The Innuit 219 



information; and was much pleased to find the 

 family living in the apparent exercise of social 

 affection. The Eskimo treated his wife with 

 kindness; she was seated in the circle who were 

 smoking the pipe, and there was a constant smile 

 upon her countenance, so opposite to that op- 

 p^essed dejected look of the Indian women in 

 general. I asked the Eskimo of his country: 

 he said it was good, though there was plenty of 

 cold and snow ; but that there was plenty of musk 

 oxen and deer; and the corpulency of the party 

 suggested the idea that there was seldom a want 

 of food amongst them. I told him that mine was 

 better as growing what made the biscuit, of which 

 they were very fond, and that there was much 

 less cold, and that we saw the water much longer 

 than they did. Observing that the woman was 

 tattooed, I asked him when these marks were 

 made, on the chin, particularly, and on the hands. 

 His reply was that when the girls were marriage 

 able, and espoused to their husbands; who had 

 generally but one wife, though good hunters had 

 sometimes two. Wishing to know whether they 

 ever abandoned the aged and infirm to perish like 

 the northern Indians, he said, never; assuring me 

 that they always dragged them on sledges with 

 them in winter to the different points where they 

 had laid up provisions in the autumn, en cache ; 

 and that they took them in their canoes in 

 summer till they died. Knowing that some 

 Indians west of the Rocky Mountains, burn 

 their dead, I asked him if this custom prevailed 



