from Edward Beauclerk Maurice's The Last Gentleman Adventurer, Coming of Age in the Arctic: This book, beautifully published in this country by Houghton Mifflin, is a journal about the author's station at the Hudson Bay Company in the early 1930's. He left England when he was just seventeen.

Apparently, Savik had recently taken to spending the night propped up on the sleeping platform beside Annawa and his wife. This it itself was distracting enough to prevent them from getting a good night's sleep, but to make matters worse, Savik had now begun to sing whenever he suspected that the couple was about to engage in a marital embrace. The song, if such it could be called, was a long recitation of the more dubious aspects of Annawa's sexual affairs, delivered in a droning monotone.
My immediate reaction was to burst into laughter, but managing to suppress this impulse under cover of a coughing fit, I attempted to appear seriously concerned about the man's dilemma. He as unable to offer any explanation as to why Savik should behave like this, but I promised to give the matter some thought, while privately deciding to question some of the other people as to the real cause of the upset.
I had found that the Eskimo women were often readier to discuss domestic situations than the men, so I asked Innuk whether she knew why Savik should be subjecting Annawa to this treatment. She was silent for some moments as she considered what she should say very carefully, then said, "The men had agreed to change wives, but one of the women has gone away."