5«8 SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



hood may put its lips to theirs. The chill is taken from water for them in 

 the same manner, and some fathers are very fond of taking their children on 

 their knees and thus feeding them. The women are more desirous of hav- 

 ing sons than daughters, as on the former must principally depend their 

 support in old age. 



Twelve of the men had each two wives, and some of the younger ones had 

 also two betrotlied ; two instances occurred of the father and son being 

 married to sisters. The custom of betrothing children in their infancy is 

 commonly practised here, in which respect these people differ from the 

 natives of Greenland, where it is comparatively rare*. A daughter of 

 Arnaneelia, between two and three years old, had long been thus contracted 

 to Okotook's son, a hero of six or seven, and the latter used to run about the 

 hut calling his intended by the familiar appellation of Noollc-a (wife), to the 

 great amusement of the parents. When a man has two wives there is gene- 

 rally a difference of five or six years in their ages. The senior takes her 

 station next the principal lire, which comes entirely under her manage- 

 ment; and she is certainly considered in some respects superior to the 

 other, though they usually live together in the utmost harmony. The men 

 sometimes repudiate their wives without ceremony, in case of real or 

 supposed bad behaviour as in Greenland f, but this does not often 

 occur. There was a considerable disparity of age between many of the 

 men and their wives, tlie husband being sometimes the oldest by twenty 

 years or more, and this also when he had never married any former 

 wife. We knew no instance in which the number of a man's wives ex- 

 ceeded two, and indeed we had every reason to believe that the practice 

 is never admitted among them. We met with a singular instance of two 

 men having exchanged wives, in consequence merely of one of the latter 

 being pregnant at the time when her husband was about to undertake a long 

 journey. 



The authority of the husband seems to be sufficiently absolute, depending 

 nevertheless in great measure on the dispositions of the respective parties. 

 Iligliuk was one of those women who seem formed to manage tlieir husbands; 

 and we one day saw her take Okotook to task in a very masterly style, for 

 having bartered away a good jacket for an old useless pistol, without powder 

 or shot. He attempted at first to bluster in his turn, and with most Avomen 



* CraiiU, I. 159. f Bid. 160. 



