1916] ALONE AT BORUP LODGE 275 



Although married at twelve, a girl is unable to bear 

 children until she has attained the age of eighteen. I 

 have known of but one exception to this statement. 

 This may have been due to the fact that the mother 

 revealed traces of an infusion of white blood. 



It was the gossip of the tribe eight years before that 

 Ah-now-ka was to wed the girl who had just arrived on 

 his sledge. He had persistently declared, however, that 

 he did not want her. To get some light on the matter, 

 and not caring "to admit impediments to the marriage 

 of true minds," I called the boy in and solemnized the 

 union with the following colloquy: 



**Do you want this girl, Ah-now-ka.^" 



"Yes, I would like to keep her if I may." 



"All right. You may have my photographic dark- 

 room." 



This wedding present was not only accepted grate- 

 fully by the couple, who were "at home" every hour of 

 the day, but by all in the village, who called at once 

 to pay their respects and to see what I had in there. 



As a sequel to the happy, or unhappy, event, we 

 learned in a few weeks that the young lady was already 

 married to a young man down the line and that Ah-now- 

 ka had stolen her! 



With the coming and going of the Eskimos, the 

 measuring and photographing of the visitors, the taking 

 of the fourth census of the Smith Sound tribe, the com- 

 piling of an Eskimo dictionary of 3,000 words, and the 

 preparations for our long spring trip, the winter passed 

 very rapidly. Now and then an incident of more than 

 ordinary interest occurred, such as the visit of a white 

 wolf or the swallowing of a galvanized-iron ring one inch 

 and a tenth in diameter by little Megishoo. She was 



