Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/58

Rh Ookoodlear was allowed to remain behind, on Ebierbing declaring that he and his wife would be her protectors. I heard a most extraordinary account of this Etu. It seems that, in consequence of something that happened to his mother before he was born, the poor infant came into the world marked over with snow-white spots and black spots, just like a kou-oo-lik, a large, spotted kind of seal. The father, looking upon this spotted child as a monster—a living curse in his family—determined to get rid of him, and accordingly conveyed the boy to Ki-ki-tuk-ju-a, i.e. Long Island, called by me Brevoort Island, the southern point of which is Cape Murchison. This island was quite destitute of means of subsistence, and, to appearance, the poor boy was left to perish of starvation. Strange to say, however, Etu lived on. He succeeded in catching partridges with his hands, an act never before or since known to have been done by Innuits. Thus the summer passed on, and winter approached. Still he lived, subsisting upon whatsoever he could find in the shape of food, a wild hermit-boy, on a solitary, almost unapproachable island, far form his fellow-beings. Release came to him in the following manner:—

One day a party of Innuits visited the island, and, to their astonishment, saw this young child standing upon a rock looking at them. He was like a statue, and they, knowing the place to be uninhabited, could hardly tell what to think of it. At length they went toward him, and he, seeing them kindly disposed, at once rushed into their arms, and was thus saved from the cruel death intended for him by his inhuman father. Since then he had grown to manhood, being, when I saw him, about twenty-five years old. He had had three wives, none of which remained to him. The first was accidentally