Show CRUELTY IN GREENLAND barbarosa Barba roua features there of the customs for wanton cruelty in the capture of a bride we must go to greenland there we find something more than simulated violence in the method of capture and the means by which the girl is retained dr nansen in his account of his journey across greenland says that on alie west coast marriage nowadays roughly follows alic lines of marriage in europe but on the east coast old customs prevail A man having made up his mind to take to himself a wife goes to the tent of a family one of whose girl members meets his views catches lier by the leair or in some other equally rude way and drags her forth to his home lie there presents her with a bucket or some useful domestic utensil and the ceremony is complete according to baron etiquette requires that the bride should receive hard blows she does not submit readily but bewails her fate appears with torn garments and disheveled hair and makes a show of getting away from her husband sometimes her grief is sincere and a sensitive european would certainly not know whether it was or not lie might be i tempted to interfere in which case he would probably find himself opposed by the bride as well as bridegroom in order that the apparently miserable woman might bo compelled to remain in her new home the barbarous custom used to exist of branding her feet so that they were too painful for her to walk by alie time they were well she could with propriety declare herself to her position in greenland it is easy to tell who i married and who is not the esqui maux women gather up their hair into a huge tuft on the top tying it with a ribbon alie color of which denotes their position A maid wears red a married woman blue a widow black a widow anxious to remarry black and red a widow too old to remarry white |