File:In the Alaskan wilderness (1917) (14590731229).jpg

Identifier: inalaskanwildern00gord (find matches)
Title: In the Alaskan wilderness
Year: 1917 (1910s)
Authors: Gordon, G. B. (George Byron), 1870-1927
Subjects: Eskimo languages Alaska -- Description and travel
Publisher: Philadelphia : The John C. Winston Company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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cted towards definite ends for thecommon good. They regulate life and afford enter-tainment for the long winter of indoor life whichwould otherwise tend toward idleness with itsinevitable evils and hardships. They also promotefriendly intercourse between the different villagesand stimulate trade relations. The missionaries, on the other hand, arguethat these native practices, though apparentlyharmless, are bound up with their heathendomgenerally, that they tend to preserve religiousbeliefs and notions about spirits that are notincluded in the Christian teaching. For thisreason they feel that the practices must bestamped out before the people can be reclaimedfrom error and converted to the true faith. Theytold me themselves that they had gone to theplaces of the festivals uninvited at different timesand interfered as far as discretion would permit.From the natives I heard also of these visits.They explained that the missionaries knew verywell that going uninvited to a feast was not 134
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according to custom and that interference wasan affront. Most bitter of all was the complaintof the older men and women that the youngpeople no longer conducted themselves with thepropriety which had always been customary.They were even becoming disrespectful to theirelders and careless of the old ways and of thethings their people had always considered proper.This they attributed to the teaching of themissionaries. In addition to these complaints I heard againand repeatedly that sickness had increased andthat new forms of disease had come among them.They felt that their happiness was slipping awayfrom them and that demoralization and miserywere encroaching upon their lives as a result ofthe white mans presence. I am not prepared here to discuss the justiceof these complaints. I have no doubt that inmaking them the people of the villages wereexpressing a very real conviction and that theyhave experienced a very real sense of injury. As a piece of evidence to confirm the state-ments ma

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