Marriage, Childbirth, etc. 165 



of her husband and of one or two married women who act as mid-wives, some- 

 times too of a shaman whose aid is solicited to give her an easy delivery. The 

 mother does little or no work for a day or two, and the husband also remains 

 idle as a rule. I could discover no taboos in reference to food or clothing 

 beyond the necessity of obtaining another bed-skin for the babe to sleep on; 

 the usual custom, apparently, is to exchange a bed-skin with a neighbour. The 

 woman is confined to the house for one or more days according to her health. 

 If the parents decide to preserve the child a relative is called in to massage it 

 within a few hours of its birth. On the last day of the year 1915, about four 

 o'clock in the morning, Ikpakhuak and Higilak were roused by a woman who 

 came to announce that the old man's niece Kaiyoranna. had just given birth 

 to a child. Both dressed immediately and went over to see it. Ikpakhuak 

 "worked" it, savaktok, pulUng out its legs to make them grow big and strong, 

 exactly as Higilak and Avranna had "worked" their pups the preceding summer. 

 They came back to their own hut about an hour later bringing Kaiyoranna's 

 bed-skin, in exchange for which they sent over their own. The following day 

 Ikpakhuak refused to chop up a frozen deer carcass, on the ground that, as he 

 had "worked" the baby only the day before, some harm might come to it if he 

 used his tomahawk. Higilak many years before had "worked" her nephew KesuUik 

 in the same manner. Ever afterwards the child is considered as the foster- 

 child of all who assisted at its birth, whether they acted as mid-wives proper or 

 merely administered the ceremonial massage. 



Parents frequently massage their own children while nursing them, as our 

 own parents do. They twist up their fingers and draw out their arms and 

 legs so that they will grow strong and beautiful, stroke their bodies, and pinch 

 their noses to make them straight. The ceremonial massage, however, is 

 always performed by some other person. It is never a very gentle process, 

 but far less severe than the ceremonial massage that young pups have to undergo.' 



Often the parents are unwilling to rear their children, for a baby involves 

 much hardship to the mother, especially in the summer when all the household 

 goods are packed on the back. The child is only an additional burden to the 

 mother up to the age when it can make a long day's journey on its own feet; 

 she has to carry it on her back over and above her full share of the household 

 effects. Moreover, since the diet of the natives is confined to meat and fish, 

 she must suckle the infant up to three or four years, and sometimes even to five. 

 Nik, the wife of Aksiatak, was still occasionally suckling her son Nakitok, 

 though the boy was certainly five years old and she had a baby of two or three 

 months. It is little wonder therefore if the younger women in particular refuse 

 to rear some of their children. Sometimes another family will adopt the babe, 

 though more usually it is an older child that is adopted, since the new-born 

 infant requires its mother's milk. Early in 1914 Higilak arranged to adopt 

 the little daughter of a man named Wikkiak, whose wife was then on the eve 

 of giving birth to another child; the parents received a pot and a knife as the 



iln the summer of 1915 one of Avranna's dogs had a litter. One pup he kept for himself, another he 

 gave to Tutsik. Each man took his pup into a tent and massaged it. Avranna, placing his poor little 

 victim between his knees, pulled out its legs one after the other to make them grow big, and twisted 

 its tail so that the dog would always hold it curved over its back, which the Eskimos regard as a mark 

 of beauty and of health. Next he held the pup up to his face and expanded its nostrils by blowing into 

 them; it would thus become keen-scented and able to follow a trail and to discover the seal-holes under 

 the snow. In order that so important a quality should not be left to chance he expanded the nostrils 

 again with the eye of a needle. Then he stretched its body to make it grow big, and fastened round 

 it a miniature harness that had been made for the occasion by his wife. Holding the trace in his teeth 

 and the pup in his hands he pulled the line taut several times, thereby ensuring that the dog would be a 

 good worker when hitched to the sled. To make it strong for packing loads in summer he placed his 

 heavy tool-bag on its back and forced it to execute a kind of march. It should be swift in pursuit, so 

 he rubbed an arrow along its belly between its legs; and fierce in attack, so he bit its head and body 

 and feet till the poor animal writhed and howled with pain, and its mother outside nearly ripped the 

 tent to pieces in a frantic effort to rescue her offspring. Last of all it should be quick to pounce on seals, 

 so he knocked its mouth against a strip of blubbery sealskin. At each stage of the operation he murmured 

 into its ear, exhorting it to grow big and active, to pounce on seals, and to do and become everything that 

 befitted a perfect Eskimo dog. 



