Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1890 — A LADY FROM GREENLAND. [ARTICLE]

A LADY FROM GREENLAND.

She Tells of the Domestic Life of Her People. V. Y. Sun Miss Olof Krarer, a native of Greenland, is visiting at Saratoga. She is a pure blood Esquimaux lady of very quaint and curious appearance, especially from an American standpoint She is 31 years old, 3 feet 4 inches in height, and as she weighs 120 pounds it can well be imagined that she is pretty stout. In an Esquimaux's eyes she is probably handsome, but not so in an American sense. Her face is peculiar, and almost impossible to portray. Her hair, which she says when she left Greenland was black, is now almost golden. Her eyes are large and full of animation. Her usual attitude is with her chubby hands folded in front of her, her short curved arms resting close against her person. She says that in her country children are never allowed to play out of doors, and her arms, she explained, were bowed because in her country children are compelled to fold them always. Her piump and robust figure was richly clad in qed silk, close fitting, with train, the whole trimmed with lace. The ornaments consist of a heavy gold ring and watch guard ornamented with pendants. Her movements are easy and quite graceful, and her voice low, but clear and distinct. She was educated in lceland, and speaks Eng-, lish very pleasingly.

Miss Krarer says that in Greenland people seldom live above sixty years. They have but one sickness, and that is such.as in, this country isoalled consumption. They are sick about four years, ,and during that time “our people, 11 she says, * -never pay any attention to them.” They say spirits have them and they hate them. As soon as they are taken ill they are placed in a house by themselves, and all that is done for them is to throw them a piece of blubber as they would to a dog. If sick people get well they are smart; if they die they are no good and they are thrown into a hole in the snow, together with their furs and spears. When people are dead in my country wc don’t want anything more to do with them.

“Fires in my country,” says Miss Krarer, “are lighted with a flint, and a man who owns a flint is wealthy, and he guards it as carefully as a man in this country would a lump of gold.” The domestic life of her people is very simple, and yet subject to very rigid regulations. She says; “When a wife is wanted from among the maidens the enamored young man watches his opportunity and while the parents are away or not observing he steals her arid takes her to another house. If caught in the act he is killed by the parents of the girl. If they are dead his own parents do the deed, as they consider that a man who is not smart enough to steal a girl for his wife is not smart enough to kill a bear, and therefore should not be allowed to live. A man must live with his wife for life. If he deserts her he is put to death. If a child disobeys its parents it is punished by being burned with a heated bone.

“In our land,” she said, “we have neither doctors, luwyers, preachers, nor rulers of any kind, jfor we never tell lies or steal; consequently it is not necessary to have any rulers. In all Greenland there are no trees; the bare ground is never seen, is no water but that of the ocean. I think Iceland would be a good place for many American ladies to go, for in that country the ladies never wash themselves from the - timethey are born until they die. The only thing they do is to anoint themselves daily with oil. In our country the ladies amuse themselves by sitting on the floor of their houses and looking at each other, while engaged in an animated discussion as to the beauty of each other, and the one having the greatest amount of oil on her face is considered to be the greatest beauty.” Miss Krarer has been eight years in this country, and has no desire to return to Greenland. She says she never will go there again to remain permanently.