Far away in the sub-arctic, the sturdy Eskimos live happily—hunting and fishing for food, trapping for furs to trade for clothing, ammunition and for such luxuries as tea, sugar, tobacco and jam. They speak only their own language, and their idea of quantities or numbers is always very hazy. Some tribes do not seem to be able to count more than ten. But their remarkable intelligence offsets this weakness.

One year I told an Eskimo, who hunted two hundred miles north of one of our stations, to report to me, the next summer, how many sea trout he had caught that spring at the mouth of a certain river where we thought of establishing an outpost.

The native borrowed a pencil and a sheet of paper from the trader and departed. The next year he brought in the paper, very much soiled, but showing exactly how many fish he had killed—1132. For each trout the Eskimo had drawn a line, varying in length according to the size of the fish, and for each ten trout he had scrawled a double line. Nobody had ever taught him that.

Another instance of mathematics was reported to me in the Northwest two years ago. At a certain post, we were using an Eskimo to trade with a far away tribe which we could not get in touch with otherwise. In the fall our trader would put on the man’s sleigh so many articles, telling him how many articles he ought to give out for each skin. The next spring the man would return and faithfully turn over the furs with the balance of the untraded goods. There never was a mistake. But a year later, our trader noticed that the Eskimo brought back a bundle of furs of his own which he would trade with us afterwards, and for which it was difficult to account as the balance of the merchandise returned was correct and the native himself was not supposed to trap.

The trader finally asked him how it happened, and the Husky’s answer plainly proved that he had found out by himself the secret of division. For instance, each article, that ought to have been given out for fur, the Eskimo cut in two; keeping one half for himself so as to trade it later on against fur on his own account.

Thus our native friend would trade one-half a pound of sugar instead of a whole one; half a stick of tobacco, and so on. He went so far as filing an ordinary file in two, trading one-half for us and the other for himself.

When our trader told him that he was not very fair to his northern brothers, he laughed and answered, “They have not learned how to count. I have.”