Social Organization 85 



mother, but not infrequently she accompanied her brother and his wife on short 

 excursions that lasted only a few days. The implements and household uten- 

 sils of the two families, even their stores of fish and meat, were kept strictly 

 apart, just as if no bond of kinship had united them; each woman, for example, 

 had her own blubber pokes and her own ra«ks of drying fish. In many little 

 ways, however, family ties assert themselves. Milukkattak might often be 

 seen dressing skins for Higilak, or helping her to pack before a migration; the 

 same was true of Arnauyuk, an orphan girl whom Ikpakhuak had adopted 

 shortly before her marriage. When either parent dies, the other finds a home 

 with one of the married children, or lives with each in turn, while the orphaned 

 child is always cared for by an elder brother or an uncle. 



Fig. 30. Two summer tents joined together 



Each family then has normally its own hut or tent, although on rare occa- 

 sions, and under special circumstances, two families may share the same dwell- 

 ing; in the latter case each has its separate half of the hut, though no fixed 

 dividing line is set between them. Every inmate has certain definite duties 

 to perform, and a definite place on the sleeping platform. The woman sleeps 

 in the corner beside her lamp, and the little children lie between her and her 

 husband. Outside of him sleep the older children, then any guest whom they 

 may happen to entertain. One old man, however, wou!ld always change places 

 with his wife at night after they got into bed, so that she would not disturb him 

 when she rose in the morning to light the lamp and attend to her household 

 duties. His position in the corner, too, had another advantage — it was less 

 convenient for him than for his wife to turn out in the night when the dogs 

 created a disturbance. 



The custom of interchanging wives for a longer or a shorter period leads to 

 a curious extension of the family^ The children of the two families are consider- 

 ed as brothers and sisters, katangotit, and marriage between them is forbidden. 

 Apparently this is not due to any uncertainty as to their real parentage (a cir- 

 cumstance that must sometimes occur nevertheless), for the exchange may have 

 been effected only once, and each family have two or three children. The head 



iCf. the discussion by Gilbertson in the Journal of Religious Psychology, Vol. VII. 



