Note 184 — Chapter II · TABOOED DAYS AFTER A DEATH AND ON RELATED OCCASIONS

J. Murdock, in Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 424. The Alaskan Eskimo are now being rapidly converted to Christianity or, rather, are accepting as many of the Christian teachings as can be assimilated by them to their old pagan observances. The missionary they regard as a shaman and his prohibitions, especially those relating to Sunday observance, they treat as so many new taboos to be added to their long catalogue of restrictions. “An Eskimo who is a great admirer of the white people (and some Eskimo are not) said to me once that some Eskimo foolishly maintained that white men were less intelligent than Eskimo are. But he said that he had a crushing reply to those who made this statement. He would say to them: ‘Our wise men have taboos on food and drink, they have taboos on clothing and methods of travel, on words and thoughts; but until the white man came did we ever hear of Sunday? Did the wisest of us ever think of the fact that a day might be taboo?’” (V. Stefánsson, “On Christianizing the Eskimo,” Harper’s Magazine, 1913, cxxvii, 674; idem, My Life with the Eskimo, New York, 1913, p. 412; compare pp. 36 sq., 89 sqq., 374 sq., 416 sqq.)