ARCTIC TRAGEDIES

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11664, 31 October 1923, Page 3

ARCTIC TRAGEDIES

BLOOD FEUD AMID SNOW ESKIMOS TO PAY FORFEIT. RELENTLESS ARM OF JUSTICE. (Auckland “Star” Correspondent.) VANCOUVER, October '2. # Another chapter has been written in the curious annals of administering justice in tho Arctic wastes of Northern Canada, illustrating the impossibilities of miscreants in these far-away areas escaping the grim penalty of the law, for Judge Debuc, of the Alberta Courts, lias returned to Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, completing a 3500mile round trip on the edge of the Arctic to try persons accused of murders and crimes of violence which have no parallel in Arctic history. Corporal Doak, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and a white trader, Otto Binder, were slain, while three Eskimo men, one Eskimo woman, and an Eskimo child were slaughtered in the course of the blood feud which followed the killing by Binder of an Eskimo woman who had been sought in marriage by an Eskimo of another tribe.

The disappointed Eskimo, a “bad man” himselt, killed another Eskimo with his epear in order that lie might marry the widow. A tribal council was field, at which the men, urged thereto by the aged sorceress Ekootuk, decided that the slayer, Ahkhak, should be strangled to death. As the feud progressed the widow herself was slain and her four-year-ol<J daughter ordered to be strangled in order to prevent her from becoming a charge on the tribe. One other Eskimo man was slain by 16-year-old Orniak and Tatamagama, ordered) to do so by the tribal council. As a result of tho trials Omiak and Tatamagama have been sentenced to death by hanging on 'December 7th next. The aged sorcerers, ringleader in the execution by strangulation of Ahkhak, found guilty gF manslaughter, was, owing to her advanced age, given a sentence of one year’s imprisonment which she must serve at the dreary police post on Herschel Island. CONDEMNED MEN CALLOUS.

The judge, with T. L. Cory, cf Winnipeg, ns counsel for the defence, and I. B. Howatt, of Edmonton, as Crown Prosecutor, left Edmonton early in June, tra\elling the 16G6 miles to Aklavik by the great waterways of tho Northland, his transportation including conveyance by train, power boat, steamboat, and a scow. A ten-mile portage between Fort Smith and Fitzgerald was made by auto tractor. Special Constable Gill, of Ottawa, named as executioner, accompanied the judicial party int-o the barren North, and with him went material for a gallows, as the lumber is difficult to obtain i n the dreary shores of the Arctic. Neither of tfio condemned men appeared to tako his fate seriously. The youth Omiak, while waiting sentence, following conviction, laughed and joked witli everyone on the island. He did not do so after his sentence. On the contrary, two men charged with complicity in the strangling of Ahkhak evinced the greatest delight on be-ing acquitted, insisting on shaking hands with both lounsel and with everybody else in the courtroom except the judge. Judge Debuc was urnortunato in his journey hack to civilisation. A boat sent specially to convey his party grounded on a sandbank and had to return, without the disappointed legal men. A second boat was more successful, but its consort failed' to connect at Smith Portage in time to land passengers at Waterways for the train to Edmonton. As there are no roads out, and only one train weekly, tho judge was compelled to stay another week, contenting himself with exercising locally until the next weekly train drew out on its weary pilgrimage to the Alberta capital.