The Story of Polargno by Frank R. Stockton

Polargno was an Esquimaux boy. At the time the things happened to him that I am going to relate to you he was sixteen years old, and as merry a fellow as you could find anywhere. Here is his portrait.

Perhaps you think him ugly, but our ideas of beauty depend a good deal upon what we are accustomed to see around us. You like a white skin, regular features, and fine, soft, wavy hair. But the negroes of Central Africa do not admire this style in the least. They prefer thick lips, flat noses, shining black skins, and hair as tightly twisted and as wiry as possible. And Polargno's friends looked upon him as a boy of a remarkably fine appearance, for they considered it very proper that he should have a stubby nose, thick lips, small eyes, and lank, coarse hair. His parents thought him handsome, but his mother was grieved because he was not quite as fat as other Esquimaux boys of his age. To be very beautiful in the eyes of an Esquimaux one must be very fat. Polargno's father was not much taller than his son, but he was very much broader. He consoled his wife, however, by assuring her that he was no larger than Polargno at the same age.

In this picture, Polargno is dressed in the suit he wears out of doors in the winter. It is a complete suit of seal-skin, with the fur outside. This is put on over the in-door suit, boots and all. This in-door suit is also of seal-skin, but it is made up with the fur turned inside. To make the costume complete, he should have on his head a fur hood. People have to dress warmly in the Esquimaux country where the ground is covered with snow three-fourths of the year.

Polargno's father owned a winter and a summer residence; which sounds very grandly, to be sure, but he was no richer than the rest of the tribe. There was much similarity among the families of the settlement in regard to wealth. One family might possess a few more skins than the others, or softer beds, or an extra lamp; but, on the whole, one man was about as well off as his neighbors, and they visited each other in the most sociable manner, knowing nothing of rank and riches.

The winter residence of Loonerkoo, the father of Polargno, was constructed in the following manner: Blocks of snow two feet long, and six inches wide and several inches thick, were cut out from the great snow heaps that abounded everywhere. These were carefully pared with a large knife and made even and smooth. They were then built into a dome. A good many layers of blocks were used to make the walls very thick and solid. There were two windows in this dome, and what do you think they were made of? Each one was a single, inch thick square of transparent, fresh water ice. There was not the least danger of its melting from the heat of the house, the outside cold being too intense for that to happen.

There was no door to this house, but there was quite a large doorway. A hole was left in the wall. It was not more than three feet high, and everybody, except very little children crawled into it on their hands and knees. The passage way was no higher, and was about sixteen feet long, so that this crawling back and forth was somewhat wearing on the clothes, although the floor was of ice and snow instead of the rough ground. This entrance was made low and narrow, so as to shut out as much cold air as possible.

The next thing was to make a chimney. This was easy enough. They simply cut a hole in the roof of the dome of snow. This contrivance did not always work well, as the wind sometimes blew the smoke back into the room as fast as it came out of it, but the Esquimaux are used to smoke in their houses; and, supposing it to be one of the necessary evils of life, are quite content to have it when it cannot be helped.

Inside of this dome there was one large, circular room. In most Esquimaux houses this was reception-room, dining-room, bed-room, and kitchen, all in one. But a few very elegant dwellings, and, among them Loonerkoo's, had curtains of skins hung up so as to make a couple of bed-rooms.

It may make you shiver when I tell you how they made their bedsteads. These were blocks of snow, making a platform a couple of feet high, and five and six feet long. On them whalebones and seal skins were laid for mattresses. The coverlets consisted of nice, warm furs.

Exactly in the middle of the large room a circular platform was made with blocks of snow. On this stood the lamp for cooking purposes, and over it was a wooden scaffolding on which the cooking utensils were hung.

The lamp was nothing but a dish, filled with whale oil and blubber, with a long wick of dry moss.

Around the walls the weapons and clothes of the family were hung.

This was all the furniture the house contained, and it was quite enough for these simple people. Warm clothing, plenty to eat, and comfortable places to sleep were all they required.

It is difficult for us to believe that these snow houses are comfortable, but they are very warm indeed; or, rather, I should say they are the warmest houses that could be made for the very severe climate of Greenland. The Esquimaux is hardened to the cold, and can bear it much better than we can. He wraps himself up in his furs, and lays down on his icy couch, and sleeps as peacefully and comfortably as we do on our soft mattresses.

It only required a few hours to build the winter house of Loonerkoo, and to put it into perfect order.

A still shorter time sufficed for constructing his summer residence, which was nothing more than a large tent, made of dressed skins.

The Arctic summer is short. It really lasts only about six weeks. For, after the worst of the wintry weather is over, it takes the sun a good while to melt the heavy masses of snow and ice, and to send them floating down the rivers and bays, and out into the ocean, where they finally disappear. This season is scarcely warm enough to call Spring; it is, more properly, the breaking up of Winter. It is a time when icebergs abound, and boating is a very dangerous amusement.