Among these people, mutual kindliness is a general obligation. A widow or orphan child is never left alone, but taken into the house and family circle of the nearest relative. The widow gives her services [[141]]in return for food and lodging and clothing, and the child is cared for exactly as the man’s own offspring.
Children have always the right of entry to any house and to partake there of whatever food may be going. Women are seldom refused a like privilege. In times of famine children are fed first, the women next and the men last. The writer has known a hunter to go out four days in succession and meet with no success. He had shared a portion of seal with another man who had caught one and cut it up as usual, but this had been given to his wife and family, whilst he himself, taking no more than a drink of warm water, went off with unimpaired cheerfulness to try his luck again.
Strangers and travellers, too, are always entertained and provided for so far as the means of the moment may permit. A native arriving from another tribe and having no relations in the village just puts up at any igloo he may chose—as a rule he will select the family best able to entertain him—and there his dogs are fed, his equipment is repaired or the necessary material offered, and food and a sleeping place provided for himself. Should he be on the trail alone, a temporary wife is furnished him from the widows or spinsters of the community, and it becomes her business to see that his clothes are dried and mended, and that when he departs again he has sufficient food to carry him over the next stage of his journey.
The Eskimo are aware that in some respects European customs differ from their own, and when [[142]]entertaining a white man his peculiarities are rigidly respected. The Eskimo standard of morals is not that of the European. It may be that in this matter of the temporary wife, as in the annual exchange of wives during the Sedna festivities, nature is making her own instinctive provision for the continuation of a race; otherwise so heavily handicapped are they by arctic conditions of life generally that without it wedlock would scarcely suffice for the purpose. The Eskimo despite customs which look like promiscuity according to the standards of civilisation, are not afflicted with the diseases associated with European vice—until they come in contact with unscrupulous whites. Either the germs of these scourges have not made their appearance in the Eskimo communities, or the people are particularly resistive to them. That this latter supposition is not borne out is evidenced by the havoc that has been wrought among the tribes in the past. The Eskimo, when left to themselves, are a moral people according to their own ideas, and the rude health they keep despite these strange customs, seems to vindicate them from an unthinking criticism.
If he can, the wayfarer makes suitable offerings in return, but they are not necessarily expected. He drops in on the family overnight, just perhaps when the hunter has returned with a good fat seal, and the jolly distribution of it all round is going on. There is a broad smile on the face of the housewife as she picks out the best bits for her friends and leaves the scraggy remnants for those of whom she cannot profess [[143]]to be so fond. The children rush hither and thither, willing servitors of those who cannot come themselves.
The blood is carefully scooped into an ice bowl for future stew or for the glazing of sled runners. At the hospitable shout, “Kileritse! Kileritse!”—“Come ye! Come ye!”—everyone, friend and stranger alike, crowds into the house and squats on the bench or the floor, or in the porch, and is duly served out with his share. Nothing is heard for awhile but the crunch of strong ivory teeth; the red blood stains hands and faces; black eyes glisten with enjoyment. Then, after a time, the hum and clatter of talk rises to the smoky roof. Everything is devoured, even the entrails (squeezed through the fingers to flatten and empty them). Reindeer moss, taken from the stomach of a deer may be served up as well by way of that greatest possible luxury—a salad!
Finally, everyone goes to bed. The doorway is blocked up, blankets are unrolled, and men and women and children, stripped to the skin, wrap themselves up in these and lie down with their heads towards the lamps and their feet towards the back of the snow house, and sleep the sleep of health and good humour and repletion until the break of another arctic winter “day.”
The children of an Eskimo community have quite a good time. Whenever infanticide has been practised among these people, it was never through cruelty or wanton waste of infant life, but simply because of a [[144]]dearth of provisions. As a matter of fact, the Eskimo prides himself on having as large a family as possible. He is entitled to have as many wives as he can support. It is not uncommon for a well-found man to have three wives—possibly sisters—all living amicably together. The children are named after some place or object, and many names descend from father to son. Thus we have “Moneapik,” the little egg; “Oonapik,” the little hunting spear; “Pitsoolak,” the sea pigeon; “Shokak,” roof of the mouth; and other names too crude for translation.
The pastimes of the children are just like those of children all the world over. On fine days they romp with the puppies, as described elsewhere, or they borrow a sealskin from their mothers and, finding a snow incline, drag it to the top and toboggan down on it in fine style and with resounding glee. They build snow houses; play with little improvised sledges; kick a seal bladder about by way of a ball; discover cat’s cradles for themselves with any odd bits of thong; and get up to all the usual mischief with bows and arrows. The girls make dolls. The boys have an ivory top corresponding to cup and ball, and another game called “spearing the seal,” which is played by two, with a piece of skin for the ice, and a bit of bone that moves about underneath it for the seal. There is a blow hole, of course, and a miniature spear.
