426 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 



The custom of covering the body wii h stones appears to be universally 

 prevalent east of the Mackenzie region. 1 



The bodies seen by Dr. Richardson in the delta of the Mackenzie 

 were wrapped in skins and loosely covered with driftwood, 2 and a sim 

 ilar arrangement was noticed at Kotzebue Sound by Beechey, who fig 

 ures 3 a sort of little wigwam of driftwood built over the dead man. 

 At Port Clarence Xordeuskiold 4 saw two corpses &quot; laid on the ground, 

 fully clothed, without protection of any coffin, but surrounded by a 

 close fence consisting of a number of tent-poles driven crosswise into the 

 ground. Alongside one of the corpses lay a kayak with oars, a loaded 

 double-barreled gun with locks at half-cock and caps on, various other 

 weapons, clothes, tinder-box, snowshoes, drinking-vessels, two masks, 

 * * * and strangely shaped animal figures. On the Siberian coast 

 the dead are sometimes burned. 5 



Xordenskiold believes that the coast Chukches have perhaps be 

 gun to abandon the custom of burning the dead, but I am rather in 

 clined to think that is a custom of the &quot;decnnen,&quot; which the people of 

 the coast of pure or mixed Eskimo blood never fully adopted. Dull, 

 indeed, was explicitly informed that the custom was only used with the 

 bodies of &quot;good&quot; men, and at the time of Nordenskiold s visit he found 

 it &quot; at least certain that the people of Pitlekaj exclusively bury their dead 

 by laying them out on the tundra.&quot; The body is surrounded by an 

 oval of stones, but apparently not covered with them as in the east. 6 

 The Krause brothers observed by the bodies, besides &quot; die erwahnten 

 Gerathschaften &quot; [Lanzen, Bogen uud I feile fiir die Manner, Koch- und 

 Hausgeriithe fiir die WeiberJ, &quot;unter eiuen kleinen Steinhaufen cin 

 Hunde-, Renthier-, Biiren- oder Walross-Schadel.&quot; This custom shows a 

 little Children die and are buried, they put the Head of a Dog near the 

 curious resemblance to that described by Egede 7 in Greenland : &quot; When 

 Grave, fancying that Children, having no Understanding, they can not 



1 See the passage quoted from Bossels, for Smith Sound ; Egede, Greenland, p. 148 ; Crantz s History of 

 Greenland, vol. 1, p. 237; East Greenland, Holm. Geografisk Tidskrift. vol. 8, p. 98, and Scoresby, 

 Voyage to Northern Whaleflshery, p. 213 (where he speaks of finding on the east coast of Greenland 

 graves dug and covered with slabs of stone. Digging graves is very unusual among tho Eskimo, as 

 the nature of the ground on. which they lire usually forbids it. Parry mentions something similar at 

 Iglnlik: &quot;The body was laid in a regular, but shallow grave, * * covered with flat pieces of lime 

 stone&quot; (Second Voyage, p. 551) ; Lyon, Journal, p. 268 (Iglulik) ; Kumlien, Contribution, p. 44 (Cumber 

 land Gulf ) ; Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 124 (Baffin Land) ; Rae Narrative, pp. 22 and 187 (northwest shore 

 of Hudson Hay), and Kills, Voyago to Hudson s Hay. p. 148 (Marble Island). I myself have noticed the 

 same custom at the old Eskimo cemetery near the Hudson Bay post of Rigolette, Hamilton Inlet, 

 on the Labrador coast. Chappel, however, saw a body &quot;closely wrapt in skins and laid in a sort of a 

 gully,&quot; Hudson s Hay. p. 111! (north shore, Hudson Strait), and Davis s account of what he saw in 

 Greenland is as follows: &quot;Wo found on shore three dead people, and two of them had their staucs 

 lying by them anil their olde skins wrapped about them.&quot; Hakluyt . Voyages, 1589, p. 788. 



2 Franklin, Second Expedition, }i. 192. 



3 Voyage, pi. opposite p. 332. 



4 Vega, vol. 2. p. 238, and figure of grave, on p. 239. 



s See Nordeuskiiild, Vega, vol. 2, p. 88, and Dall, Alaska, p. 382. 



6 See Nordenskiold, Vega. vol. 2, pp. 88-9 (Pitlekaj), and 225 (St. Lawrence Bay) ; Kranse Bros., Geo- 

 graphische Blatter, vol. 5, p. 18 (St. Lawrence Bay. East Cape, Indian Point, and Plover Bay! and Dall, 

 Alaska, p. 382. 



Greenland, p. 151. See also Oautz. vol. 1. p. 2:s7. 



