Robert E. Peary’s Sins

The Ancients suspected the existence of the North and South Poles from astronomical calculations and the Mandaean religion prayed facing the North as the World of Light. For thousands of years the North Pole existed as a myth, however in the 19th Century Europeans sought the Northwest Passage through the endless archipelago of icebergs and barren glacial islands.

Drawn by the myth of Ultima Thule every summer expeditions attempted assaults of the Land of the Ice and Snow. Many of their ships ended up trapped in the ice pack for years. While polar bears hunted seals in the white wasteland, only frozen death awaited men passing 82 degrees longitude.

The native Inuits of Greenland believing that Nunaup Kajjinga or the Big Nail crowned the world. The people never never ventured father than the range of the sea lions, only frozen death anyone beyond that.

Westerners thought otherwise.

After the Franco-Prussian War imperial peace dominated Europe and Pax Americana controlled the New World. The only route of advancement for Naval officers was a shot at the North or South Pole. While the possibility of frozen death awaited most of these polar adventurers and in 1908 two men led their teams due north.

Frederick Cook and Robert E. Peary.

One time friends now rivals.

Peary committed three grave sin on his polar expedition

Sin # 1.

Cook declared his winning the race, but was discredited by Peary, who supposedly reached the North Pole with his black companion Matthew Henson and four Inuits; Ooqueah, Ootah, Eginghah,and Seeglo. Peary was too far gone to actually reach Ultime Thule, but claimed victory without any credit to Henson or the Inuits. In fact he denigrated Henson's achievement and refused him any honors for decades. White people never gave credit to Africans for anything.

Sin # 2.

The explorers and whalers wintered in Greenland with the Inuit. Many had Inuit wives. Peary was no exception. He had a child with Aleqasina, a teenager, and when his American wife during a surprise visit demanded that her husband give up this savage, he refused and later had a son with his young love. His white daughter Marie, the Snow Bird, was friends with them and they regarded her as a half-sister, however Peary abandoned his native wife and children without regret to reap the rewards of fame in the USA.

Sin # 3.

Six Inuits accompanied his southward voyage. He left them at the Museum of Natural History in New York and returned to Maine. Five of them succumbed to typhoid leaving a young Inuit boy, Minnik, alone. Promised a proper burial of his father and friends, Minnik later discovered that the museum officials had boiled the flesh off their bodies to display the bare bones to visitors. Death also stalked the Inuuit in the warm lands.

Minnik begged for his father's bones for years. Peary never responded to his requests. Finally as a young man he escaped the museum and fled north to Canada and the eternal cold. The Royal Mounted Police arrested him and he was transported back to New York, where he was granted his wish and he traveled north to Greenland on a whaler along with the bones of his people. Peary had nothing to say about it.

My grandfather was his doctor and the Snowbird was my grandmother's best friend, but that's another story for another time of the frozen lands of the North.

Ajunngigiarlutit or good luck to them all.

I also suggest reading Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo Hardcover – January 1, 2000 by Kenn Harper> I have a copy of it somewhere.

In my youth I visited the Peabody Museum at Harvard and was shocked to see Eskimo and Native American mummies in the collection. I stopped going after discovering that the museum had harvested over 10,000 bodies since its inception. The Inuit mummies dated back to the 1600s. The Viking colonies had long since vanished. None of their corpses had been reaped by the Arctic scientists. According to the Harvard Crimson The Peabody is similarly in the process of returning Native American human remains to Indigenous American tribes. As of February, the Peabody had returned 44 percent of its 10,118 total held ancestors as part of its efforts under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Shame.

And I expect even less humanity from the pedophile Donald Trump.

The Atlas of The Bible = National Geographic - 2021

National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 by explorers and scientists at DC's Cosmos Club with the backing of wealthy patrons as "a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge." Expanses of unmapped lands sprawled across the continents. The Society financed innumerable treks to Alaska, the Arctic, Antarctica, the steppes of Tibet, the Indonesian archipelago, and ruined cities deep in the heart of terra incognita.

In January 1905 the National Geographic's debut publication featuring photos of the society's team accompanying the British Punitive invasion over the Himalayas to Lhasa.

Ghost forts ravaged by war and weather guarded the desolate plateau.

The Empire's soldiers and explorers were astounded by the majesty of the Potala Palace.

Nothing in Christianity prepared the western readers for the devotion of the Tibetan pilgrims circling the most holy Jokhang Temple. Buddha was the answer. Jesus was unknown entity as was life over the Himalaya's monsoon shadow.

National Geographic was an instant sensation opening the world to armchair travelers for over a hundred years, however in the 1990s the classic yellow-rimmed magazine was forced to address the geographical and historical shortcomings of its reading public. My cousin's husband was managing editor in 1991 and after a protest in Washington DC against the Iraq War I joined my father, Oliver, and his two young girls to watch Intercollegiate Rugby Championships. After the Wyoming win Oliver complained about the prolific swearing by both teams and their coaching staff. I said nothing, while he wrote a scathing letter to both university about the cursing.

Later at dinner I asked about the subpar writing in the National Geographic and Oliver said, "People aren't as well educated as we were. They read at an 8th Grade level, if they read at all, so we had to dumb down the magazine."

While I never considered myself well-educated, I viewed the dumbing down the National Geographic as a further rebuttal against the Theory of Evolution.

There is no bottom to ignorance and in 2018 the magazine featured cover story was THE ATLAS OF THE BIBLE.

The history of the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Koran.

The site of the first circumcision, the birthplace of Jesus, and Mohammad rising from the Temple Mount to travel to Jannah or Heaven.

Nothing about shrinking Palestine.

Nor ever any mention of Robert E. Peary's Inuit family.

My grandfather was Polar explorer's doctor in Westbrook, Maine long after his fellow Bowdoin alumni had 'discovered' the North Pole. National Geographic honored Robert E. Peary as the White Man's Hero, even though Matthew Henson, his accompanying Afro-American explorer, actually reached Ultima Thule with the aid of Inuit explorers. No surprise. They were just the help.

As an Atheist I wish that the Lands of the Bible were once more Terra Incognita.

A land lost to time.

ps - My cousin's husband received no letters from Wyoming U or the bother team, but I wrote him a fake response from a fake Dean of Sports apologizing for the graphic language. Oliver was so proud of that accomplishment, I had not the heart to tell him the truth, then again I only explore the soul.

Ganden Monestery 1995

Peter Freuchen Explorer Club - Trophy Room

My grandmother Edith Hamlin gave me a book BOOK OF THE ESKIMOS by Peter Freuchen. I still have it. Two years ago I was pleased to meet him face to face with his portrait over the trophy room's fireplace at the Explorer Club. Edith Smith was good friends with Marie Peary, the Snowbird, daughter ofAdmiral Robert E Peary, one of the founder's of the club. I had thought my grandfather Frank A Smith had been his doctor in Westbrook, Maine after returning from his stint with the Royal Canadian Medical Expedition in France during World War I, but no one is left in my family who can verify that he might have been on service to the Arctic Explorer. Edith did speak about Marie on her death, bemoaning that Marie, a hard drinker, was going to outlive her. That she did, but I dropped Marie's name at the bar in the club and showed them BOOK OF THE ESKIMOS. I am still a member.