412 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
account of ill treatment. One of these cases resulted in a permanent 
separation, each of the couple finally marrying again, though the hus- 
band for a long time tried his best to get his wife to come back to him. 
In another case, where the wife after receiving a beating ran away to 
Nuwik, and, as we were told, married another man, her first husband 
followed her in a day or two and either by violence or persuasion made 
her come back with him. They afterwards appeared to live together 
on perfectly good terms. 
On the other hand, we know of several cases where men discarded 
wives who were unsatisfactory or made themselves disagreeable. For 
instance, the younger Tunazu, when we first made his acquaintance, was 
married to a widow very much his senior, who seemed to have a disa- 
greeable and querulous temper, so that we were not surprised to hear 
in the spring of 1882 that they were separated and Tunazu married to 
a young girl. His second matrimonial venture was no more successful 
than his first, for his young wife proved to be a great talker. As he 
told us: “She talked all the time, so that he could not eat and could 
not sleep.” So he discarded her, and when we left the station he had 
been for some time married to another old widow. 
In the case above mentioned, where the man with two wives discard- 
ed the younger of them, the reason he assigned was that she was lazy, 
would not make her own clothes, and was disobedient to the older wife, 
to whom he was much attached. As he said, Kakaguna (the older wife) 
told her, “‘Give me a drink of water,” and she said, “No!” so Kaka- 
guna said, “Go!” and she went. He did not show any particular con- 
cern about it. 
Dr. Simpson says, “A great many changes take place before a per- 
manent choice is made;” and again, ‘‘A union once apparently settled 
between parties grown up is rarely dissolved.” And this agrees with our 
experience. The same appears to have been the case in Greenland. 
Crantz? says, “Such quarrels and separations only happen between 
people in their younger years, who have married without due fore- 
thought. The older they grow, the more they love one another.” 
Easy and unceremonious divorce appears to be the usual custom 
among Eskimo generally, and the divorced parties are always free to 
marry again.’ The only writer who mentions any ceremony of divorce 
is Bessels, who witnessed such among the so-called “ Arctic Highland- 
ers” of Smith Sound (Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 877). Dr. Simp- 
1Qp. cit., p. 253. 
2Vol. 1, p. 160. 
3°They often repudiate and put away their wives, if either they do not suit their humors, or else if 
they are barren, * * * and marry others.” Egede, Greenland, p. 143. Compare also Crantz, vol. 1, 
p.160; Parry, Second Voyage, p.528 (Fury and Hecla Straits); Kumlien, Contributions, p. 17 (Cumber- 
land Gulf); and Hooper, Tents, ete., p. 100—‘trepudiation is perfectly recognized, and in instances of 
misconduct and sometimes of dislike, put in. force without seruple or censure. * * * The rejected 
wife * * * does not generally wait long for another husband;'’ (Plover Bay.) Compare also Holm, 
Geografisk Tidskrift, vol. 8, pp. 91-92, where he gives an account of marriage and divorce in east Green- 
land, remarkably like what we observed at Point Barrow. 
