THE RETURN OF THE SUN 243 



family in the hunt; how Teddylinguah, her son 

 (Anahway's brother) , had killed a deer and a walrus; 

 of the numbers of walrus Eiseeyou and Teddy- 

 linguah had killed ; of the weather ; and about my stay 

 with them and that I was at the grave with her. All 

 this I could understand very well. Then with naked 

 hands she pulled away the snow which covered the 

 rocks at the head of the body, and placed in between 

 the boulders small, choice pieces of deer and walrus 

 meat, talking as she did so and crying all the while 

 as though her heart would break. I could not get 

 the import of what she said, for her sobs made her 

 words unintelligible. When the meat was all placed 

 she mumbled some sentences which I could not under- 

 stand, followed by a brief silence. Finally she rose 

 to her feet and made several signs and passes with 

 her hands over the head of the grave, then walked 

 around the grave four times, being very particular 

 after the first circuit to step precisely where she had 

 stepped before, and to carefully brush every bit of 

 snow from leg and foot, each time she lifted a foot, 

 before taking the next step. All this time she kept 

 up a kind of chant, half talking, half singing, while 

 the tears rolled down her cheeks. 



At the end of the fourth turn around the grave 

 she seized my arm and told me the story of how 

 her father had carried her mother up from the old 

 igloo, and they had buried her there, and no one had 

 lived in the igloo since, for Eskimos abandon igloos 

 in which people die and they are never used again. 

 She also told me that adults were always buried with 



