436 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



minutes the Captain's party was stripped of everything they had 

 which the Eskimos valued, even down to many articles which they 

 had brought for their own use. Luckily no one of the Eskimos as 

 yet coveted rifles and no attempt was therefore made to steal these. 

 Nor were the dogs, harness, sleds, food or clothing interfered with, 

 for none of these articles had appreciable value unless it were the 

 iron shoeing of the sled. I have often wondered since why they did 

 not break up the sled to get the shoeing. It may have been that no 

 one thought of it, or it may have been that they thought it going 

 too far. 



During this rumpus there had been no threats of violence to- 

 wards the Captain or his party. His Eskimo companions, Palaiyak 

 and Pikalu, were more frightened than either himself or Jim Fiji. 

 The Captain thought of taking a rifle and trying to get back the 

 things by threatening to shoot, but Palaiyak and Pikalu were able 

 to dissuade him by saying that they would go around and talk to 

 the Eskimos and try to get them to pay back by reminding them of 

 their previous friendly dealings with me and also by hinting that I 

 was a powerful magician who would be able to punish them with 

 an epidemic or in some other miraculous way if I became angry 

 with them. 



Both Pikalu and Palaiyak were later on very proud of their own 

 courage and astuteness. According to their belief, their lives were 

 really in great danger for, as mentioned above, that is the tradi- 

 tional attitude of strange tribes toward one another. But appar- 

 ently when they began to go around the village the people had 

 treated them in a most friendly way, making it clear that the griev- 

 ance was against the Captain and possibly against me, for they in- 

 quired whether Pikalu and Palaiyak considered that I had directed 

 the Captain to treat them as he had treated them. Our Eskimos re- 

 minded them of how differently I had treated them, and said they 

 themselves knew that I had cautioned Gonzales to treat them well. 

 They explained, too, that Gonzales was acting in a way common 

 among white men around Herschel Island and that the Herschel 

 Island people had long ago learned not to mind it, for it was merely 

 the peculiar way of white men. 



During the night the people seemed to have consulted and the 

 next morning every one in the village arrived with something to pay 

 for what he had taken. Some told what it was they had taken and 

 paid handsomely, but others refused to name the article and merely 

 asserted that what they were bringing in payment was all they 

 could give. In this way the Captain eventually received nearly 



