The Washington times., 1933-03-01

EdU LICE bC4Ao ASfCes4o AASAC
poignantly the horror Of soil
tude and isolation those men
lived through. Reaching the
end Of all self-reStraint, a man
would rise from card game OF
dining taole, load his gun and
go outdoors. For three min
uteS then, bowling curses and
blasphemieS into the dead Arc.
tic air, he would fire his gun at
a hummock Of ice. The gun
emptied, he would return to
the long-houSe-and see that
dollar and raise you two. The
incident was so usual that
none remarked on it-until the
baffled peace justice saw in it
a way out Of his difficulties.
The next time a man went
b-r-r-serk the J. P. crept out at
his heels. He let the man
empty his gun. Then he ar
rested him. The charge was
disturbing the peace" At that,
it was a grave charge. This
was a peace which had not
been disturbed since the last
dinosaur passed that way.
It was the collector of Gus
toms who almost failed. He
had missed a first, last and,
apparently, an only chance
when he had overlooked the
obvious trick of being the first
to land-a year and q half
earlier-and calling one of his
shipmates who was bringing a
package of American cigarettes
ashore. The missed chance
seemed to be an unlikely one
to recur. And then, one day.
an Eskimo approached-the
first visitor in year-the only
visitor in two. The lone visitor
was seen for 10 hours before
he arrived-making his way
toilingly over the ice floe.
Finally he neared the coast
line. The collector of Gus
toms was waiting for him,
and collared him as he put
foot on the newly British soil.
Hey! Ten per cent on those
musk-ox skins!"
The bevildered Eskimo never
did quite fathom it. He was
loaned the piece Of silver
which the collector Of customs
promptly snatched from his
hand, duly recording the tax
perception in his record books.
The Eskimo stayed awhile. He
told some tribal tales. One
of item is the tale toward
which these many words have
been toiling all this while.
Tribal Taboo
The Eskimo was of tribe
on North Devon which had
a tribal taboo against the near.
est neighbor tribe of Cockburn.
The tribe did not fight, but
they avoided each other. In
termarriage, Of course, was ia
boo. About three years earlier,
the two tribes, hunting and
fishing in Lancaster Sound,
had met and, the taboo being
strict, had moved to diverge.
However. a married woman of
one tribe and a man of the
other had inadvertently become
separated from the main bands
and were both on a stretch Of
ice which suddenly broke away
from the field and became an
isolated one in the current
which goes out into Baffin
Bay and on down to warm
waters. That, usually, is the
end Of an ESkimo's story. 1t
is the most usual Arctic end.
It arouSeS no emotions and
leaves few memories among
fellows of Eskimos so isolated,
swept away, doomed. The Eski-
mo teller would not have re-
membered the incident at all,
but for the sequel-which was
a tale brought back from
Okesiksak, miles south, on the
Greenland SIDE. There, a year
after the man and woman of
the enemy tribes had been
swept away together, Green
landers found a baby on a
raft Of skins washed ashore.
The baby was a very young
baby. It was dead. The body
was lovingly wrapped in layer
upon layer Of Eskimo garments.
Some of the layers were bits
of clothing of the Eskimo man.
Some of the layers were bits
of the clothing of the woman
who was taboo.