16 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARCTIC AMERICA. 



tirely to female children, -the reason being, they tell us, that they are 

 unable to hunt, and consequently of little account. It seems to have 

 b^en referable to the same cause among the Cumberland Eskimo. Their 

 intercourse with the whites seems to have modified some of the most 

 barbarous of their primitive habits. 



Twins are not common, and triplets very rare. The males outnumber 

 the females. Infanticide may, to some extent, be the cause ; but lung 

 diseases, which are alarmingly prevalent, seem more fatal to the women 

 than to the men. 



Children are often mated by the parents while they are still mere in- 

 fants. There is such an extreme laxity of morals that the young women 

 almost invarialy become wives only a short time before they are mothers. 



It is impossible to say at what age the women cease to bear children, 

 as they have no idea of their own age, and few are able to count above 

 ten. Puberty takes place at an early age, possibly at fourteen with the 

 female. They are not a prolific race, and it is seldom a woman has more 

 than two or three children, and often only one, of her own ; still many, 

 or almost all, have children ; but inquiry will generally divulge the fact 

 that some of the children have been bought. Almost every young woman 

 has or has had a child, but the identity of the father is in no wise neces- 

 sary in order to insure the respectability of the mother or child. Such 

 children are generally traded or given away to some elderly couple as 

 soon as they are old enough to leave the mother. The foster-parents 

 take quite as good care of such adopted children as if .they were their 

 own. 



So far as we could learn, they do not generally practice any rites or 

 ceremonies of marriage. The best hunter, or the owner of the largest 

 number of dogs and hunting-gear, will seldom have any difficulty in 

 procuring the woman of his choice for a wife, even though she has a 

 husband at the time. It is a common practice to trade wives for short 

 periods or for good. They appear to have marriage rites sometimes, but 

 we could induce no one to tell us, except one squaw, who agreed to, 

 but only on condition that we became one of the interested parties and 

 she the other. This was more than we had bargained for, and, although 

 generally willing to be a martyr for the cause of science, we allowed this 

 opportunity to pass without improving it. 



Monogamy is at the present time the most prevalent. Polygamy is 

 practiced only in the case of a man being dble to provide for two or more 

 wives. Three, and even four, are known of, but rare. Neither do two 



