566 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



Wales Straits. From other sources I learned that many of them had 

 later visited the Bear and that everything in regard to them was 

 going amicably. 



An expected piece of news was that a murder charge had been 

 laid against me by the Eskimos of Prince Albert Sound. Kullak's 

 wife, Neriyok, who according to her husband was expected to have 

 a child before the middle of August, 1915, had had the child in 

 January, 1916. A few weeks after that she had died, probably, 

 as I interpret it, from the bursting of an internal tumor. But 

 the Eskimos on the basis of their belief that having her live or die 

 was optional with me, looked upon me as having murdered her. 

 I had a letter from Palaiyak written in Eskimo assuring me that 

 he had tried to explain to the people that I was not guilty and did 

 not have the power of curing the woman even though I would. 

 I took this letter with a grain of salt for, while Palaiyak was 

 friendly enough to me, I know that his beliefs in magic and in 

 the magical powers of white men, including myself, are such that 

 he probably at least half agreed with the local people. 



For Wilkins to go down to Prince Albert Sound to photograph 

 a community of which Kullak was a member and where there 

 were many relatives of the dead Neriyok was a brave thing to do. 

 He never lacked courage in my observation nor did he later in the 

 war, as his decorations show, but I do not think he realized how 

 close to the wind he was sailing on this occasion. Among primi- 

 tive Eskimos blood revenge is not optional and does not depend 

 on anger but is a duty as sacred as paying a dead man's debts 

 is said to be among the Chinese. 



This particular group of Eskimos, however, apparently had the 

 idea, of which I had never heard before, that property payment 

 might take the place of ordinary repayment of life for life. Kul- 

 lak, through Palaiyak and Mrs. Seymour, as they have both told 

 me since, advanced the proposal that he would kill neither Wil- 

 kins nor any member of our party, not even me, if he were pre- 

 sented with a rifle with a considerable amount of ammunition. I 

 had constantly refused to give a rifle to the Eskimos for reasons 

 in their interest. The sooner they get rifles the sooner they will 

 begin to kill ten caribou where they now kill one, with surfeit of 

 food and skins where they now have merely enough, thus leading 

 to the extermination of these animals or to driving them out of 

 the district. The resulting hardship to the Eskimos ten or fifteen 

 years from now would be far greater than if they should continue 



