The Two Wives of a Hunter.
Polygamy is allowed, but generally speaking most have only one.
An Eskimo Family outside their House.
The women in full winter dress of deerskins.
The education of the Eskimo boy all turns on hunting. All sorts of curious observances wait on his first adventures in that line. When he secures his [[145]]first weasel, for instance, he gives it to the dogs, simply to be torn in pieces; and that night has to sit up by the igloo door, one hand on hip and in the other a lamp stick. Possibly the root idea is to defend himself from the spirit of the little beast. When he gets his first bird, Young Hopeful sits in the middle of the sleeping bench, his mother on one side and his grandmother on the other. The boy is told to take off his jacket, and the two women wrench the bird apart between them in a sort of tug of war, to the accompaniment of cries of congratulation. The mangled spoil is then eaten to bring good luck to the boy.
The following tale of the voluntary suicide of the old people who feel that they have outgrown their usefulness to the community, and have rather become a burden to it, shows how strongly the communal feeling dominates the Eskimo, how essential to existence each one of them finds the social life of the tribe and village to be.
For many weeks summer has reigned in the arctics. Snow has disappeared. The ice has broken up and drifted away to the south; only a few bergs remain, like the remnants of a majestic fleet, wending their wandering way after the rest. For weeks on end it has been one long, glorious day, when the sun has scarcely set an hour. The weather is hot and the sky is blue. Arctic flowers and arctic heather gem the short turf; streams and cascades fill the valleys with the unwonted music of running water. The dogs lie about, basking in the sunshine, or betake themselves [[146]]to the seashore to hunt for fish and such toothsome morsels as may be left in the rock pools by the falling tide. The village of sealskin tents is pitched in a sheltered spot near some handy stream, overlooking the inlet. Contentment, ease and plenty are the order of the day. The kyakers skim the waters of the bay, hunting as usual, and in the evening the boys have a turn in the same light craft, to practice with harpoon or birdspear. They vie with each other in skill and speed, and take lessons from their elders.
The old men and women potter about, visiting each other. The crones occupy themselves teaching the younger women how things were best done in their day, and the granfers fight their own battles over again and exploit their own adventures, as they listen to the talk of the younger men—the tales of more recent feats accomplished, perils survived, and clever captures achieved. As the bright day wanes to that short twilight which is the arctic summer night, the men fetch their blankets from the tents, roll themselves up in them under the shelter of some boulder, and sleep in the open air.
The month of the eider ducks has come and gone. The women have manned their boats and made their annual raid on the island where the birds breed, returning with hundreds of eggs, plenty of ducks, and a goodly store of eiderdown from the nests. The days have been one long, joyous picnic, all the hardships, privations and dangers of the winter forgotten. The babies, brown and mother-naked, have sprawled about [[147]]in the sun and waxed fat and jolly, with the freedom and the play and the plenty of summer.
But now the time has come to get ready for a very big annual enterprise indeed—the great deer hunt, upon which the fortunes of the tribe will turn for months. If the Eskimo lay up little store of food, they accumulate all the hides they can for winter clothing. For several weeks before the start is made, stores of meat are prepared, slices of seal cut and spread on the rocks, or hung on lines in the sun to dry. Piles of moss and cotton plant are collected and dried for the winter’s supply of lamp wick. Sealskins are cleaned and stretched and dried for clothing, boot soles, boat coverings, and water buckets; intestines are inflated and dried for sail cloth and material for making windows. The dogs are outfitted with sealskin panniers for transport purposes. The trek ahead of the tribe is a long and laborious one. They will journey for many days by water up the rivers, and climb long ranges of hills and cross many valleys, before they reach the interior and the pastures of the deer. Each man, woman and child must shoulder his own pack, for none can carry a double load. And so, it often chances, comes the tragedy of old and enfeebled age.