s. It is very difficult
to explain the origin of this law. Many writers, as we know, seek to
trace it to the primitive conception of woman as a chattel, and commonly
as a captive of the spear, whence it followed that a wife ought not to
be taken from among relations or friends, but should be carried off
from another tribe. Although the scientific authorities are against
me, it appears to me by no means impossible that we may also find at
the root of the custom the belief that marriage between near relations
produces a weakly progeny. This belief, at any rate, prevails among
almost all nations in the form of a dread of incest. It is true that
modern research has sought to show that marriage between kinsfolk is
not injurious; but whether well-founded or not, the contrary belief
has undoubtedly been entertained, and from it the law of exogamy would
naturally follow. The fact that among the Greenlanders it goes the
length of forbidding marriage between people of the same village is
easily explicable when we think of the above-mentioned customs, which
render it impossible to be sure who may or may not be half-brothers and
sisters.

In several respects the morality of the heathen Eskimos stands
considerably higher than that which one generally finds in Christian
communities. As I have already pointed this out (in Chapter VIII.),
I will here only remind the reader of their self-sacrificing love of
their neighbour and their mutual helpfulness, to which, indeed, we
find no parallel in European society. These virtues, however, are not
unfrequently to be found among primitive peoples, and are probably in
the main due to the simpler structure of society. A more developed and
consequently more complicated social order leads to the decline of many
of the natural virtues of humanity.

But the Eskimo's love of his neighbour goes the length of restraining
him from slandering him, and even from any sort of evil-speaking,
especially in the case of a neighbour in the literal sense of the word.
Scandal and malice are inconsistent wit