432 ESQUIMAU MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 



ment is made by the parents, and the parties are 

 fitted to each other as their ages best suit. When a 

 boy comes of age, he marries the first girl of suitable 

 years. There is no marriage ceremony further than 

 that the boy is required to carry off his bride by 

 main force ; for, even among these blubber-eating 

 people, the woman only saves her modesty by a sham 

 resistance, although she knows years beforehand that 

 her destiny is sealed and that she is to become the 

 wife of the man from whose embraces, when the nup- 

 tial day comes, she is obliged by the inexorable law 

 of public opinion to free herself if possible, by kick- 

 ing and screaming with might and main until she is 

 safely landed in the hut of her future lord, when she 

 gives up the combat very cheerfully and takes posses- 

 sion of her new abode. The betrothal often takes 

 place at a very early period of life and at very dis- 

 similar ages. A bright-looking boy named Arko, 

 which means " The spear thrower," who is not over 

 twelve years of age, is engaged to a girl certainly of 

 twenty, named Kartak, " The girl with the large 

 breasts." Why was this ? I inquired. " There is no 

 other woman for him." I thought he looked rather 

 dubious of his future matrimonial prospects when I 

 asked him how soon he proposed to carry off this big- 

 breasted bride. Two others, whom I judged to be 

 about ten years each, were to be married in this 

 romantic style as soon as the lover had caught his 

 first seal. This, I was told, is the test of manhood 

 and maturity. 



I talked to the oldest hunter of the tribe, an an- 

 cient, patriarchal-looking individual named Kesarsoak, 

 — " He of the white hairs," — about the future of the 

 tribe. The prospect to him was the same as to Kalu- 



