302 VOYAGE TO THE 



CHAP, establishments, load their baidars with the produce of 

 their labour, and track them along the coast with dogs 

 towards their yourts, in which they take up their win- 

 ter station as before, and regale themselves after their 

 success by dancing, singing, and banqueting, as ap- 

 pears to be the custom with the Eastern Esquimaux, 

 and from their havmg large rooms appropriated to 

 such diversions. 



These winter stations may alw^ays be known at a dis- 

 tance by trunks of trees, and frames erected near them ; 

 some supporting sledges and skins of oil, and others 

 the scantling of boats, caiacs, fishing implements, &c. 



We had no opportunity of witnessing their oc- 

 cupations in the winter, which must consist in 

 the construction of implements for the forthcom- 

 ing season of activity, in making clothes, and carv- 

 ing and ornamenting their property, for almost every 

 article made of bone is covered with devices. They 

 appear to have no king or governor, but, like the pa- 

 triarchal tribes, to venerate and obey the aged. They 

 have sometimes a great fear of the old w omen who 

 pretend to w itchcraft. 



It seems probable that their religion is the same as 

 that of the Eastern Esquimaux, and that they have si- 

 milar conjurers and sorcerers. We may infer that 

 they have an idea of a future state, from the fact of their 

 placing near the graves of their departed friends the 

 necessary implements for procuring a subsistence in 

 this world, such as harpoons, bow^s, and arrows, caiacs, 

 &c. and by clothing the body decently ; and from the 

 circumstance of musical instruments being suspended 

 to the poles of the sepulchres, it would seem that they 

 consider such state not to be devoid of enjoyments. 

 Their mode of burial differs from that of the Eastern 

 Esquimaux, who inter their dead ; whereas these people 



