The FIRST BOOK of +ESKIMOS+ [Illustration] The author and artist are indebted to a great many scientists and other careful observers who have lived among the Eskimos. The whole record of our sources is too long to give, but here are some we have found particularly helpful: various writings of Dr. Franz Boas, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Rockwell Kent; also the Federal Writers Project, _A Guide to Alaska_, and books by Edward Moffat Weyer, Jr., Clarence L. Andrews, Aage Gilberg, Knut Rasmussen, Fridtjof Nansen and Peter Freuchen. Many articles in the _National Geographic Magazine_ have been consulted, as have publications of the United States Natural History Museum. In addition to valuable pictorial material in most of the foregoing, we have received assistance in preparing illustrations from the Fish and Wild Life Service of the United States Department of the Interior. Without help from all these sources and others, too, this book would not have been possible. Very special thanks go to Dr. Ruth Bunzel, anthropologist with the Bureau of Applied Social Research of Columbia University, for her advice regarding the manuscript. 19 20 Printed in the United States of America by ~The Garrison Corp~. SBN 531-00525-9 The FIRST BOOK of ESKIMOS _by_ BENJAMIN BREWSTER _Pictures by_ URSULA KOERING [Illustration] [Illustration] FRANKLIN WATTS, INC. 575 LEXINGTON AVENUE NEW YORK 22, N. Y. _Copyright 1952 by Franklin Watts, Inc._ [Illustration: ~This shows all the places where Eskimos have lived.~] THE LAUGHING PEOPLE If you could look down at the world from high above the North Pole, this is what you would see--an icy ocean with land almost all around it. The brown-skinned people who have lived along this shore for many hundreds of years are Eskimos. [Illustration: ~a harpoon~] When white men first met the Eskimos, they were surprised by several things. The Eskimos never used salt. They lived on nothing but meat and fish and water. And they were the most cheerful people in the world. An Eskimo laughed more in a day than anyone else did in a week. Nobody knows exactly where these laughing people came from but many scientists think they traveled across from Siberia into Alaska, just as their cousins the Indians did. Nobody knows why they decided to stay there near the top of the world. But we do know that Eskimos like the country where they live. They settled along the shore of the ocean where they could find both sea and land animals to eat. The weather there was not as cold as it was farther inland or even in some parts of the United States.