NELSON] BLOOD REVENGE 293 



whose near relatives live in the place. On different occasions 1 had 

 men go with me where they dared not go without the protection afforded 

 by a white man's presence. In one place a man kept by me like a 

 shadow for two days and slept touching me at night. The man who 

 held the feud against him would come into the house where we stopped 

 and sit for hours watching the one with me like a beast of prey, and the 

 mere fact that my Eskimo companion was with a white man was all 

 that saved him. 



In another case a boy of 14 years shot and killed a man who had 

 murdered his father when the boy was an infant. The duty of blood 

 revenge belongs to the nearest male relative, so that if the son is an 

 infant, and too young to avenge his father at the time, it rests with liim 

 to seek revenge as soon as he attains puberty. If a man has no son, 

 then his brother, father, uncle, or whosoever is nearest of kin must 

 avenge him. 



In the case of the boy mentioned, the man who had killed his father 

 lived in the same village with him until he became grown. One morn- 

 ing, as the man was preparing to hitch up his dogs and start on a trip, 

 the boy's uncle handed him a loaded rifle and told him that it was time 

 to avenge his father's death; the boy at once went outside and, taking 

 deliberate aim, shot the man dead. Fortunately the dead man had no 

 relatives, or it would have devolved upon them to retaliate by killing 

 the boy. 



Owing to this custom, a man who has killed another watches inces- 

 santly, and in the end his eyes acquire a peculiar restless expression 

 which the Eskimo have learned to recognize at once. Several of them 

 told me that they could always recognize a man who had killed another 

 by the expression of his eyes, and from cases observed by myself I think 

 that this is undoubtedly true. 



The desultory feud existing between the Kotzebue sound Malemut 

 and the Tinne of the interior partakes of the character of blood revenge, 

 except that each side seeks to avenge the death of relatives or fellow 

 tribesmen upon any of the opposing tribe. 



Stealing from people of the same village or tribe is regarded as 

 wrong. The thief is made ashamed by being talked to in the kashim 

 when all the people are present, and in this way is frequently forced to 

 restore the articles he has taken. An old man at St Michael told me 

 that once a number of men took an incorrigible thief and while some 

 held him others beat him on the back of his hand until he roared with 

 pain, but that the fellow stole just the same afterward, and nothing 

 further was done except to talk to him in the kashim. To steal from a 

 stranger or from people of another tribe is not considered wrong so 

 long as it does not bring trouble on the community. 



The Eskimo living about the trading stations have adopted some 

 ideas in regard to this matter from the whites. As a result of this, 

 coupled with the memory of some wholesome chastisements that have 



