Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/479

 be very numerous in all parts of the Sound, furnished them ample subsistence. There were in all nine families, but there was no family that consisted of more than four persons,—the parents and two children. The largest family that I have seen among them was that of Kalutunah. Hans told me of several families of three children; and Tattarat, now a lonely widower, lives on Northumberland Island, near the auk-hill of that place, with three orphans; and his wife bore him a fourth, which disappeared in some mysterious manner soon after its mother died and while it was yet a babe at the breast.

With the aid of Hans, I endeavored to get at a correct estimate of the whole tribe, and, commencing with Cape York, took down their names. In this community there can be no domestic secrets, and everybody knows all about everybody else's business,—where they go for the summer, and what luck they have had in hunting,—and talk and gossip about it and about each other just as if they were civilized beings, having good names to pick to pieces. But I strongly suspect that Hans grew tired of my questioning and cross-questioning, and stopped short at seventy-two. I have good reason to believe, however, that the tribe numbers more nearly one hundred. I obtained a complete list of the deaths which had taken place since Dr. Kane left them, in 1855. They amounted to thirty-four; and, during that time, there had been only nineteen births.

Their marriage engagements are, of necessity, mere matters of convenience. Their customs allow of a plurality of wives; but among this tribe, even if there were sufficient women, no hunter probably could support two families. The marriage arrange