r own forefathers,
until well on in historical times.

When Paul Egede was remonstrating with the Greenlanders one day upon
their polygamous proclivities, one of them fell to eulogising his own
wife for her 'good humour in never being angry because he loved strange
women.' Egede said that 'women in our country could not endure that
their husbands should care for others; they would turn them out of their
houses.' 'It is no praise to your women,' replied the Eskimo, 'that they
want to have their husbands all to themselves and to be masters over
them; we hold that a fault.'

Their way of thinking in these matters is less ideal and more practical
than ours, and their point of view entirely different. Their habit of
exchanging wives, for example, and their treatment of barren women,
seems to us wanton and immoral; but when we remember that the production
of offspring is the great end and aim of their conduct, and reflect what
an all-important matter this is for them, we may perhaps pass a somewhat
milder judgment.

If a Greenlander's wife does not bear children, his marriage fails of
its chief purpose, and it is quite natural that he should try to find
a remedy. A young man whose wife had no children once offered Niels
Egede a fox-skin either to come to his aid himself in the matter, or to
order one of his sailors to do so, and was much astonished to find Egede
indignant at the proposal. 'There would be no disgrace,' he said, 'for
she is married, and she could have one of your married sailors.'

It appears, however, that even the married Greenlanders are not by
nature devoid of what we understand as moral feeling, for their everyday
behaviour is, as a rule, quite reputable and void of offence; on that
point all travellers must agree.

If a heathen--and in many cases even a Christian--Greenlander refrains
from having to do with another man's wife, whom he has looked upon
with favour, it is generally, no doubt, more because he shrinks from
quarrelling with the husband than because he regards adultery as
morally wrong; b