time.” There is a general recognition of the difference between old times and new. And the manner in which this difference is viewed reveals two characteristic attitudes of mind, the blending of which is apparent throughout the Eskimo culture of to-day. There is the attitude of condescension, the arrogant tolerance of the proselyte and the parvenu: “So our forefathers used to do, for they were ignorant folk.” At times, however, it is with precisely opposite view, mourning the present degeneration from earlier days, “when men were yet skilful rowers in ‘kayaks,’ or when this or that might still be done ‘by magic power.’ ”
And it is here, perhaps, that the stories reach their highest poetic level. This regret for the passing of “the former age,” whether as an age of greater strength and virtue, greater courage and skill, or as the Golden Age of Romance, is a touching and most human trait. It gives to these poor Eskimo hunters, far removed from the leisure and security that normally precede the growth of art, a place among the poets of the world.
