Social Organization 87 



two men, to last till one of them died or a violent quarrel caused their estrange- 

 ment. If at any time either should visit the other, he was sure of a dance of 

 welcome and hospitable entertainment. In the same way when the Puivlik 

 natives were welcoming the iBirst Kanghiryuak family at Lake Tahiryuak Higilak 

 adopted the visiting woman as her dancing-associate and Ikpakhuak adopted 

 both the man and his wife. A few hours afterwards when the second family 

 appeared a young Kanghiryuak man selected Milukkattak for the same honour. 

 It is very common for a native to have two dancing-associates in a single com- 

 munity, one a man and the other a woman. Avranna, for example, found a 

 married couple who were friends of this kind amongst the Kilusiktomiut, when 

 we visited those natives in March, 1916. They gave a dance in his honour on 

 the evening of his arrival. The dance-house was very small, there was no 

 drum, and the whole settlement was on the verge of starvation, yet the welcome 

 they gave him was none the less cordial on that account. They even made a 

 special drum for him next day so that nothing might be lacking for his enter- 

 tainment. It is by these two methods, then, by wife-exchange and by associa- 

 tion in dancing, that the Copper Eskimo establishes friendships wherever he 

 goes and travels from group to group without danger. 



Often within a community one man will show special courtesy to another 

 by sending him the hind flippers of every seal that he catches. This is a very 

 delicate mark of attention, for the flippers are the parts that are most esteem- 

 ed for food. The two men thus become upatitkattik, "flipper-associates," a 

 relationship that is independent of kinship ties, and involves no other obligation 

 than the return of the compliment in the same manner. It is never done with 

 caribou, nor with anything but the common rough seal, since the bearded seal, 

 Erignathus barbatus, is the property of all the hunters who are able to gather 

 round the seal-hole when it is captured. Even with the rough seal a small 

 portion is always sent over to each household, unless the settlement is too large 

 for the meat to go all round. 



Looser and more temporary ties are sometimes contracted. Two men 

 will arrange to spend a summer together in a certain district, and naturally, 

 during this period, a good deal of mutual assistance is required. A few rifles 

 have now been introduced, and the natives keenly appreciate their superiority 

 over bows and arrows. A man who possesses a rifle will sometimes associate 

 himself with one who has none. This enables the two men to take turns in 

 hunting, and while one with his bow and fishing gear wanders off after birds 

 and fish, the other will take the rifie and scour the country for caribou. Each 

 man, as far as possible, uses his own ammunition, but if one man's supply becomes 

 exhausted he is free to use his companion's. The owner of the rifle naturally 

 has more service from his weapon than his companion, who can make use of 

 it, as it were, only by default. Still, it constitutes a bond of union between them, 

 a not unimportant link in the welding together of the heterogeneous elements 

 of the community. 



Division of Labour. 



The Copper Eskimos, like most hunting tribes, discriminate considerably 

 between the work of the men and the work of the women. As a rule, the heavier 

 tasks devolve on the men. They do most of the hunting, build the snow huts, 

 and erect the heavy deerskin tents that are used in the spring and the fall. 

 Their spare time is employed in minor work subsidiary to this, for example in 

 making or mending their' tools and weapons. During migrations the man does 

 all the loading of the sled, his wife handing him the household goods through 

 the doorway or through a hole in the wall. She helps him, however, to lash 

 up the sled, while the children, if there are any, harness the dogs. On the trail 

 the woman pulls ahead of the dogs, but the m^n hauls just in front of the sled, 



