As soon as Tapeesa was informed of the next task, she got right to work. They were supposed to review the cases and choose one of them and decide on what to do about the perpetrator.
The thing was, Tapeesa wasn't really familiar with how Canadian laws worked. But she had to do this task. It was pretty clear to her there was no way she could marry Miles or Callahan due to her lack of cultural knowledge but if she didn't do well, she could be the next person to get eliminated. And she hadn't had the chance to properly speak to Callahan yet.
Besides, if she wanted him to listen to her, she would probably need to prove she was a capable person, that she could mean something. That was one of the hard truths she'd learnt about how the world beyond Arctic wilderness worked. You could not expect someone to just do something for you unless you gave them a reason to help you, even more so if they didn't have much to do with you personally.
Tapeesa was determined to still do well in the task even without the proper knowledge of the laws nevertheless. Maybe her solutions were going to be not very precise and what was expected but she would show that she knew what she was doing.
In Mittimatalik, her father was the one dealing with misconduct of the people living there. But the system was different than in Canada. Inuit people didn't have one larger united community, the way the rest of Canada was governed. There were villages that were usually quite a bit apart and each was led by the chief. The villages were completely separate entities that could have contact with some other villages, the way Mittimatalik had, but they weren't formally connected although the rules were pretty much the same in each community, as far as Tapeesa knew.
Tapeesa wouldn't be the next chief, that much was clear since she was a girl, but she was a very curious person so she learnt of the spoken law for misconduct of behavior and she had a habit of listening in on her father deciding on how to deal with such situations. What made things different in an Inuit community as opposed to the rest of the Canada was that there was no written law. And there was also nothing like what Canadians called prisons. Their igloos were made of snow in the winter and animal skins in the summer and it would be hard to keep anyone from escaping. And what would be the point of that anyway? For Inuit village to function, they needed as many hands at work as possible. Everyone except for little children, sick and old people. Keeping someone locked away (not that they really had any doors or locks) and giving them food without them doing any work was terribly inefficient. Most common way of dealing with someone in their village committing something wrong was to lead them to correct their actions and way of thinking for the future since Inuit people always strove to live in harmony with each other so that they could live in the harsh Arctic environment.
First place Tapeesa needed to go to was the library, of course. That was the place she had to go each time they were handed something written. And this time, she would actually get through the text, no matter how long it took.
She got through the first case, case #217354. Someone trying to kill Callahan based on the belief he was unsuitable as the heir, probably. Tapeesa could hardly grasp a person trying to kill another person. She guessed it happened, it probably happened among Inuit people from time to time as well, but there was no such a case in her village at least since she was a child. Everyone knew they needed each other to be able to live and the community was not all that big, at least compared to what she'd seen of Canada (although that was not so much) so far. If someone was killed, everyone would know straight away about it.
The case of this person, Freddy Hynkel, trying to kill Callahan, what could she compare it to? Callahan was the firstborn son of the king, therefore he was the heir to the throne. In Mittimatalik, Tapeesa was the one who held similar position to that. Although she was a girl, she was the chief's only child so whoever married her would become the next chief. She would imagine someone attempting to kill her. Although she wouldn't be the chief herself so even if she were to be killed, that would not automatically mean a different chief in the future. But killing Kallik probably wouldn't accomplish all that much either because her parents would find a different match for her. But for simplicity, Tapeesa could only imagine someone attempting to kill her. It was hard to imagine someone from her village trying to kill her, they were very close-knit and they knew what she was like and that she cared about the community so much. So it wouldn't be anyone she knew. But then, again, Callahan also really cared about Canada and Tapeesa could imagine him being an excellent king one day so Freddy Hynkel probably also had no idea.
What would a punishment to such a person be? Tapeesa couldn't remember anything to reference it from. The most serious type of criminal that she knew of from the spoken law was kunlangeta- a man who repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, refuses to do any work and gets intimate with other men's wives, refusing to fix his conduct. The way of dealing with such a person, as Tapeesa had heard, was to discreetly push him off the ice without any eye witnesses. Not that she'd ever seen something like that. But that was applied to someone who'd been repeatedly warned and still refused to change his behavior. Was it right to kill someone without giving them a chance to show that they can change? But what if they attempted to kill someone again? Maybe they would exile them from the village, but in the Arctic environment, that pretty much equalled to death. No one could survive on their own. Summer maybe, but winter would mean death for sure. People most often died in the winter in their village as well, and they were a tightly-knit functional community, how could someone make it on their own?
Tapeesa decided she didn't have enough insight to deal with the case.
On to case #173699. Someone pretending to be a police officer. Police officers, as Tapeesa had learnt so far, had authority over making sure everyone was abiding the law. Someone misusing the authority, why could they want to do that? No serious harm seemed to be done so there was probably no need for any serious punishment but Tatum McBride should fix his ways and come to understand why what he did was wrong. Maybe some community service would work, so that he can learn the importance of people looking out for each other and not trying to hurt each other. Maybe there should also be some sort of punishment to get the point across. Tapeesa would need to think this one through a bit more before deciding.
Tapeesa decided to skip the case #144480 completely since she had no understanding about drugs or 'trafficking', whatever that one was. She was sure that without proper understanding of the problem, she wouldn't be able to come to an adequate solution.
Case #205472 was again someone intentionally trying to kill someone else that Tapeesa didn't know how to work out. Maybe that's what prisons were for but length of sentences for different types of criminals was something Tapeesa would probably rather not get into since she could probably study it for ages and still not understand.
Case #137742 was finally something that made sense to Tapeesa. Although the problem was ridiculous and didn't need to happen at all. That's why communities existed at all, right? So that people could look out for each other, to make sure everyone had enough to live. That's what communities were supposed to do. This one was apparently failing if someone had to steal to keep their family afloat. And if she'd seen anything so far, there were most likely people living in the same city, or town, or whatever, that had more than they needed.
In the end, she began o write down the solutions she came to, trying to keep her handwriting as neat as possible. She'd been practicing her handwriting a lot lately since she couldn't have someone doing her writing all the time while she was there.
Case #173688
Tatum McBride should pay 1,500 dollars to Jessica Thomas as a punishment and to make up for what he did. He should also pay 500 dollars at the police station and do community service work at least once a week for 2 years in order to fix his way of looking at other people.
Tapeesa wasn't sure if that was how things were done around here but at least she thought it sounded just and reasonable and could fix the problem. She continued to write down her solution for the last case.
Case #137742
Community that Anneli Scott lives in is at fault for not working well enough as a community and not taking care of those who are in need. The community should be informed of their mistakes and leaders of the community should make sure they focus on building up he community and pay more attention to activities focused on people, who don't have what they need for living.
