The affection of parents for their children was frequently displayed
by these people, not only in the mere passive indulgence and
abstinence from corporal punishment for which Esquimaux have been
before remarked, but by a thousand playful endearments also, such as
parents and nurses practice in our own country. Nothing, indeed can
well exceed the kindness with which they treat their children. * * *
It must be confessed, indeed, that the gentleness and docility of
the children are such as to occasion their parents little trouble
and to render severity towards them quite unnecessary. Even from
their earliest infancy, they possess that quiet disposition,
gentleness of demeanor, and uncommon evenness of temper, for which
in more mature age they are for the most part distinguished.
Disobedience is scarcely ever known; a word or even a look from a
parent is enough; and I never saw a single instance of that
frowardness and disposition to mischief which, in our youth, so
often requires the whole attention of a parent to watch over and to
correct. They never cry from trifling accidents, and sometimes not
even from very severe hurts, at which an English child would sob for
an hour. It is, indeed, astonishing to see the indifference with
which, even as tender infants, they bear the numerous blows they
accidentally receive when carried at their mothers’ backs.
[Footnote N557: Second Voyage, p. 529.]
I should be willing to allow this passage to stand as a description of
the Point Barrow children. It is interesting to compare with these
passages Nordenskiöld’s account[N558] of the children at Pitlekaj,
who, if not as he and other writers believe, of pure Chukch blood, are
at any rate of mixed Chukch and Eskimo descent:
The children are neither chastised nor scolded. They are, however,
the best behaved I have ever seen. Their behavior in the tent is
equal to that of the best brought up European children in the
parlor. They are not perhaps so wild as ours, but are addicted to
games which closely resemble those common among us in the country.
Playthings are also in use. * * * If the parents get any delicacy
they always give each of their children a bit, and there is never
any quarrel as to the size of each child’s portion. If a piece of
sugar is given to one of the children in a crowd it goes from mouth
to mouth round the whole company. In the same way the child offers
its father and mother a taste of the bit of sugar or piece of bread
it has got. Even in childhood the Chukchs are exceedingly patient.
A girl who fell down from the ship’s stairs head foremost and thus
got so violent a blow that she was almost deprived of hearing
scarcely uttered a cry. A boy three or four years of age, much
rolled up in furs, who fell down into a ditch cut in the ice on the
ship’s deck, and in consequence of his inconvenient dress could not
get up, lay quietly still until he was observed and helped up by one
of the crew.
[Footnote N558: Vega, vol. 2, p. 140.]
The only extraordinary thing about the Chukch children is their large
number, mentioned by the same author.[N559] This looks as if the
infusion of new blood had increased the fertility of the race. All
authors who have described Eskimo of unmixed descent agree in regard
to the generally small number of their offspring. Other accounts of
Eskimo children are to be found in the writings of Bessels,[N560]
Crantz,[N561] Schwatka,[N562] Gilder,[N563] J. Simpson,[N564] and
Hooper.[N565]
[Footnote N559: Vega, vol. 1, p. 449.]
[Footnote N560: Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 874.]
[Footnote N561: History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 162.]
[Footnote N562: Science, vol. 4, No. 98, p. 544.]
[Footnote N563: Schwatka’s Search, p. 287.]
[Footnote N564: Op. cit., p. 250.]
[Footnote N565: Tents, etc., pp. 24, 201.]
The custom of adoption is as universal at Point Barrow as it appears
to be among the Eskimo generally, and the adopted children are treated
by the parents precisely as if they were their own flesh and blood.
Orphans are readily provided for, as there are always plenty of
families ready and willing to take them, and women who have several
children frequently give away one or more of them. Families that have
nothing but boys often adopt a girl, and, of course, vice versa, and
we know of one case where a woman who had lost a young infant had
another given her by one of her friends.
This very general custom of giving away children, as well as the habit
already mentioned of temporarily exchanging wives, rendered it quite
difficult to ascertain the parentage of any person, especially as it
seems to be the custom with them to speak of first cousins as “mĭlu
ataúzĭk” (“one breast,” that is, brothers and sisters). While a boy is
desired in the family, since he will be the support of his father when
the latter grows too old to hunt, a girl is almost as highly prized,
for not only will she help her mother with the cares of housekeeping
when she grows up, but she is likely to obtain a good husband who may
be induced to become a member of his father-in-law’s family.[N566]
[Footnote N566: Accounts of this custom of adoption are to be
found in Crantz, vol. 1, p. 165; Parry, Second Voyage, p. 531;
Kumlien, Contributions, p. 17; Gilder, Schwatka’s Search, p. 247,
and the passage concerning children quoted above, from Dr.
Simpson.]