Valdez daily prospector., 1916-02-07
NATIVES SMARTER THAN WHITE KIDS
Teacher at Bristol Bay tells of some of the Queer Customs of /
 the Eskimo People.

TACOMA: Far, far away on the bleak shores of Bristol Bay in the Bering Sea region of Alaska, a Ia coma woman, Mrs. Corrine Call, has made as bright a name and as big a place for herself as any woman who has gone to Alaska in the last decade.
 Mrs. Call is the teacher of the gov ernment school at Choggiung. She ia also in a quiet and unobtrusive way a reformer, a firm believer in social and spiritual uplift, and when she got to Choggiung she found her self in typical Eskimo village where her modern methods of teach ing immediately clashed sharply with customs as old as the Eskimos people.
 The first of these clashes arose over the custom of kissing the dead. There was a death in the village and straightway all the natives assem- bled, and filing into the house of the deceased, one by one, they kissed the corpse. Then in accordance with the native custom the body was kept in a warm, pleasant room of the house for nearly a week. Then the funeral took place, and the principal cere- mony at the funeral was another neighborhood kissing of the corpse. Likely there is not more innately polite, kindly and cheerful people on the face of the earth than the Esk- imos, but as this custom of kissing the dead is of religious origin and deeply rooted, Mrs. Call, who was shocked and mortified at such an ex- hibition as we'll as alive to the in- lection of the disease, took up the matter of it's eradication with the greatest caution. finally by persua- sion and through talking the matter over with their priests she succeeded in getting them to bow to the dead instead of kissing them.
 The custom of marrying off the Eskimo girls at very tender age was the next thing attacked by Mrs. Call. She found that Eskimo girls were married as young as years, to mature men. It was a very rare ex- ception to find B girl unmarried at IA or l6 yearsShof age. One woman, 27 years of age, who had married when but I5 Years of age, had given birth to twelve children, six of whom had died :Mfs. Call began crusade against this child marriage. She suc- ceeded in stopping different we'd dings, going to the priests who per formed the ceremonies and securing their cooperation. Once in a while rather ludicrous and sometimes dra. matic incidents took place. A month ago an Eskimo sued for the hand of a 14-year old girl. Her relatives agreed, but the girl did not want to marry the man. Mrs. Call loyalty stood by the girl who sought protec- ltion with her. The girls sister came after her. Rushing into Mrs. Calls home and grabbing the child by the :arm she started pulling her out of the house. Mrs. Call caught the child Iby the other arm and for few min !utes the little girl was the central at traction in tug-of-war contest. Then Mrs. Calls staying qualities and mus cle won the day and getting posses sion of the child she rushed her up- stairs and locked her in the attic. I7ter the child's relatives consented t6 the child herself deciding the is- sue. The little girl very promptly decided not to marry and is still liv- ing in single blessedness.
 "The Eskimo child," Mrs. Call de- clares, "is as quick or quicker to learn than. the white child. They not only learn quickly, but they can go as deep as the children of any race under the sun. Their memories are on the av- craze lar more >retentive than the memory of the white child; their inn itation is large, and back of their per- ceptiOn6 reason is very strong with them. The world has lost by not hav- ing educated and developed these people. If given a chance, they will add to the sum of knowledge and in- .vention of the human race"
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 uy hfrrYe, eNvnorfonCaa, roroar Aa.