The custom of giving away their children is very common among all
tribes, and a young wife who loses her first-born has seldom any
difficulty in getting a substitute from some one better supplied.
Infants are never weaned. I have seen children four and five years old
playing, out doors, stop once in a while to run in to their mothers,
and cry until they received their milk.
There is very little regard for life manifested by any of the
Esquimaux. Several instances of sudden and strange deaths occurred
among the infant children at Depot Island and vicinity while we were
encamped there. If it were a male child that died, it occasioned some
regret, but if it were a female it was considered all right. Even if it
were well known that an Inuit had murdered his child, or had killed any
one else in cold blood, nothing would be done about it, except that the
relatives of a murdered man would probably ask to be paid for the
slaughter, and if the request were complied with, that would set the
matter at rest. Should it not be complied with, the probability is that
the sons or brothers of the victim would embrace some opportunity to
kill the murderer and give rise for a demand of payment from the family
of the slain murderer, and in case of non-fulfilment a vendetta be
established, as is the case now in the tribe that dwells on the coast
of Baffin's Bay, near the entrance to Eclipse Sound.
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