If the distance between the winter and the summer settlement is very great or when any particular knowledge is required to find out the haunts of game, there is a kind of chief in the settlement, whose acknowledged authority is, however, very limited. He is called the pimain (i.e., he who knows everything best) or the issumautang. His authority is virtually limited to the right of deciding on the proper time to shift the huts from one place to the other, but the families are not obliged to follow him. At some places it seems to be considered proper to ask the pimain before moving to another settlement and leaving the rest of the tribe. He may ask some men to go deer hunting, others to go sealing, but there is not the slightest obligation to obey his orders.
Every family is allowed to settle wherever it likes, visiting a strange tribe being the only exception. In such a case the newcomer has to undergo a ceremony which consists chiefly in a duel between a native of the place and himself. If he is defeated he runs the risk of being killed, by those among whom he has come (see pp. [465], [609]).
There are numerous regulations governing hunting, determining to whom the game belongs, the obligations of the successful hunter towards the inhabitants of the village, &c.
When a seal is brought to the huts everybody is entitled to a share of the meat and blubber, which is distributed by the hunter himself or carried to the individual huts by his wife. This custom is only practiced when food is scarce. In time of plenty only the housemates receive a share of the animal.
A ground seal belongs to all the men who take part in the hunt, the skin especially being divided among them. A walrus is cut up at once into as many parts as there are hunters, the one who first struck it having the choice of the parts and receiving the head. A whale belongs to the whole settlement and its capture is celebrated by a feast ([p. 603]).
A bear or a young seal belongs to the man who first saw it, no matter who kills it.
Lost objects must be restored to the owner if he is known, game, however, excepted; for example, if a harpoon line breaks and the animal escapes, but is found later by another man, the game belongs to the latter. In Hudson Bay he is also allowed to keep the harpoon and line.
There is no way of enforcing these unwritten laws and no punishment for transgressors except the blood vengeance. It is not a rare occurrence that a man who is offended by another man takes revenge by killing the offender. It is then the right and the duty of the nearest relative of the victim to kill the murderer. In certain quarrels between the Netchillirmiut and the Aivillirmiut, in which the murderer himself could not be apprehended, the family of the murdered man has killed one of the murderer’s relations in his stead. Such a feud sometimes lasts for a long time and is even handed down to a succeeding generation. It is sometimes settled by mutual agreement. As a sign of reconciliation both parties touch each other’s breasts, saying, Ilaga (my friend) (Klutschak, p. 70).
If a man has committed a murder or made himself odious by other outrages he may be killed by any one simply as a matter of justice. The man who intends to take revenge on him must ask his countrymen singly if each agrees in the opinion that the offender is a bad man deserving death. If all answer in the affirmative he may kill the man thus condemned and no one is allowed to revenge the murder. (See Appendix, [Note 4].)
Their method of carrying on such a feud is quite foreign to our feelings. Strange as it may seem, a murderer will come to visit the relatives of his victim (though he knows that they are allowed to kill him in revenge) and will settle with them. He is kindly welcomed and sometimes lives quietly for weeks and months. Then he is suddenly challenged to a wrestling match (see [p. 609]), and if defeated is killed, or if victorious he may kill one of the opposite party, or when hunting he is suddenly attacked by his companions and slain.