From Hero to Humbug

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.

We have now examined all the known relevant testimony surrounding what Dr. Cook’s two Inuit companions had to say to others concerning the journey on which they accompanied him. The various versions as reported by these witnesses being in conflict, we could, like Captain Hall, just dismiss this body of evidence as worthless in getting at the truth of where exactly Cook went and what he did during the time he was away. However, a careful reading of all of this testimony reveals several points that prevents it from being dismissed out of hand, as we shall eventually see. But what can account for the most extreme conflict in this body of evidence?

Before the Peary expedition returned in August 1909, all of the witnesses who were on the coast of Greenland from Nerke down to Umiak Fjord after Cook’s return in April 1909, without variance, heard Inuit gossip that Cook had reached the North Pole in April 1908 (see Part 6 of this series). Even Peary heard this gossip from the first Inuit he met where his ship first called heading south. But once Peary was on the scene again, the story began to change to one that Cook had never been out of sight of land, and therefore, could not have been within hundreds of miles of the North Pole.

For instance, when Henson first questioned Cook’s companions, they said they had been to the Pole, but Henson explained this away by saying “[Dr. Cook] ordered [his Inuit] to say that they had been at the North Pole, [but] after I questioned them over and over again they confessed that they had not gone beyond the land ice.” And Cook’s companions at first had told Billy Pritchard they had gone “way, way north” and had said the same to Harry Whitney, but then, after Peary’s crew started questioning them, they came to Whitney and asked him “what Peary’s men were trying to get them to say.” Indeed, it was not until Whitney reached Newfoundland that he heard anything about Cook’s Eskimos retracting their statements to him or saying they never went out of sight of land. (see Part 3 of this series). Clearly, the story published by the Peary Arctic Club did not match up with the gossip on the coast of Greenland before Peary returned, or with what Etukishuk and Ahwelah told Whitney and Pritchard before the Roosevelt arrived, or even Henson’s of their first statements to him when it had.

Although these conflicting stories cannot be reconciled, one thing seems certain from reading all of this testimony: Dr. Cook clearly told his companions that they had reached the North Pole. Dr. Cook said that he had told them, Matt Henson said that he had told them, and the gossip on the Greenland coast said that he had, as well, because the Inuit would have had no other way of “knowing” he had reached the Pole otherwise.

Cook told Whitney and Pritchard he had reached the Pole, but swore them to secrecy. He also claims he swore his Inuit companions to secrecy, but Cook surely knew that was futile. It was culturally forbidden to the Inuit of that time to keep a secret, so we must assume that although Cook told his companions not to tell anyone they had reached the Pole, he knew the word to get out, and so wanted the word to get out. In Ulloriaq’s story (see the previous post), he claims Cook never told Etukishuk and Ahwelah that he had reached the Pole; he implies that after he reached Annoatok again, it was from Cook directly that the Inuit learned he had. This is illogical. Why would he withhold this news from the two witnesses he had with him and then tell others after his return if it was his desire to have the news spread? Such news would be far more convincing coming from their tribesmen, than from Cook. No, it seems certain that Cook told his two companions they had reached the North Pole on their journey and that they told their relatives, and word spread from there. If this is true, and it surely must be, then until Peary arrived in August, the Innit believed what their tribesmen told them: Dr. Cook had reached the North Pole.

So how can the change of their story be accounted for? a change so radical that Rasmussen’s first report (see Part 7 of this series) of what he heard in Umiak fjord supported Cook’s story in all ways, only to become one a few months later that fell in line nearly exactly with what Peary said Cook’s companions told his men, as published on October 13, 1909. (see Part 8 of this series)

Like Wally Herbert, there is much evidence from earlier explorers who had contact with the Polar Inuit that they had a tendency to tell Qallunaat (white people) what they thought they wanted to hear.  In his 1888 book, Esquimaux Life, Nansen noted, “He is very loath to contradict another, even should he be saying what he knows to be false; should he do so he takes care to word his remonstrance in the mildest possible form.”  As Dr. Cook himself stated, “There is . . . an innate desire on the part of these simple people to answer any question in a manner which they think will please . . . This desire to please is notoriously stronger than a sense of truth.” The Canadian explorer, Captain Joseph Bernier agreed with this in an interview he gave after the publication of Peary’s version of the Inuit testimony: “Capt. Bernier said he took no stock in Eskimo evidence. They desired to please and would tell any story which they thought would be agreeable to their listeners.” In the same newspaper story, a fellow countryman of Bernier’s, A. P. Low, said, “The Eskimos . . . are not quite truthful. When the source of a lie is traced, it is found to be due to a mistaken politeness, the native intention to please by answering in a manner which he thinks will be agreeable to the questioner.” (New York Times October 15, 1909). Even Roald Amundsen in his stay among the Netsiliks on his traversal of the Northwest Passage in 1903-1905 noted this same tendency among them. But if is was just something said to please, why is it that the Peary version has been enshrined in Inuit folk memory as the true version?

In his paper already quoted (see the previous post) Kenn Harper had this to say: “I would like to put forward a hypothesis on the nature of Eskimo folk memory. Eskimo or Inuit folk memory serves well in many instances. Indeed, it is phenomenally accurate over periods of centuries. . . Yet, I can provide [a] list of things that Inuit believe strongly, which are erroneous or impossible. . . . I would sum up the differences . . . in this way. When there is no controversy, when [the events are] straightforward, unambiguous, and have a clear and well-defined ending, Eskimo folk memory will generally prove accurate. When there is controversy, confusion, or no clear-cut ending, imagination will take over and folk memory will be more inclined to be inaccurate. The case of the Eskimo memories of Dr. Cook’s journey fit the latter category well.”

Harper goes on to explain the enshrinement of Peary’s version by an Inuit concept called “ilira,” quoting an Inuit who explained, “Inuit use ilira to refer to a great fear or awe, such as the awe a strong father inspires in his children or the fear of the Qallunaat white people previously held by Inuit. This fear, or ilira, developed very early in our initial encounters with explorers, missionaries and traders. We quickly became subject to the overwhelming power and fabulous wealth of these Qallunaat. . . . This relationship, and the feeling of ilira to which it gave rise, meant that whatever the Qallunaat suggested or wanted was likely to be done. . . In this cultural setting, a challenge to the authority of the Qallunaat or defiance of their requests was almost unthinkable.”

That the Polar Inuit felt ilira when dealing with Peary is clear. They were completely in awe of him. As late as the 1950s, Jean Malaurie reported one as saying, “You always had the feeling that if you didn’t do what he wanted, he would condemn you to death,” and before his interview, the Inuit in question insisted on going outside to make sure Peary’s shade was not listening in. And far earlier Rasmussen had summed up the Inuit feeling toward Peary as, “He asked with so strong a will to gain his wish, that it was impossible to say no.”

So what did the Inuit really say? The evidence indicates that the answer is that they said both: after Cook’s return in April 1909, they said Cook had been to the Pole, and after Peary’s arrival and questioning of Cook’s two companions was done, that Cook had never been out of sight of land and that he had lied that he had been there, because that is what the Inuit concluded was what Peary wanted them to say.

Because of ilira, Inuit folk memory remembers Dr. Cook as a nice guy who was a big liar when it came to his claim to the Pole, and Peary as “The Great Tormentor,” whose will was impossible to resist. With this in mind, our conclusion that the Inuit story changed, and why it changed is readily explained. Our next problem is less easily solved. That is to decide what the existing testimony can tell us about Cook’s actual polar attempt.

References:

Harper, Kenn, “Liars and Gentlemen,” BPRC Report No. 18, 1998.

Kuptana, Rosemary, “Ilira, or why it was unthinkable for Inuit to challenge Qallunaat Authority.” Inuit Art Quarterly, 1993.

Malaurie, Jean. The Last Kings of Thule, Dutton, 1982.

Rasmussen, Knud. Greenand by the Polar Sea, Stokes, 1910.