404 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



February a ***** °^ Esquimaux character, I may perhaps be excused for relating. A 

 ^r^> queer old woman, one of our Winter Island acquaintance, brought back 

 unasked a silver thimble which Mr. Skeoch suspected her having stolen out 

 of his cabin a day or two before. She now without reserve confessed that- 

 she had taken it, but laughingly told him that, finding it much too small for 

 her finger, she had lion&stly returned it, and concluded with an earnest re- 

 quest to be allowed some beads in exchange for it. Their pilferings had 

 hitherto been so rare and so trifling, that we could easily wink at this piece 

 of petty larceny, which seemed to carry with it its own compensation, by the 

 humours of the old lady's conceit in confessing it. 



Among the traits in these people's disposition, and the peculiarities in the 

 history of their social dealings with one another, which our present inter- 

 course served to discover to us, was the circumstance of their being divided 

 into two or three parties, which, though never absolutely quarrelling, were 

 still on no very cordial terms of intimacy. This party-feeling, and the jea- 

 lousies excited by it, were conspicuous on various occasions, and once dis- 

 played themselves on a subject the least likely of any to have given uneasi- 

 ness to an Esquimaux. One day when Mr. Hooper had been at the trouble 

 of going to the huts to cater for our Esquimaux patients, and had purchased 

 a considerable quantity of meat, he happened in the evening to tell Innook- 

 sioo, who was just then regaining an enormous appetite, of his good success 

 in this way ; the latter anxiously asked of whom the meat had been pro- 

 cured, and being told that it was Pootooalook, declared that he would never 

 eat a bit of it. Vexatious as this sort of prejudice was likely to prove to us, 

 Mr. Hooper fortunately pretended to assent to it ; and Innooksioo having thus 

 satisfied his party-feeling, wisely permitted it to have no farther influence, 

 and avoiding all further questions on the subject, had in a few days demo- 

 lished his full share of Pootooalook's meat. 



Thus, conscience freed from every clog, 

 Mahometans eat up the hog^ 



Some other prejudices exhibited by these people were not to be so easily 

 compromised, and therefore occasioned greater trouble. The sick must on 

 no account see each other, nor, except in particular cases as before men- 

 tioned at Winter Island, be seen by any other person, always, however, 

 excepting Kabloonas, to whom the prohibition did not seem to extend. The 

 using of a sick person's drinking- cup, knife, or other utensil by a second 

 individual was sure to be vehemently exclaimed against, the invalid being 



