OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



531 



and a small coil of line at his back, accompanying the men to the fishery, 

 under every circumstance; and from this time his services daily increase 

 in value to the whole tribe. On our first intercourse with them we supposed* 

 that they would not unwillingly have parted with their children, in conside- 

 ration of some valuable present, but in this we afterwards found that we 

 were much mistaken. Happening one day to call myself Toolooak's 

 aitata (father,) and pretend that he was to remain with me on board the 

 ship, I received from the old man, his father, no other answer than what 

 seemed to be very strongly and even satirically implied, by his taking 

 one of our gentlemen by the arm and calling him his son ; thus intimating 

 that the adoption which he proposed was as feasible and as natural as my 

 own. 



The custom of adoption is carried to very great lengths among these 

 people, and served to explain to us several apparent inconsistencies with re- 

 spect to their relationships. The adoption of a child in civilized countries has 

 usually for its motive either a tenderness for the object itself, or some affec- 

 tion or pity for its deceased, helpless, or unknown parents. Among the 

 Esquimaux, however, with whom the two first of these causes would prove 

 but little excitement, and the last can have no place, the custom owes its 

 origin entirely to the obvious advantage of thus providing for a man's own 

 subsistence in advanced life j and it is consequently confined almost without 

 exception to the adoption of sons, who can alone contribute materially to 

 the support of an aged and infirm parent. When a man adopts the son of 

 another as his own, he is said to " tego," or take him ; and at whatever age 

 this is done, (though it generally happens in infancy,) the child then lives 

 with his new parents, calls them father and mother, is sometimes even 

 ignorant of any such transfer having been made, especially if his real 

 parents should be dead ; and whether he knows it or not, is not always 

 willing to acknowledge any but those with whom he lives. Without 

 imputing much to the natural affection of these people for their offspring, 

 which like their other passions is certainly not remarkable for its strength, 

 there would seem, on the score of disinterestedness, a degree of conside- 

 ration in a man's thus giving his son to another, which is scarcely com- 

 patible with the general selfishness of the Esquimaux character ; but there is 

 reason to suppose that the expediency of this measure is sometimes sug- 

 gested by a deficiency of the mother's milk, and not unfrequently perhaps 

 by the premature death of the real parent. The agreement seems to be 



3 y 2 



