1878. | Social Life among our Aborigines. 3 
any view of native characteristics which leaves out the erotic 
element, resembles a vine from which the trellis has been re- 
moved. 
The Eskimo of Norton Sound, Alaska, resemble most of the 
northern savage peoples in a total absence of reticence on all 
subjects, except before strangers. After friendship is assured, a 
matter often a long time postponed after first acquaintance, con- 
versation may be freely indulged in on any subject relating to the 
individual unless it be the shamanic mysteries or superstitions. 
In this way I learned that even Eskimo life has its touches of 
romance. A middle aged woman, employed as a seamstress by 
our party, told me the story of her life. 
Born at Shaktolik, her wanderings had been confined between 
the Indian territory inland, the Yukon mouth on the south, and 
the Polar Ocean. When of marriageable age her parents, being 
old and desiring to settle their daughter in life, took her with 
them to the Kaviiak country. They had heard of an old man 
there, very wealthy, according to their ideas, in deerskin dresses 
and supplies of food, and who, in addition to the two he had 
already, wished to acquire another wife to be the youthful pet of 
his old age. They arrived at his house in the depth of winter, ee 
were hospitably received, and opened negotiations. The wayw 
girl, moved by the contemptuous glances of the elder wives, he 
absence of eye-lashes and presence of sundry wrinkles in her pro- 
posed partner, or by the fact that she would be wholly separated © > 
from her own people, fled in the night with a passing party of 
dog-sledges and natives, leaving her chagrined parents to settle 
as they might with the Kaviiak sage. : 
At Shaktolik she knew a young Eskimo, tall, handsome, a 
good hunter, and unmarried. Friendly glances passed between 
them; in short, she loved him and hoped to be his wife. To 
adorn his deerskin garments, to applaud him at the winter dances, 
to proudly receive the sinew and belly of the deer, wife’s per- 
quisites, when, on his return from hunting, she met him with the a 
smoking dishes of seal meat and fish she knew so well how to = 
prepare—these privileges she lovingly and proudly anticipated. nage 
Alas! “his face was very good but his heart was’ very bad.” ae 
After trifling with her affections for months he left her for a more 
engaging damsel, who, to the vindictive joy of the abeodon ; 
One, also suffered in her turn. - 
oud a long time she refused all popen of marriage; t the 
