THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 467 



But another idea of consanguinity entirely foreign to us is the 

 one that two persons of the same name may not get married. 

 With us there are but few first names that are borne by either a 

 man or a woman. But with the Eskimos there is no sex differ- 

 ence in names. Mamayauk is perhaps the commonest of all Mac- 

 kenzie River Eskimo names and is known to me to be borne by 

 seven women and three men. As most persons have several names 

 not in use and are popularly known only by one, it is probable that 

 there are a great many more Mamayauks than these ten. How- 

 ever that be, no two Mamayauks may marry each other. Guni- 

 nana's brother, who has four or five names, was married to a Point 

 Hope woman. A week or two after the marriage some one dis- 

 covered that among their unused names they had one in common. 

 The community was greatly scandalized, and though the couple 

 were very fond of each other and apparently themselves inclined 

 to disregard the prohibition, they were compelled to separate and 

 each, for the time being at least, lost much of the good opinion 

 of the community. 



Eskimos are even less clear in their religious and social think- 

 ing than we are, and it is difficult to find for their practices rea- 

 sons upon which all agree. But it was the belief of my infor- 

 mants, who had not philosophized about it before, that the reason 

 two persons of the same name might not marry was that there 

 had originally been but one stock of names. The name is with 

 the Eskimos not merely a name but something like a soul, corre- 

 sponding in a way to the European idea of a guardian angel.* 



On another day I devoted the whole time to inquiries regarding 

 physical characteristics which were considered peculiar to certain 

 individuals as distinguished from most others. None of my in- 

 formants had known an Eskimo with a dimple in the chin except 

 Kupak, widow of Kangaktak, who was the first insane man I saw 

 among the Eskimos and who died after about three years of in- 

 sanity. Kupak was the daughter of a Cape Bathurst man, Kaki- 

 anna, who was said also to have had a chin dimple. Conspicuous 

 Adam's-apples were unknown to my informants except on white 

 men and negroes. They had never heard of an Eskimo with one 

 nor does the language contain any name for it. Hair that curls 

 is exceedingly rare. Kupak, of the chin dimple, had hair that 

 curled slightly and my informants had known two or three others. 



At the end of my expedition of 1909-1912 a good deal of interest 



* For a discussion of the Eskimo view of the name and the soul, see "My 

 Life With the Eskimo," pp. 397-402. 



