AN ARCTIC OASIS 59 



heat from the moss tries out the oil, making a 

 surprisingly hot flame. Until I gave them matches, 

 they had only the primitive means of ignition by flint 

 and steel, which they obtained from a vein of pyrites. 

 When I first went up there, all their lamps and rect- 

 angular pots were made of soapstone, two or three 

 veins of which are found in that country. Their 

 ability to utilize the soapstone and pyrites is an illus- 

 tration of their intelligence and ingenuity. 



As a rule little clothing is worn in the tupiks in 

 warm weather, as the normal summer temperature is 

 around fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and in the strong 

 sunlight may go as high as eighty-five or even ninety- 

 five. 



The trial marriage is an ineradicable custom among 

 the Eskimos. If a young man and woman are not 

 suited with each other, they try again, and sometimes 

 several times; but when they find mates to whom they 

 are adapted, the arrangement is generally permanent. 

 If two men want to marry the same woman, they settle 

 the question by a trial of strength, and the better man 

 has his way. These struggles are not fights, as the 

 disputants are amiable; they are simply tests of wres- 

 tling, or sometimes of pounding each other on the arm 

 to see which man can stand the pounding the longer. 



Their fundamental acceptance of the proposition 

 that might is right in such matters sometimes extends 

 to a man saying to the husband of a woman: "I am 

 the better man. " In such case the husband has either 

 to prove his superiority in strength, or yield the woman 

 to the other. If a man grows tired of his wife, he 

 simply tells her there is not room for her in his igloo. 



