12 Olof Krarer. 



I will now explain a strange custom among our 

 people. When a young man gets to be about 25 

 years old he is full grown and is considered to be of 

 age. He then begins to think of beginning life for 

 himself. It is a risky thing in my country to get a 

 wife. A young man has to steal his girl out of her 

 parents' snow-house and get her away into another. 

 If he is caught trying to do this the girl's parents 

 turn right on him and kill him. If he has not pluck- 

 enough to steal a girl for himself, he has to live alone, 

 and when he goes to sleep he crawls head first into 

 a fur sack. When he wants to get up he must crawl 

 out backwards. I suppose he is what you would call 

 an-old bachelor. 



A young man, who sees a girl he thinks he would 

 like to have for a wife, makes a great many excuses 

 to come to her father's snow-house. Sometimes he 

 wants to borrow a flint, or blubber, or something 

 else. If he comes without an}^ excuse, the girl's pa- 

 rents tell him, " I know very well what you do want; 

 you want my girl, but you never shall get her." 

 Then he gets kind of scared and runs off. But he 

 sneaks round again pretty often. He thinks may be 

 her parents will go out for a dog-sleigh ride, or may 

 be they would lay them down to sleep some time. 

 If he does get her out of the snow-house without 

 being caught, the. girl's parents send right back for 

 him and think nobody is any smarter than he is, and 

 do all they can for him. 



The reason a girl's parents want the young man 



