Page:The Netsilik Eskimos (1931).djvu/240

The mind of the Netsilingmiut is like the surface of the many lakes that are spread over their country: it is quickly set in commotion, but the waves never become deep swells and the water quickly comes to rest again. And yet, despite an innate inclination to react quickly, it is a point of honour with them to preserve their equanimity, and in particular when hard hit they never seem to have any difficulty in resigning themselves; they are never heard to complain. In fact it would almost seem that trifles affect them most, whereas real, serious adversity is taken with admirable superiority. One might almost say that they have the happy gift of being able to rest content with the knowledge of sorrow; they know that they have suffered but do not become emotional, merely making some quiet utterance such as that it could not be otherwise. The result is that a visitor among them always receives an impression of bright and careless happiness; their spirits are light and infectious and their surroundings breathe peace.

Man and wife live together like good comrades. Although the wife has been bought, acquired for a sledge, a kayak, or perhaps a piece of rusty iron, she is by no means treated as a chattel that has no right to any consideration. In theory no doubt the husband is lord and master over her and never need ask, as among all primitive peoples. He can do as he likes with his woman. But despite the fact that this is the general and time-honoured view there is no sign of subjection. On the contrary, woman's behaviour in the home is very self-assertive, and she is not only lively and loudspoken but has considerable authority in both her early and her late years.

The only place where woman's lack of her rights seemed to me to be more manifest among Eskimos is in the Thule District in North Greenland. There in earlier times, that is to say before the arrival of Christianity, it was never considered to be good form for a woman to speak to a man without being spoken to; if visitors arrived she