THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 439 



people as there are fingers on one man's two hands. Although these 

 people have no words for numbers above six, it is not difficult to 

 make them understand numbers up to thirty or fifty by saying, 

 "as manj?^ as the fingers and toes of two men and the fingers on the 

 hands of one." 



During this visit of the two men to Illun's camp I realized that 

 they had a grievance against our Eskimos as well as against Cap- 

 tain Gonzales. They spoke the Eskimo language with an accent 

 which naturally differed from any familiar to our Eskimos who 

 thought it very funny and mimicked it continually. Had they con- 

 fined themselves to the mimicking our visitors might not have caught 

 on, but our people thought it so funny that they could not help 

 laughing while they were doing it, which made it clear to the vis- 

 itors that they were objects of ridicule. Our Eskimos were illogical 

 enough to be at the same time frightened of the local Eskimos and 

 willing to make fun of them. At a word from me suggesting that 

 if they were afraid of the Minto Inlet people they had better not 

 make fun of them, they desisted and did not do it again. I now 

 inferred that Nutaittok and Taptuna had had this grievance on 

 their homeward journey to add to the Captain's treatment, and 

 when taxed with it Palaiyak and Pikalu owned up. They had 

 been in the habit of mimicking the local speech on the way down, 

 but it had never before occurred to them that doing so would 

 give offense. 



During the week we spent at Ramsay Island waiting for the 

 passing of the new moon and the benefit of a full moon across Banks 

 Island, I picked up a great deal of Eskimo lore. Most of it was of 

 the ordinary kind, but one story was interesting in showing how 

 white men's superstitions can be grafted on to their own. I had 

 previously been familiar with the strange forms that much of the 

 missionary teaching of the Christian religion takes in their minds, 

 but I now had an example of the adoption of a belief which most 

 of our people have long ago shed. 



I got the story from Kutok but it was confirmed by all the rest 

 of our Eskimos except Palaiyak, who believed it now but had 

 never heard it before. 



It was when Leffingwell was living at Flaxman Island and had 

 for cook a white man named Joe. Living on the island at the same 

 time was the old couple, Oyarayak and his wife Suksranna, with 

 their daughter Nannegrak. According to Kutok, Joe wanted to 

 marry this girl but the arrangement was opposed by Leffingwell, 

 and this made Joe angry. Sometime later Nannegrak was taken 



