Ethnological Sketch of the Angmagsalik Eskimo. 65 



now that she had married her daughter's husband. When the 

 ground was in a tolerable condition for sledging, Maratuk came at 

 no small trouble and risk to fetch his old invalided mother home. 

 The sledge was brought into the house in Kumarmiut, where she 

 was laid on it and was driven right to her home in Sermiligak. 

 Maratuk told me afterwards that his mother's legs were quite 

 swollen with frost, so that it was not long before she got tired of 

 life, and went and drowned herself in the sea. 



Marriage. — The Angmagsalik Eskimo often marry before they 

 are quite grown-up, that is to say as soon as they are able to support 

 a wife. Their chief motive in marrying is to have a wife to look 

 after their things, and to dress their game. We have known cases 

 of a mother having enjoined her son to marry, because 'she could 

 scarcely see to sew any longer'. This sometimes leads to very strange 

 marriages, as, for instance, when a young man is married to a 

 woman old enough to be his mother. These early marriages are a 

 cause of frequent divorces. As soon as the married couple get 

 tired of one another for one or other reason, they separate; so that 

 it is quite a common thing to have been married three or four 

 times before having children. We have known cases in M^hich 

 both husband and wûfe had been married, six, seven, or eight times. 

 It is only when children are born that the marriage is placed on a 

 more stable footing. As a rule, children are not born till several 

 years after the marriage, the reason of which is perhaps to be 

 sought in the fact that both men and women marry before the}»^ 

 are quite grown-up. Near relations, even first cousins, do not marry; 

 but it is by no means uncommon for children who have been 

 brought up together to marry. The following table will show how 

 the members of one family are scattered over all the inhabited 

 places of the Angmagsalik district. 



Skilful hunters often have two wives; when a wife cannot 

 manage to dress the skins of the animals her husband has captured, 

 a second wife is taken, occasionally with the approval and even 

 at the instigation of the first. A second wife is sometimes taken in 

 order that the husband may always count on having two rowers 

 for his boat. There are no instances on record of a man having 

 had more than two wives at a time. A man who is married to 

 two sisters at once, or who, after marrying a girl, goes and marries 

 her mother, will incur censure. There are, however, some who 

 do so, and instances of both these cases have come to our know- 

 ledge. 



XXXIX. 5 



