Page 582. In the Report of the Hudson Bay Expedition of 1886, p. 16,
Lieut. A. Gordon remarks that the same custom is reported from Port
Burwell, near Cape Chidleigh, Labrador. He says: “There lived between
the Cape and Aulatsivik a good Eskimo hunter whose native name is not
given, but who was christened by our station men ’Old Wicked.’ He was a
passionate man and was continually threatening to do some bodily harm to
the other more peaceably inclined natives. * * * His arrogance and petty
annoyances to the other natives became at length unbearable. It appears
that these unfortunates held a meeting and decided that Old Wicked was a
public nuisance which must be abated, and they therefore decreed that he
should be shot, and shot he was accordingly one afternoon when he was
busily engaged in repairing the ravages which a storm had made in his
‘igdlu’ or snow house. The executioner shot him in the back, killing him
instantly. The murderer or executioner (one hardly knows to which title
he is more justly entitled) then takes Old Wicked’s wives and all his
children and agrees to keep them * * * so that they shall be no burden
on the company.”
The fact that the custom is found among tribes so widely separated will
justify a description of those events which came under my own
observation. There was a native of Padli by the name of Padlu. He had
induced the wife of a Cumberland Sound native to desert her husband and
follow him. The deserted husband, meditating revenge, cut off the upper
part of the barrel of his gun so that he could conceal it under his
jacket. He crossed the land and visited his friends in Padli, but before
he could accomplish his intention of killing Padlu the latter shot him.
When this news was reported in Qeqerten, the brother of the murdered man
went to Padli to avenge the death of his brother; but he also was killed
by Padlu. A third native of Cumberland Sound, who wished to avenge the
death of his relatives, was also murdered by him. On account of all
these outrages the natives wanted to get rid of Padlu, but yet they did
not dare to attack him. When the pimain of the Akudnirmiut in
Niaqonaujang learned of these events he started southward and asked
every man in Padli whether Padlu should be killed. All agreed; so he
went with the latter deer hunting in the upper part of Pangnirtung,
northwest of Padli, and near the head of the fjord he shot Padlu in the
back.
In another instance a man in Qeqerten had made himself odious. After it
was agreed that he was a bad man an old man of Qeqerten, Pakaq, attacked
him on board a Scottish whaler, but was prevented from killing him.