Word: netsilik
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Traveling alone by dog sled in 1932, lean Father Henri arrived in King William Land, near the Magnetic Pole, with a portable altar and a bare minimum of supplies. Because of his rust-colored beard the Netsilik Eskimos called him Kai-i-o (The Red One); they were fascinated by his long black cassock, and asked whether they could make a tent...
During his 18 years there, the priest succeeded in converting most of the 350 members of the Netsilik tribe to Christianity. One day Father Henri saw the bodies of three newborn girls abandoned in the snow: this was the Eskimos' traditional way of solving their surplus population problem. Father Henri arranged for Eskimo parents to get the Canadian baby bonus, usually in the form of hunting supplies. Now the practice of infanticide has virtually disappeared among the Netsilik...
...highly civilized man, he felt in 1938 a need for simplification, and removed himself to King William Land, an island not far from the Magnetic Pole. There he spent fall, winter and spring among a people withdrawn some 20,000 years from civilization, a stone-age remnant: the Netsilik Eskimos. Kabloona (Eskimo for white man), written in collaboration with Lewis Galantière, is his description of that strange year...
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