The Greenlanders’ Persons, Complexion, and Temperament.

THE Greenlanders, as well man as womankind, are well shaped and proportioned, rather short than tall, and strong built, inclined to be fat and corpulent; their faces broad, thick lips, and flat nosed; their hair and eyes black, their complexion a very dark tawny; though I have seen some pretty fair. Their bodies are of a vigorous constitution. There are seldom found any sick or lame, and but few distempers are known among them, besides weakness of the eye-sight, which is caused by the sharp and piercing spring winds, as well as the snow and ice, that hurt the sight.

I have met with some that seemed infected with a kind of leprosy; yet (what is surprising to me), though they converse with others, and lay with them in one bed, it is not catching. They that dwell in the most Northern parts are often miserably plagued with dysenteries or bloody fluxes, breast diseases, boils, and epilepsy, or falling sickness, &c. There were no epidemical or contagious diseases known among them, as plague, small-pox, and such like, till the year 1734, when one of the natives, who with several others were brought over to Denmark, and together with his companions had the small-pox at Copenhagen, coming home again to his native country brought the infection amongst them; of which there were swept away in and about the colony about two thousand persons. For as the natives as well as the animals of this climate are of a hot nature, they cannot bear the outward heat, much less the inward, caused by this burning distemper, which inflames the mass of blood to that degree, that it cannot, by any means, be quenched. They are very full of blood, which is observed by their frequent bleeding at the nose.

Few of them exceed the age of fifty or sixty years; many die in the prime of their life, and most part in their tender infancy; which is not to be wondered at, considering they are quite destitute of all sorts of medicines, and ignorant of all that may strengthen and comfort sick bodies. To supply which defects, they know of nothing better than to send for their divines, which they name angekuts, who mutter certain spells over the sick, by which they hope to recover.

For outward hurts, as wounds, cuts of knives, and the like, they sew or stitch them together. If any grow blind, as it often happens to them, the eye being covered over with a white skin, they make a small hook with a needle, which they fasten into this skin, to loosen it from the eye, and then with a knife they pull it off. When children are plagued with worms, the mother puts her tongue (salva vericÂ) into the anus of the children, to kill them. Burnt moss with train oil mixed together serves for plaisters to fresh wounds; or they cover them with a piece of the innermost rind of a tree, and it will heal of itself.

The Greenlanders are commonly of a phlegmatic temper, which is the cause of a cold nature and stupidity: they seldom fly into a passion, or are much affected or taken with any thing, but of an insensible, indolent mind. Yet I am of opinion, that what contributes most to this coldness and stupidity is want of education and proper means to cultivate their minds. In which opinion I am confirmed by the experience of some who had for some time conversed with us, especially the young ones, who easily have taken all that they have seen or heard among us, whether it was good or bad. I have found some of them witty enough, and of good capacity.