The Diary of Abraham Ulrikab: Text and Context

Frankfurter Nachrichten

^frankfurter Bachrichten 'Cht Eskimos inthe 4( Eoologischer (5arten' December 3, 1880. In the night from Nov.30th to Dec. 1st, our city received a rare as well as interesting increase in population, namely two Cskimo families, eight heads altogether. Che high ladies and gentlemen , or rather the ladies and gentlemen coming from high up north arrived just in time to be included in the census. Mr. Carl Hagenbeck from Hamburg, the one who earlier had introduced us to the children of the south, the Nubians, has also brought us these guests from the populated areas furthest up north. And children they are, these as well as those; because even if so-called culture has already had a pretty strong effect on them, for us there still remain enough interesting and natural things about them to be observed and maybe also admired. As already known, we distinguish two tribes among these inhabitants of northern polar countries , who are quite different in their peculiarities: namely, the Greenlandic people, and those tribes who live at the coastlines of Labrador, meaning the American mainland. Our guests belong to the latter category; strictly speaking , they are under the head sovereignty of Cngland. But Cngland does not seem to care much for these "Her Majesty's subjects," at least there are no Cnglish officials in that region, so that these children of nature, still highly naive in spite of efforts at civilization , are completely given into the hands of the Hudson Bay Company, respectively the Herrnhut Colony. Looking at the personal messages of Mr. J. A. Jacobsen, one could [46] THE DIARY OF ABRAHAM ULRIKAB almost doubt if this is to their advantage. Chis man, who had been sent out on the instruction of Hagenbeck to go to the Cskimos in their home country and to induce them for their "art-journey " to the Curopean mainland, cannot tell enough about how they live in dependence from the ones named above. Not only can the Cskimos obtain the things they need only through their mediation, the Cskimos are also personally dependent on them in such a way that nobody of them would, for example, try to even temporarily leave the country without their permission. But the Danish government in Greenland as well as the Herrnhuters in Labrador have their own pretty important reasons for keeping their subjects locked away, if possible from the whole outer world. Chey especially and firmly oppose a visit of them to Curope, for they well have to fear that these could on the occasion get to know some unpleasant things about the real value of the hunting products they bartered away in exchange, as well as about the real price of the materials they received. After long wanderings between the west coast of Greenland, Cumberland, and Labrador, Mr. Jacobsen finally managed to find only two Cskimo families who, in spite of all, felt independent enough to take part in the journey to Curope. Since this journey was really tempting to all of them, and had it been possible, all the Cskimos living in Labrador, who are only about 2000 heads, would have liked to move to Curope in corpore. Chere are stories that were told by three fellow Inuit [from Greenland], the first to go to Curope three years ago, who have since related their travelling experiences and how they brought home quite considerable amounts of money. Chese stories have stirred the wish in the whole population to become rich in the same easy and pleasant way. Cven so, Mr. Jacobsen could consider himself a happy man even to have won these two families for his undertakings, and after they had shown themselves in Berlin and THE DIARY OF ABRAHAM ULRIKAB [47] Prague they arrived here, as said above, late in the evening on the last day of November. In the 'Zoologischer Garten' people had already set up two earth huts for them on the right and left side of the music pavilion. Chese huts are, even if not built by the Cskimos themselves, yet created in accordance with a model of the dwellings in their home country. Che so-called wild Cskimos, i.e. the ones that could preserve their freedom to a certain extent and kept themselves independent from the missionaries, live in tents during the summer, but in earth huts in the winter, which are similar to those we can see builtin the 'Zoologischer Garten'. Chey are...