MURDOCH. ] CHILDREN—RIGHTS AND WRONGS. : A419 
The only extraordinary thing about the Chukeh children is their 
large number, mentioned by the same author.’ This looks as if the 
infusion of new blood had increased the fertility of the race. All 
authors who have described Eskimo of unmixed descent agree in 
regard to the generally small number of their offspring. Other accounts 
of Eskimo children are to be found in the writings of Bessels,’? Crantz,’ 
Schwatka,* Gilder,> J. Simpson,® and Hooper.’ 
The custom of adoption is as universal at Point Barrow as it appears 
to be among the Eskimo generally, and the adopted children are 
treated by the parents precisely as if they were their own flesh and 
blood. Orphans are readily provided for, as there are always plenty 
of families ready and willing to take them, and women who have sey- 
eral children frequently give away one or more of them. Families that 
have nothing but boys often adopt a girl, and, of course, vice versa, 
and we know of one case where a woman who had lost a young infant 
had another given her by one of her friends. 
This very general custom of giving away children, as well as the 
habit already mentioned of temporarily exchanging wives, rendered it 
quite difficult to ascertain the parentage of any person, especially as it 
seems to be the custom with them to speak of first cousins as ‘milu 
atatizik” (“‘one breast,” that is, brothers and sisters). While a boy is 
desired in the family, since he will be the support of his father when 
the latter grows too old to hunt, a girl is almost as highly prized, for 
not only will she help her mother with the cares of housekeeping when 
she grows up, but she is likely to obtain a good husband who may be 
induced to become a member of his father-in-law’s family.® 
RIGHTS AND WRONGS. 
I have already spoken of the feelings of these people in regard to 
offenses against property and crimes of violence. As to the relations 
between the sexes there seems to be the most complete absence of what 
we consider moral feelings. Promiscuous sexual intercourse between 
married or unmarried people, or even among children, appears to be 
looked upon simply as a matter for amusement. As far as we could 
learn unchastity in a girl was considered nothing against her, and in 
fact one girl who was a most abandoned and shameless prostitute among 
the sailors, and who, we were told, had had improper relations with 
some of her own race, had no difficulty in obtaining an excellent husband. 
Remarks of the most indecent character are freely bandied back and 
forth between the sexes in public, and are received with shouts of 
laughter by the bystanders. Nevertheless, some of the women, espe 
1 Vega, vol. 1, p. 449. 4Science, vol. 4, No. 98, p. 544. 
?Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 874. ®Schwatka’s Search, p. 287. 
%History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 162. SOp. cit., p. 250. 
7 Tents, etc., pp. 24, 201. 
§ Accounts of this custom of adoption are to be found in Crantz, vol. 1, p. 165; Parry, Second Voy- 
age, p. 531; Kumlien, Contributions, p. 17; Gilder, Schwatka’s Search, p. 247, and the passage con- 
cerning children quoted above, from Dr. Simpson. 
