Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-04-30
SPORT OF THE ESKIMO.
The Men Like to Gamble, Wrestle, Tell
Stories. Sing and Dance.

Next to gambling the Eskimo men
like to wrestle. The usual way of
doing this is a test rather of strength
than skill The wrestlers sit down Oh
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 straighten out the
others arms. AS the match is usually
made bare-armed they not infrequently
peel up the skin in the struggle In the
old days when a stranger arrived at
settlement he was invited to wrestle in
some way with a vi1lager, 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 a writer in
the New York Sun The Eskimo
traditions are told over and over again
Everyone knows them word for word
and should the relater omit or add a
single syllable he would be corrected
instantly by some one of the audience
There is nothing like these recitals in
America, except in the work, so called
of certain secret societies, where pre-
SIoSIS IllS SSiAuC CdIC III TcpeGltlOu Is eS
ercised. The relater of the story sits at
one side of the room, and, covering his
head, turns his face toward the wall
away from the audience before he be
gins There is no applause during the
recital nor when he is finished There
are traditions that relate to the early
Morse settlers of Greenland, to the
origin of the seal and other valuable
animals, to the red Indians of North
America, beside many stories of love
and valor that seem to have no great
value to ethnologists, though very in
teresting 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 are mQnotonous chants but the
Eskimo readily learns the tunes of the
whites. In an Arsuk village were
two good violins, three or four con
certinas, 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 Eskimos like the reels better than
| any other forms of dances. and all, old
| and young, dance with zest and aban,
| don that is inspiriting to the spectator
| Under the Danish Lutheran teaching
this form of amusement has been in no
wise discouraged, but the Moravians
believed dancing a sin and held up the
terrors of hell before the unfortunate
merrymakcrs, Some have believed the
| Nor,,-ior nd l,o
influences by which they are surround
ed add fear of future torment as re
ward for wishing to join the sports of
their light-hearted neighbors Many
| indeed, forsake the Moravian teachers
| but are then forever haunted by the
fear that the doctrine of vengeful 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 sewed up with seal sinews, and is
| sometimes ornamented with tufts or
| tassels and a 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 in one 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 a wide space to goal
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 Baffin's bay
the Esllimos have in winter a house in
every village set aside for feasts and
| dances 1t is dOme-shaped and about
twenty feet in diameter by fifteen high
Here the entire populace gathers The
married women stand in a 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
| dren, 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 any
one can eat This done. Il man strips
to the waist. takes a drum made some
thing like a tennis bat covered with
raw sealsl1in, 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
err and are usually satirical He praises
first one and then another of the COM
pany for good qualities that are notice
ably lacking. to the great delight of all
the rest, though they know that they
will be scored if they have not already
been The dancing is simply stamp
ing of the feet and a swaying 1of the
body-the motion lis ridiculous to any
one not an Eskimo. The women join
In the chorus. but the men listen in
silence