"Dr. Dr. K.G. Sherlock" wrote:
Floyd,
I stand corrected. My mistake is a common misunderstanding. If you had not
taken a firm stand on this misunderstanding, I would not have bothered to
find out the truth.

You are quite welcome! It is an interesting subject that is
obviously much misunderstood by most people. And trying to
figure out what is real is exceedingly difficult, unless you
happen to have a handy Eskimo historian. :-)

Which reminds me of a fun story to tell.

A whole lot of years ago, I took a job in Bethel Alaska. I'd
never been there and just about all that I knew about it was
that most of the people there were Yupik Eskimos, or transients.
So while waiting for a plane in the Anchorage airport (and note
that this was before there was jet service to Bethel, and we
were flying an F-27 turboprop), I wandered through the a
bookstore looking for something to read on the long flight (400
miles or so).

The book that I bought is one that I still have, and I treasure
the memories that came because of it. It is sitting right here
next to me! "Napaskiak, An Alaskan Eskimo Community" by Wendell
Oswalt. I read most of it on the way to Bethel, and finished it
the first night there. Interesting. All about a very small
village about 10 miles down the river from Bethel, which in the
1950's was still a very traditional Eskimo culture, including
kayaqs and dog teams.

Well... I was young then, and wouldn't you know that about three
days later I met a very attractive young lady who told me she
was from Napaskiak! So I knew just how to get her attention...
(and fortunately I wasn't naive and did *not* pass any judgment
on what any of it meant) I asked her what _she_ thought of
Oswalt's book!

Oh, my. She was 18 years old and really good looking... and
could swear like a Marine Drill Sargent! She told me *exactly*
what she thought of Oswalt, not to mention all of his ancestors
and his offspring too! In detail.

Wellll... It turned out that we were friends for many years,
until her death. I married a friend of hers, she married a
friend of mine. After she passed away I more or less adopted
one of her daughters, and consider her grandchildren to be my
grandchildren.

I haven't trusted anything written about Eskimos since. And I
should point out that Wendell Oswalt has since apologized for
his typically Western anthropological approach to researching
Eskimo culture. His most recent books are pretty good.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)