siniiMx-ii.l DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD. 425 



bodies of their relatives disturbed by the dogs or other animals, 1 but 

 we know of one case where the parents of two children who died very 

 nearly at the same time, finding that the dogs were getting at the 

 bodies, raised them on stages of driftwood about 4 or 5 feet high. 

 Similar stages were observed by Hooper at Plover Bay; 2 but this method 

 of disposing of the dead appears to have gone out of use at the present 

 day, since Dall :l describes the ordinary Siberian method of laying out 

 the dead in ovals of stone as in use at Plover Bay at the time of his 

 visit. 



The cemetery at Utkiavwln is not confined to the spot I have men 

 tioned, though most of the bodies are exposed there. A few bodies 

 are also exposed on the other side of the lagoon, and one body, that of 

 a man, was laid out at the edge of the higher tundra, about a mile due 

 east from the station. The body was covered with canvas, staked 

 down all round with broken paddles, and over it was laid a flat sledge* 

 with one runner broken. 4 At one end of the body lay a wooden dish, 

 and under the edge of the canvas were broken seal-darts and other 

 spears. The body lay in an east and west line, but we could not tell 

 which end was the head. All sorts of objects were scattered round the 

 cemetery tools, dishes, and even a few guns though we saw none that 

 appeared to have been serviceable when exposed, except one Snider 

 rirte. If, as is the case among Eskimo in a good many other places, 

 all the personal property of the deceased is supposed to become unclean 

 and must be exposed with him, it is probable that his friends manage 

 to remove the more valuable articles before he is actually dead. 5 



The method of disposing of the dead varies slightly among the 

 Eskimo in different localities, but the weapons or other implements 

 belonging to the deceased are always laid beside the corpse. The cus 

 tom at Smith Sound, as described by Bessels, is remarkably like that 

 at Point Barrow. The corpse was wrapped in furs, placed on a sledge, 

 and dragged out and buried in the snow with the face to the west. The 

 sledge was laid over the body and the weapons of the deceased were de 

 posited beside it. I nlike the Point Barrow natives, however, they usually 

 cover the body with stones. In the same passage Dr. Bessels desci ibes 

 a peculiar symbol of mourning, not employed, so far as 1 can learn, 

 elsewhere. The male mourners plugged up the right nostril with hay 

 and the females the left, and these plugs were worn for several days. 



1 Compare Lyon, Journal, p. 269. 

 Tents, etc., p. 88. 



3 Alaska, p. 382. 



4 Compare Samoyed grave, deseribexl and figured by Nordeiiskiold (Vega, vol. 1, p. 98). when- a broken 

 sledge was laid upside down by tbe grave. 



* Compare Holm. deografisk Tidskril t. vol. 8. p. 9S: &quot;kim KOHI barbeder. saascmi Kniveeller lifineiido 

 .Tiernsager bebolde den afdodes efterladte.&quot; East Greenland. 

 Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9. p. t&amp;lt;77. 



