The Opelousas courier., 1894-02-10
MRS. PEARY AT THE POLE.
! THE ARCTIC EXPLORERS WIFE
WRITES OF HER EXPERIENCES.
Life Among the Eskimos-Comfcai
Adventure With a Baby Wa!rus
Eskimo Method of Oscillation.

Life Among the Eskimos-Comical
Adventure With a Baby Wa!rus
Eskimo Method of Oscillation.
u IRIS. JOSEPHINE PEARY,
Y II the wife of the explorer,
IV has published a journal OF
her twelve months expert
ence on the shore of Mccormick Buy,
midway between the Arctic Circle and
the North Pole. She is the only white
woman who ever penetrated so far
within the frozen zone as did the
members of Lieutenant Peary's last
expedition. The most Interesting
chapters in the book are those which
Mrs. Peary devotes to the manners
and mode of life of the Eskimos with
whom she came in contact.
These natives belong to a little tribe
of about $50 individuals completely
isolated from the rest of the world,
ard dwelling on the northwest coast
of Greenland. They are separated by
hundreds of miles from their neigh
bors, with whom they have 10 inter
course whatever. They had never
seen a white womak before, and some
of them had never beheld a civilized
being.
The steamer Kite, which left New
York on June 6, 1891, landed Lieu
tenant Peary and his party near Whale
Sound, and 8 camp was built here and
named Radcliffe. The sailors went III
search Of an Eskimo settlement, and
brought back several of the natives,
who were induced to live at Radcliffe
for nearly a year. Mrs. Peary says
they were the queerest, dirtiest-look-
ing individuals she had ever seen. Glad
entirely in furs, they reminded her
more of monkeys than of human he
ings. Ikwa, the first man who came,
was covered with q garment made of
| bird skins, the feather work next the
body, and outside of this a garment
made Of sealskin. with the fur on the
outside. The two were patterned ex'
actly alike, made to fit to the figure,
cut short at the hips and coming to a
point back and front. A close-ittin9
hood was sewed to the neck of each
garment, and invariably pulled over
his head when Ikwa was out Of doors.
| His legs were covered with sealskin
trousers reaching just below the knee,
where they we're met by tanned seal.
skin boots. Mrs. Peary learned later
that sealskin trousers were worn only
by those men who were not fortunate
enough or able to kill a bear.
The woman's dress differed from the
mans in pattern only in the back,
where an extra width is sewed in.
which forms a pouch extending the
entire length of the back of the
wearer and fitting tight around the
hips. In this pouch or hood the baby
is carried; it's little body, covered
only by a shirt reaching to the waist
made of the skin of a young blue fox,
is placed against the bare back of the
mother, and the head, covered by a
tight-ftting skull cap made of seal
skin, is allowed to rest against the
mothers shoulder. Mrs. Peary
writes:
early in the morning Ikwa came
running into our house apparently
much excited, crying, .Awick, awick !
This we had learned was walrus. The
boys tumbled out of their beds and in
a very few moments were in the boat
with Ikwa, pulling in the direction of
a spouting walrus out in Mccormick
Bay. In q short time they returned
with @ large mother walrus and her
baby in tow. The mother had been
killed, but the baby-a round bundle
Of fat about four feet long--was alive,
and very mrch so. as we found out a
little later. MI. Peary wanted to get
photographs of the little thing before
it was shot, and the boys left the baby
walrus about q hundred yards up on
the beach. Suddenly we heard cries
Of help coming from the shore. On
stepping to the window | saw n of
the most comical sights l have ever
seen.
"The little walrus was slowly but
surely making his way to the waters
of the bay. Name, with her baby on
her back, was sitting in the sand, her
heels dug into it as far as she could
get them, holding on to the line at
tached to the walrus without APP
; parently ~arresting it's progress in the
, least, for she was being dragged
through the gravel and sand quite
rapidly. While I looked, Matt came
rushing to her assistance, and taking
hold of the line just ahead of where
Name held it, he gave it one or two
turns about his wrists and evidently
thought ell he had to do would be to
| dig his heels into the sind and hold
back but in an instant he was down
in the sand too, and both he and
| Name were blowing along, the sand
flying, and both shouting Justify for
help. So strong was this little
creature that, had the other boys not
rushed out and secured him, he would
easily have pulled Matt and Name to
the waters edge, where, of course,
they would have let him go, and he
would have been q free walrus once
more"
Mrs. Peary spent a Thanksgiving
Day at Radcliffe, and by that time
there were several native women about
the place. She writes:
s'The native whom Ikwa brought
back with him from Kaati is named
M~ahoatchia, and Ikwa says that he and
the one-eyed bear bunter, Mekhtoshay,
exchange wives with each other every
year.
"While I am writing two native
women, M'gipsu, wife of Annowkah,
with her baby on her back, and Tooky.
mingwah, the twelve-year-old girl, are