Page:Eskimo Life.djvu/348

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304
ESKIMO LIFE.

swer she received to these objections. 'She wanted to have them so answered that she could inwardly assent and feel that the answer was true, and that she could silence those who had so much to say against this part of our doctrine.' Similarly, they were of opinion that Adam and Eve must have been very foolish to think of chattering with a serpent, and 'that they must have been very fond of fruit since they would rather die and suffer pain than forego a few big berries.' Others thought that it was just like the kavdlunaks (Europeans); for 'these greedy people never have enough; they have, and they want to have, more than they require. 'One angekok thought it was very unlucky that Christ, the great angekok, who could even bring the dead to life, was not born among the Eskimos; they would have loved him, and obeyed him, and not done like the foolish kavdlunaks. 'What madmen! to kill the man who could bring the dead to life!' When they saw that Christian Europeans quarrelled and fought, they had little faith in the Christian doctrines, and said: 'Perhaps, if we knew as much as they, we, too, would become inhuman.' And they thought that it was impossible to find well-behaved Europeans, 'unless they had been several years in Greenland and had there learnt mores'

Some asked, since Christianity was so essential,