IN THE DRIFT-ICE OFF THE COAST OF GREENLAND. 15 



way from the mortuary chapel lay the parsonage, and to the left 

 of it the church, which looked like a house of one storey, and had 

 a simple wooden cross on the gable. 



The parish of a Greenland pastor is an extensive one, and 

 although he has a ' catechist ' to assist him, it often happens that 

 he is unable to perform his various clerical duties at the right time. 

 The 'catechist,' who is both school-teacher and clerk, is em- 

 powered to conduct funerals, but marriages and baptisms can only 

 be performed by the pastor himself. It is, therefore, not unusual 

 that, with ' married couples ' in outlying parts of the settlement, 

 the wedding ceremony is long deferred ; and it has even happened 

 that one or both of the parties have been dead before the pastor 

 came his rounds and could marry them. 



But things seem to go on very well, all the same. The Green- 

 lander is absolutely open and naive in his sexual relations, and 

 even now there is still much that is heathenish among the people. 

 Nobody is ashamed of having children outside the marriage-tie ; in 

 fact, I might almost say that just the contrary is the case. The 

 conditions of this country, with its scattered population and slow 

 growth, are such that a child in itself is looked upon as capital, 

 particularly if it happen to be a boy. A widow with two sons is 

 regarded as wealthy, while a girl with children is far surer of being 

 married than one who has not any. 



Among the married people, too, their manner of conducting 

 themselves is very primitive. From heathen times these folk have 

 been in the habit of striving for their food in union, of dividing 

 their catches without particularly caring as to their allotment, and 

 this indifference extends to the right of ownership in marriage. 



The game of 'exchanging wives,' in which the lights were 

 extinguished, and each man took his wife in the dark and in serious 

 earnest, is a reminiscence of these rude times ; and the simple 

 brutality which the true Greenlander showed in regard to marriage, 

 also characterized him in other relations. It is an old belief that 

 the house in which a death has taken place must be pulled down, 

 or some misfortune will ensue. Whether this belief originated 

 when small-pox was prevalent in the country, or is descended from 

 ancient times, I do not know ; but it is a fact that, when parents 



