Books: A Sahara of Ice

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A culture defined by extreme hardship keeps its values simple and its instincts honed. "The hunter in the North, for whom fear and courage are interallied," writes Malaurie, "would smile if one talked to him about heroism." Indeed, he notes, there is no word for heroism in Inuit: "One lives, one struggles, one dies. If there is nothing to eat, you lie down and wait. Emotional involvements are brief. Trouble always lies in the offing."

In 1967 Malaurie returns to Greenland to find Polar Eskimos in the sort of trouble their ancestors could not have dreamed of. Danish welfare, a money system and processed foods have badly stretched the bonds that give a hunting society its cohesiveness and strength. Eating no longer requires special skills or cunning, even for the foxes who gorge themselves at the Thule airbase garbage dump.

Malaurie does not romanticize the passing of the old ways. A people whose total energies were geared for survival no longer turns from new things that make survival easier. What the author wants is a balance that might preserve the Inuit spirit. The threat to that spirit is illustrated by an American businessman who asks an Eskimo carver to mass-produce an ivory figurine. Naturally, the American wants a volume discount. The native craftsman has a more natural idea. Turning to an interpreter, he says: "Tell this silly qallunaaq that the more of them I make alike, the more expensive it will be, because it will be more boring to make them!" —ByR.Z. Sheppard

Excerpt

"When adventure does not come to him, the Eskimo goes in search of it. In 1906, a group of eight families whom Peary had taken aboard his ship left it one day because they found the monotony of life on board oppressive and its comforts upsetting . . . The families spent eight months traveling on foot over the hundreds of miles that the ship covered in twenty-two days. Their trip was in many ways dramatic. The families suffered cruelly and often came close to death. When they reached Etah, they had only a few half-starved dogs. But all of them were ready to start out again. How can life be worth living if it offers no surprises, no adventures?"