
believed dancing sin and held up the
tcrrors of hell before the unfortunate
merrymakers- Some have believed tho
Moravian story, and to the depressing
influences by which they arc surround
cd add fear Of future torment as n re-
ward for wishing to join tho sports of
their light-hcarted neighbors. MANY.
indeed, forsakc the Moravian teachers.
but are then forever haunted by the
fear that the doctrine of vcncscful God
may be true after all.
Men and boys play ball. and the two
games most popular, if combined,
would not vary greatly from Yankee
football The ball is made OF stout
seal leather, filled sometimes with sand
and clay and sometimes with moss 1t
is sewcd up with seal sinews, and is
sometimes ornamentcd with tufts or
tasscls and zone made of strings of
seal leather with the hair on. The
players divide into two parties ALWAYS
choose up, as Yankee boys would
say. Then ino game one side losses
the ball about, while the other tries to
capture it; in the other one side tries to
kick the ball over wide space to a roal.
while the other tries to capture and hit
the goal with it instead. Sometimes
they bat it in the latter game instead of
kicking it.
over on the west side of BafIin's bay
the Eskinos have in winter n house in
every village set aside for frasts and
dances. 1t is domc-shapcd and about
twenty feet in diameter by fifteen high.
Here the entire populaco gathers The
married women stand in q row next to
the wall, the unmarried women stand
next to them, while the men form a
third ring inside of the rest. The chill
drcn, or all who are under twelve
years, form two groups near the en-
trance. Then the feast begins, and
boiled meat and soup, with raw seal
liver, are passed around as LONG as INV
one can cat. This done, man strips
to the waist, takes drum made some
thing like tennis bat covered with
raw scalslSin, and stepping into the CEN
ter OF the ring begins TO sing, and
dance, and beat the drum. The words
of the song are improvised by the sing
CT and are usually satirical He praises
first one and then another of the COM
pany for good qualities that arc notice
ably lacking, to the great delight of all
the rest, though they know that they
Will bc scored if they have not already
been The dancing is simply stamp
ing " the feet and a swayingcof the
body-tAc motion lis ridiculous to any
one not an Eskimo. The women join
in the chorus, but the men listen in