June-October 1881, Cruise of the Corwin, Part II Image 111

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1881
• Subjects: John Muir; journals; drawings; writings; travel; journaling; naturalist; eskimo*
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/2113; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmj-all/article/3112/type/native/viewcontent/fullsize.jpg

The Eskimos hunt and kill them for food, going out to meet them on the ice with spears and dogs. This is merely one savage living on another, race on race. But how civilized people, seeking for heavens and angels and millenniums, and the reign of universal peace and love, can enjoy this red, brutal amusement is not so easily accounted for. Such a soft, fuzzy, sentimental aspirations, and the frame of mind that can reap giggling, jolly pleasure from the blood and agony and death of these fine animals, with their human-like groans, are too devilish for anything but hell. Of all the animals man is at once the worst and best. Two of the bears hoisted on board, the other was neglected until it could not be found. Then came the vulgar business of skinning and throwing the mangled carcasses back into the clean blue water among the ice. The skins were stretched on frames to be dried and taken home to show angelic sweethearts the evidence of their pluck and daring. The Indians sometimes adorn their belts https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/3112/thumbnail.jpg