Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/335

316 The thread is only used as a means of introducing the colour or pigment under the epidermis. The longevity of this people, on the whole, in latter years is not great. The average duration of life among them is much less than formerly. The time was, and that not long ago, when there were many, very many old people, but now they are very few. Old Ookijoxy Ninoo, as I have already mentioned, once observed to me that there were no Innuits now living who were young when she was. She was, as I believe, over 100 years old when I saw her. She died a few months after my departure for the States. I learned this last fall (1863) by one of the American whalers, who saw her son Ugarng at Northumberland Inlet two months previous. The Innuit social life is simple and cheerful. They have a variety of games of their own. In one of these they use a number of bits of ivory, made in the form of ducks, &c. such as Sampson's wife gave me, as just mentioned. In another, a simple string is used in a variety of intricate ways, now representing a tuktoo, now a whale, now a walrus, now a seal, being arranged upon the fingers in a way bearing a general resemblance to the game known among us as "cat's cradle." The people were very quick in learning of me to play chess, checkers, and dominoes. If an Innuit stranger come among them, an effort is made to conform as closely as possible to the manners of the section from which he comes, for it should be observed that there exists a great diversity of manners and habits among the people of different regions not very far separated from each other.

Though in old times there were chiefs among the Innuits, there are none now. There is absolutely no political organisation among them. In every community, with them as with all the rest of the world, there is some one who, in consideration of his age, shrewdness, or personal prowess is looked up to, and whose opinions are received with more than usual deference; but he has no authority whatever, and an Innuit is subject to no man's control. The people are not naturally