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Football is a favourite amusement with Eskimo of all ages. 

 The football is a small round ball made of sealskin and stuffed 

 with reindeer hair. In Labrador, as in Greenland, it is whipped 

 over the ice with a thong loop attached to a wooden handle. 

 It can be caught in the air and returned with terrific force with 

 this instrument. It is said that the Eskimo did not like to play 

 football with the Tunnit, because they were so strong that 

 it was dangerous. Rink gives us several stories from Labrador 

 and Greenland of the myth hero overcoming his opponents in 

 football. 



The girls and women play handball with a larger and softer 

 ball. A game which both sexes play is a sort of basket ball, in 

 which the ball is thrown by the players on one side to each other, 

 while the others endeavour to snatch the ball in the air. The 

 women also play a sort of football "solitaire," in which they see 

 how long they can keep the football in the air between their 

 toes and hands, without moving from the spot. 



The children play tag, and exercise in running and the 

 Eskimo "hop, skip, and jump." They engage in imitation of 

 the pursuits of their elders, driving each other as dogs, stalking 

 and shooting the one who is "it" as the deer or bear or seal, as the 

 case may be, and generally enjoying themselves as children do in 

 all parts of the world. In one thing the Eskimo child has the 

 advantage over white children. He is never punished. On the 

 other hand, I have never seen an Eskimo child disobey. The 

 feeling between children and parents appears to be one of mutual 

 respect and goodwill. The underlying psychology seems to be 

 sound as far as a primitive race is concerned. It probably 

 would not work as well with white children, who are accus- 

 tomed to coercion and restraint. 



MARRIAGE. 



There is usually a great disparity in ages of the man and the 

 girl of the first marriage, which may account for the low birth- 

 rate among the Eskimo. When an Eskimo girl arrives at the 

 age of twelve or fourteen, she begins to receive the attention of 

 the unmarried hunters. About this time she ceases doing her 



