GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



looks exactly like a man. When the man is dead it rises to 

 heaven or goes down into the sea, where it foregathers with the 

 souls of the fathers. And both places are good to be in. 



The body is the abode of the soul ; it is mortal, as all mis- 

 fortune and illness may strike it down. In death all that is evil 

 remains in the body, wherefore one must observe the greatest 

 care in dealing with the corpse. 



The name also is a spirit to which a certain store of vital 

 power and skill is attached. A .man who is named after a 

 deceased one inherits his qualities. 



I commenced this chapter by stating that the Polar Eskimo 

 does not know worship. Neither does he in the sense with 

 which we are familiar from other religions ; he is content to 

 bow down to the Great Unknown, and he is not afraid of 

 admitting that he knows nothing and that his belief is probably 

 wrong. The admission of his limitations and his complete 

 honesty are here, as on all other points, unfailing. 



But even if worship is denied him through the simple religion 

 which was handed down to him from his forefathers, he is not a 

 stranger to devotion. And as I am writing this my thoughts 

 return to the many men and women out there whom in the 

 winter evenings I have seen quietly and silently wandering up 

 to the graves of their dead. Here they may remain hour after 

 hour in a mute devotion, which assuredly is no meaner expres- 

 sion of the feeling of human impotence than that which, 

 amongst more highly cultured peoples, manifests itself in prayer 

 and supplication. 



32 



