An Igloo with a View

Eskimos are always being held up as some sort of freakishly idealised anomaly of modern society. People go on about – did you know Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow, what amazing insight they have into nature and although Eskimos eat high fat diets they rarely get heart disease. Each time we hear about Eskimos there’s some tacit judgement about how we should be living our lives. I’ve never been convinced. I’ve always thought we were just making The Other exotic. I imagine Eskimo children saying - did you know Australians have hundreds of words for alcohol, isn’t that genius?. Until I heard this: Eskimo women spend the first month after they give birth holed up in bed while people bring food to them and speak to them in high pitched sing-song voices as if they’re infants. After that first month they return to their duties as mothers and wives, raising kids and helping their fisherman husbands, but for that one glorious, lush month they get to be babies again themselves. That’s truly inspired.

I’m going to become one of those people who quotes Eskimo wisdom. Especially when I want R to bring me tea in bed...