MY ESKIMOS 389 



is never used again, but rots or is finally blown away. 

 If the death occurred in an igloo, it is vacated and not 

 used again for a long time. 



"The relatives of the deceased must observe certain 

 formalities in regard to clothing and food for a certain 

 time ; the name of the dead person is never spoken, and 

 any other members of the tribe who have the same 

 name must assume another until the arrival of an in- 

 fant, to which the name can be applied, removes the 

 ban. 



" Of religion, properly speaking, they have none. 

 The nearest approach to it is simply a collection of 

 miscellaneous superstitions and beliefs in good and 

 evil spirits. It may be said, in relation to this latter 

 subject, that information in regard to it is extremely 

 difficult to obtain, and probably, the bottom facts of 

 the matter will be known only when some enthusiast 

 is willing to devote five or six years of his time to 

 living with them and doing as they do, becoming in 

 fact, one of them. 



"Their amusements are few. In summer there are 

 tests of strength between the young men of the tribe, 

 consisting of wrestling, pulling, lifting, and a rude kind 

 of boxing. In winter the sole amusements are marital 

 pleasures, and the songs and improvisations of the 

 angakoks, or medicine men, of the tribe. In the 

 choruses of these the entire assembled company join." 



At these choruses which are sometimes all-night af- 

 fairs, a sort of tambourine is used to keep time to the 

 "music." It is made of membrane from the throat 

 of a walrus, stretched across the antlers of a reindeer. 

 Dancing is practised only among some of the southerly 



