Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/224

wives seem to get on well together; the wife who basks under the husband's favour at the moment is the domestic head of the house. But that matters have not always been so idyllic appears from Lyon's description of how a man had to stop a fight between his two wives by stabbing them in the head with a knife. A man at Iglulik told me that he had a wife there and one at Ponds Inlet; but as they did not agree very well, he stayed with each one in turn. On the other hand it happens sometimes that one woman has two husbands; but usually only for a short period, as the two husbands do not seem to agree so well as two wives.

The marriage state is not very stable. Exchanging wives and divorce followed by a new marriage, are common and are looked upon as natural occurrences; when a couple separate the children belong to the mother, and therefore marriages in which there are children. especially sons, are more stable than childless marriages. But even then marriage may be too much for these people; with smiles and much head-shaking they told me, for example, of a young man who was now about to exchange his fourth wife. Two young men at Iglulik were nuliaqatên, exchanged wives at certain intervals, mostly for a year at a time; one of them, however, had the say in these matters and fixed the period of exchange; if they neglected to make the exchange, one of them would have bad hunting. The women submit to this changing with astonishing resignation; they seem to be satisfied if only they have someone to provide for them. Marriages are often marriages of convenience; only rarely does one see man and wife caress each other: but on the other hand beatings and harsh words are not common. As a rule the wife must put up with anything from her husband, although now and then an especially clever wife may be the "master of the house". The relations between man and wife seem mostly to be good — they are comrades. In sexual matters, however, they are rather loose and the women often hardly know who is the father of their children. One man had been away two years on a mail journey to Fort Churchill; on the day after his return his wife gave birth to a daughter; he was delighted at the surprise.

A peculiar sexual excess is that the men sometimes copulate with animals which they have just killed; we also heard tell that women occasionally had sexual relations with dogs.

Childbirth must not take place in the snow house or tent in which the family resides, but in a separate little snow house or tent built by the side of the other and where the woman must spend the