Copyright © 1991, 2018 by S. Allen Counter
Foreword Copyright © 2018 by Deirdre Stam
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Tom Lau
Cover photo credit: Background photograph of the Robert Peary Sledge Party Posing with Flags at the North Pole; Peary and Henson photos courtesy of the Library of Congress
Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-2637-6
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-2638-3
Printed in the United States of America.
DEDICATED TO
Anaukaq and Kali, my friends
Remembered by What I Have Done
Up and away, like a dew of the morning
That soars from the earth to its home in the sun;
So let me steal away, gently and lovingly
Only remembered by what I have done.
My name, and my place, and my tomb all forgotten,
The brief race of time well and patiently run
So let me pass away, peacefully, silently,
Only remembered by what I have done.
Gladly away from this trail would I hasten,
Up to the crown that for me has been won.
Unthought of by man in rewards or in praises—
Only remembered by what I have done.
Not myself, but the truth, that in life I have spoken;
Not myself, but the seed that in life I have sown
Shall pass on to ages—all about me forgotten,
Save the truth I have spoken, the things I have done.
Sincerely yours
Matthew Alexander Henson
Poem found in Matthew Henson’s diary, Matthew A. Henson Collection, Morgan State University, Baltimore.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD TO THE 2018 EDITION BY DEIRDRE STAM
CHAPTER ONE: Anaukaq, Son of Mahri-Pahluk
CHAPTER TWO: “You must be a Henson”
CHAPTER THREE: The Amer-Eskimo Hensons
CHAPTER FOUR: Cousin Kali
CHAPTER FIVE: “Hallelujah!” “Not Interested”
CHAPTER SIX: Black and White Partners
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Struggle for the Pole
CHAPTER EIGHT: “Now I know I have relatives”
CHAPTER NINE: Growing Up Eskimo
CHAPTER TEN: Keeping the Faith
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Defeating Tornarsuk
CHAPTER TWELVE: The North Pole Family Reunion
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Back Home in Greenland
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Welcome Home, Matthew Henson
EPILOGUE: The Controversy: Did Peary and Henson Reach the North Pole First?
Notes
Glossary
Acknowledgments
FOREWORD TO THE 2018 EDITION BY DEIRDRE STAMM
By the 1980s, when S. Allen Counter began to take an interest in the contact of Arctic explorer Robert Peary and his assistant Matthew Henson with the Greenland Inuit, it may have seemed to most readers that the story of the North Pole conquest was largely played out. The old debate of who got to the magic spot first seemed to have stalled with supporters of Peary and Frederick Cook at loggerheads. New insights into the exploration of the polar region were slow in coming, despite the partisan and non-partisan efforts of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians, historians, latter-day explorers, and nautical experts to find the definitive answer to the Peary-Cook debates over who got there first, or indeed whether either made it at all. There were outposts of research such as the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center at Bowdoin College, of course, where curators diligently combed through hard evidence of all kinds to piece together a detailed and objective narrative of Peary’s years in the Arctic. By then, however, public attention to exploration was focused elsewhere, such as continental Antarctica, outer space, and more mundane but promising regions of scientific research. The human element was certainly considered by researchers in Peary/Henson studies, but more through the lens of the hard rather than soft sciences. There were some exceptions. There had been published anthropological observations of the Inuit culture, most notably by explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson. And interest in Henson largely invoked contemporary racial issues by the 1980s. But in general, public interest in exploration seemed to have turned elsewhere.
Neurophysiologist and social historian Counter introduced a unique blend of methodologies to the understanding of the Peary/Henson experience in the far North with his book North Pole Legacy: Black, White and Eskimo (1991). Acting as participant observer and ultimately as actor in the lives of the explorers’ Inuit progeny, Counter overcame many physical and administrative barriers to develop personal relationships with the indigenous descendants of Peary and Henson, to elicit community memories of their forebears, and ultimately to bring about meetings in the US of the explorers’ US and Inuit descendants. Sharing African-American ancestry with Henson, Counter was particularly interested in the life experiences of Henson and his Inuit descendants, and of the possible role of racial prejudice in their lives.
Counter brought storytelling skills to the presentation of his findings, resulting in his highly readable and enlightening book. In doing so, he provided new evidence about the personal interactions of Peary’s parties with the Greenland Inuit. Social issues of race, sex, class, motivation, exploitation, and loyalty are addressed indirectly as Counter tells the personal stories of a few dozen Inuit whose lives were intimately affected by their shifting familial relationships to Peary and to Henson.
Those looking for evidence of racial prejudice in Peary’s northern ventures can certainly find it, but compared with many contemporaries, he tended to respect ability and practicality when he saw it. While in the North, he lived on intimate terms with those identified as racially “different,” albeit within constraints of western notions of class and rank. Peary’s long-standing relationship to Henson, an African-American considered of lesser social status, provides one example, of such close dependence and physical proximity. Peary’s relationship to the Greenland Inuit (or “Eskimos” in his time) constitute another example. The race question for Henson was more complex. He seemed to have been entirely comfortable with the Inuit, who recognized that his coloration was similar to theirs, and for this and other reasons welcomed him with particular warmth. In fact he is described as living at least as often in Inuit households as with fellow expedition members.
From his Arctic experience and from its literature, Peary developed an appreciation of Inuit men as able hunters, providers, and responsible heads of households. He took full advantage of their skills, rewarding their work with the kinds of remuneration that generated long-term cooperation and loyalty. Peary also appreciated and exploited the skills of Inuit women in turning arctic resources into forms that could be eaten, worn, and enjoyed. He wrote admiringly of their skills: “Household duties are as carefully practiced (allowing for differenc
es in materials) as in any domestic circle.” (Robert E. Peary, Nearest the Pole, New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1907, p. 380.) Inuit women performed their duties while nurturing children in conditions that may strike us today as impossibly uncomfortable, inconvenient, and even hazardous. Although it has made many modern readers uncomfortable to acknowledge this fact, indigenous women were also valued by many Northern adventurers for the companionship and sexual comforts that they could provide to men far from home and lonely for female contact.
Peary himself developed a sexual relationship with a very young, already married woman named Ahlikahsingwah, who bore him two boys. The first, Anaukaq, died young, and the second, Kali, born in 1906, lived well into old age. Henson too maintained a seemingly stable relationship with an Inuit woman named Akatingwah who in 1906 bore Henson one child, also named Anaukaq. He, like Kali, lived into old age. According to Counter, the husbands of these women, who were brothers, in effect adopted the explorers’ children. Both Kali and (Henson’s son) Anaukaq were alive at the time of Counter’s visit and figure prominently in his story.
Henson’s generally-accepted liaison with his Inuit consort yielded many practical advantages, which would otherwise have been unavailable to him, leading to facility in the Eskimo language, superior native-style clothing, well-honed skills in dog driving, and knowledge of food acquisition and preparation. The entire expedition, in effect, benefited from Henson’s close liaison with his close Inuit companions.
Henson clearly indicates his approval of Eskimo marital arrangements in recollections of a courtship conversation with his second wife Lucy Ross, whom he married in 1908. The exchange might strike the modern reader as a kind of test of Lucy’s acceptance of Henson’s unconventional domestic history.
Asked if he thought that Inuit women are pretty by Lucy Ross’s mother, Henson addressed his response to Lucy:
Yes, the Eskimo women are pretty . . . At least, the Eskimo men who marry them think so.” [Mrs. Ross continued,] “You mean they really marry . . . I thought they were—were immoral and very dirty. . .” [Henson directed his answer to Lucy.] “Eskimos marry. . . but like innocent children, without laws and church, for they have neither. . . [but] sometimes I think they are more moral than we are, for they’re honest and never lie. They marry to raise families, and a man is always happy when his wife presents him with a child, even if it isn’t his.” (Bradley Robinson, Dark Companion, Robert M. McBride & Company, New York, NY, p. 180-181.)
In more modern times, some have criticized Peary, and to a lesser degree Henson, for the “abandonment” of children born of these intimate relationships with Inuit women. While the behavior of both Peary and Henson in this matter could be seen as reflective of their time and circumstances, the story is complicated by the fact that neither man grew up with a father and neither had firsthand experience of paternal responsibility and nurturing. A further complicating factor is that Henson never had the resources to help his Inuit son, had he wanted to.
The philosophical and moral questions raised by the story of the Inuit children of Peary and Henson are legion and confounding, especially from a position of hindsight. While Counter touches by implication on delicate matters of race, sex, class, motivation, exploitation, and loyalty, he largely avoids speculation and judgment. His is a factual telling of the story of the Peary and Henson Inuit family experiences over many decades subsequent to the departure of the explorers in 1909. The account culminates with the affecting description of the Inuit families’ emotion-filled meetings in 1987 in the US with some of their American cousins.
NORTH POLE LEGACY
CHAPTER ONE
Anaukaq, Son of Mahri-Pahluk
The old Polar Eskimo, bent slightly at the waist, steps briskly across the pack ice toward his team of sled dogs. Curled up like giant woolen balls, partially covered by a recent blizzard, the wolflike beasts come to life in response to his calls, “Kim-milk! Kim-milk! [Dog! Dog!].” They shake the crusted snow from their thick coats and yawn with soft howls as Anaukaq greets each of them by name and pats its head. Sensing that they are about to be hitched up for a trip, the dogs wag their tails and begin whining excitedly, for a Polar Eskimo dog would much rather be running than sleeping.
With graceful, measured movements, Anaukaq untangles the traces that tether each dog to stakes driven deep in the hard snow—traces now made of durable nylon rather than of the more perishable sealskin used in his youth. The dogs prance about and snap at one another playfully as he connects them, one by one, to the front of an eight-foot wooden sled with tall rear upstanders. He beckons me to a thick deerskin seat at the rear of the sled and we’re off, rushing down the hillside toward the frozen bay with Anaukaq cracking his whip above the dogs’ ears.
As we head out of the settlement, Anaukaq’s eighteen-year-old grandson Nukka runs from his house and jumps on the sled, whip in hand. The family has assigned him to chaperon his grandfather over the dangerous mounds of broken ice scattered across the bay—subtly, of course, so as not to hurt the old hunter’s feelings.
The eight dogs pull us much faster than I had thought possible. “Wock, wock, wock, wock,” the old man yells, directing the dogs to the left. “Ahchook, ahchook, ahchook” and, like the turning wheels of a car, the dogs and sled move to the right. Anaukaq looks back at me and laughs as he detects my admiration. Dogsled driving is considered a Polar Eskimo’s most valuable skill, and Anaukaq is exceptionally good at it.
No doubt this skill was learned, yet perhaps he was born with a talent for it. For if he is who he says he is, his father was reputed to be among the greatest dogsled drivers in the world. Anaukaq has told me that he is the son of Matthew Alexander Henson, one of the first two Americans to reach the North Pole. This claim has been corroborated by other Polar Eskimo elders, who still refer to Henson as “Mahri-Pahluk,” meaning “Matthew the Kind One,” a name given him by their forebears nearly a century ago. More telling still, Anaukaq has a much darker complexion than the other Eskimos and very curly black hair—a trait rarely found among his people. Matthew Henson, too, was kulnocktooko [dark skinned]. He was, in fact, the only black known to have visited this Arctic region before Anaukaq was born.
After about a half hour’s ride, we reach our destination: the offshore seal traps set by Anaukaq’s son Avataq, who is some hundred miles away hunting walrus. Anaukaq chops a hole in the ice around a rope, which is tied to a stake. Once the rope is free, he tugs several times to see whether there is a seal attached. “No luck,” he says. “We’ll come back tomorrow.” Anaukaq seems to take great delight in this chore. As an old retired hunter who now for the most part is confined to his village, he would feel useless if he did not have some food-gathering responsibilities, so his five sons permit him to travel up and down the bay, accompanied by his grandchildren, to examine their traps.
Returning to the warmth of his son Ajako’s home, a boxlike wooden structure that the Eskimos still call an “igloo,” we pull off our snowshoes and prepare to enter the main room of the house in our socks. Anaukaq leans over and with a pocket knife cuts off a sliver of walrus heart hanging just inside the door. “Mahmaktoe [Tasty]”, he says, looking at me with an inviting smile. He cuts a second sliver and hands it to me. I reluctantly put the raw, bloody meat in my mouth saying to myself, “It’s okay. It’s only cardiac muscle,” but thinking all along that it tastes simply like dull, uncooked meat. “Mahmaktoe,” I say, without conviction.
As we enter the central room, Anaukaq’s daughter-in-law Puto is scraping the fat from a polar bear skin so that it can be properly stretched to make pants for her son Nukka, who has just killed his first nanook [polar bear]. The sweet aroma of polar bear meat in Puto’s stew on the stove permeates the house. As a gesture of good will and respect for her father-in-law, Puto pulls a small piece of fat from the polar bear skin and hands it to him.
“Thank you,” Anaukaq says. “Mmmm, very tasty!” The old-timers love this delicacy. “For you, here,” he says, offering me
a slice.
“No, thanks, my friend.” I point to the kitchen. “I will wait for the nanook that is being cooked out there.” I will only eat cooked polar meat because of the high risk of trichinosis from eating it raw. As the Polar Eskimos themselves are aware, trichinosis has been a major health problem within their community for many years, primarily as a result of their consumption of raw polar bear and bearded seal.
Anaukaq laughs politely. “Okay, but it’s very tasty.”
Eventually the stew is ready, and Anaukaq’s granddaughter Malina serves me a portion with some hot tea. The polar bear meat has been boiled thoroughly without any spices, because none grow in this desolate part of the world and so they are hard to come by. Nevertheless, it is quite flavorful.
“Mmm, mahmaktoe,” I say, to the delight of everyone present. Each nods with pleasure.
As we sit and eat, Puto resumes scraping the polar bear skin with her ulu, a small, flat, half-moon shaped utility knife that Eskimo women use for everything from flensing seals to slicing foods. After a while I sense that Anaukaq is watching me closely. I look up, and our eyes meet. He smiles, a little embarrassed that I caught him staring. He reaches over and rubs my head, then his own hair, and laughs. “Curly! We have the same curly hair. We are the same people, black people.”
“Yes, that’s right,” I agree, as everyone in the room breaks into laughter.
“You must be my relative,” he says.
“Well, in spirit, perhaps, but not by family line.” He seems a bit disappointed. It is not the first time he has said this to me. He finds it difficult to believe that we are not related, because he has never seen another black person outside of his own family. Can he really be who he says he is? I believe him, but I wonder.
I have come to Moriussaq, this tiny Eskimo village some one thousand miles above the Arctic Circle, because of my special interest in Matthew Henson. For many years he has been my hero, and I have struggled to gain him the recognition he deserved but never received during his lifetime. Henson was among the most successful Arctic explorers of all time, yet he remains relatively unknown in his own country. The reason for this paradox is as clear as American history, and it all comes down to a single world: race. Because Henson was black, his achievements were overshadowed by those of his white companion, Comdr. Robert Edwin Peary.
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