As Soon As A Girl Is Born The Young Lad Who Wishes
To Have Her For A Wife Goes To Her Father's Tent And Proffers Himself.
If
accepted a promise is given which is considered binding and the girl is
delivered to her betrothed husband at the proper age.
They consider their progenitors to have come from the moon. Augustus has
no other idea of a Deity than some confused notions which he has obtained
at Churchill.
When any of the tribe are dangerously ill a conjurer is sent for and the
bearer of the message carries a suitable present to induce his
attendance. Upon his arrival he encloses himself in the tent with the
sick man and sings over him for days together without tasting food; but
Augustus as well as the rest of the uninitiated are ignorant of the
purport of his songs and of the nature of the Being to whom they are
addressed. The conjurors practise a good deal of jugglery in swallowing
knives, firing bullets through their bodies, etc., but they are at these
times generally secluded from view and the bystanders believe their
assertions without requiring to be eye-witnesses of the fact. Sixteen men
and three women amongst Augustus' tribe are acquainted with the mysteries
of the art. The skill of the latter is exerted only on their own sex.
Upon the map being spread before Augustus he soon comprehended it and
recognised Chesterfield Inlet to be the opening into which salt-waters
enter at spring tides and which receives a river at its upper end.
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