424 THE POINT HARROW ESKIMO. 



customs concerning the dead. The tew observations we were able to 

 make agree in the main with those made elsewhere. For instance, we 

 learned with tolerable certainty that the relatives of the dead, at least, 

 must abstain from working on wood witli an ax or hammer for a certain 

 period I believe, four or five days. According to Dull, 1 in the region 

 about Norton Sound the men can not cut wood with an ax for five days 

 after a death has occurred. In Greenland the household of the de 

 ceased were obliged to abstain for ;i while from certain kinds of food and 

 work. 2 



A woman from Utkiavwifi, who came over to the station one day in 

 the autumn of 1SIS1, declined to sew on clothing, even at our house, 

 because, as she told Lieut. Ray, there was a dead man in the village 

 who had not yet been carried out to the cemetery and &quot;he would see 

 her.&quot; After consulting with her husband, however, she concluded she 

 could protect herself from him by tracing a circle about her on the floor 

 with a snow-knife. In this circle she did the sewing required, and was 

 careful to keep all her work inside of it. 



One of the natives informed me that when a man died his labrets were 

 taken out and thrown away. I remember, however, .seeing a young man 

 wearing a plug labret of syenite, which he said had belonged to an old 

 man who died early in the winter of 1881- S2. It was perhaps removed 

 before he actually died. 



Manner of disposing of the dead. The corpse is wrapped up in a piece 

 of sailcloth (deerskin was formerly iised), laid upon a flat sled, and 

 dragged out bya small party of people perhaps the immediate relatives 

 of the deceased, though we never happened to see one of these funeral 

 processions except from a distance to the cemetery, the place, where 

 &quot;they sleep on the ground.&quot; This place at ITtkiavwIn is a rising ground 

 about a mile and a half east of the village, near the head of the south 

 west branch of the Isutkwa lagoon. AtXuwfik the main cemetery is 

 at &quot; Nexeura,&quot; between the village and I ernyii. The bodies are laid out 

 upon the ground without any regular arrangement apparently, though 

 it is difficult to be sure of this, as most of the remains have been broken 

 up and scattered by dogs and foxes. With a freshly wrapped body it is 

 almost impossible to tell which is the head and which the feet. We 

 unfortunately never noticed whether the heads were laid toward any 

 particular point of the compass, as has been observed in other localities. 

 Dr. Simpson says that the head is laid to the east at Point Barrow. 



Various implements belonging to the deceased are broken and laid be 

 side the corpse, and the sled is sometimes broken and laid over it. Some 

 times, however, the latter is withdrawn a short distance from the cemetery 

 and left on the tundra for one moon, after which it is brought back to 

 the village. Most people do not seem to be troubled at having the 



1 Alaska, p. 146. 



