axes, saws, skin-cutters, &c. Many of these, and especially the women's sewing materials, are regarded as altogether private property.
Other household implements are the common property of the family or even of all the occupants of the house. The woman-boat and the tent belong to the father of the family or to the family as a whole. The house belongs to the family, and if several families live together they own it in common.
The Eskimo knows nothing of private property in land; yet there seems to be a recognised rule that no one shall pitch a tent or build a house at a place where people are already settled without obtaining their consent.
As an example of their consideration for each other in this respect I may cite a custom which was thus described by Lars Dalager more than a hundred years ago: 'In the summer, when they take their tents and baggage with them, and think of settling down at a place where other Greenlanders are living, they row very slowly towards the shore, and when they come to within a gunshot of it they stop and lie upon their oars without saying a word. If those on shore are equally silent and give no sign, the newcomers think they are not wanted and therefore row away as fast as possible to some unoccupied place. But if those on shore, as generally happens, meet
