HOME LIFE 



How easily one might misjudge the Eskimos 

 from little scenes like that ! He did not seem to care ? 

 Ay, but he cared. He proved to be a model husband, 

 affectionate, kind, and faithful, and a smart hunter 

 withal, well able to keep his little household in 

 proper Eskimo plenty. They had a little wooden 

 cabin of their own, and 8 lived as happy as a pair of 

 humming birds. But in public he must be the 

 "boss." The eyes of the village were upon him 

 that morning, and he had to maintain his dignity. 



I thought to myself as I watched that couple 

 tramping up the hill to their hut that the very fact 

 that they had a home of their own meant a great 

 step forward from the days of heathenism. 



To have a house of his own is the ambition that 

 fires every young Eskimo on matrimony bent, and I 

 | could not help contrasting the life in our little village 

 of Okak with the life among the wanderers of the 

 north, who think nothing of crowding two or even 

 three families into a tiny skin tent, and whose sole 

 ambitions are to see good hunting and to have a 

 shelter from the weather. 



I have known it happen in Okak that a young 



fellow acting as servant or assistant to one of the 



richer hunters has been absorbed into his master's 



family by marrying one of the daughters, and the 



I young couple have been accommodated with a corner 



| or a room ; but when a young man's fancy has soared 



as high as marriage it nearly always continues to soar 



until he has a home of his own. 



It may be only a mean little shack, built of rough 

 i tree stems and floored with packing cases ; but visit 

 i that home, and you see at once by the proud smile 

 on the young folks' faces that an Eskimo's house is 



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