44 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARCTIC AMERICA. 



or two. This manner of proceeding is kept up till all the women but one 

 are disposed of. This one is always the ancooVs choice, and her he re- 

 serves for himself. The people thus assembled are, of course, all well 

 known to him, and he understands pretty well how to mate them so as 

 to meet general approbation. 



When the women have their monthly courses, they will not work, nor 

 visit the ship, or even each others' huts. 



The dead are generally covered with a little pile of stones, so arched 

 over as to form a sort of tomb. It is also quite common at the present 

 time to leave the dead fully exposed upon the rocks. All the Eskimo 

 liave a great horror of handling a corpse, so that when a person is very sick 

 lie is carried out to die, and where he lays the stone pile is erected around 

 liim. The hunting implements and many of the valuables of the deceased 

 are put by him 5 such things as he will need for a long time inside, and 

 the rest outside of the grave. We have found in one grave the skeletons 

 of two dogs, remains of a sledge, whip, &c., and the partial skeleton 

 of a Pagomys fcetidus. The right femur of the Eskimo skeleton in the 

 grave was deformed, and had the appearance of having been broken and 

 allowed to grow together without setting. He was probably lame dur- 

 ing life, and the dogs and sledge had been given him in order to facili- 

 tate his traveling to the happy hunting-grounds. In another grave we 

 discovered portions of a kyack. That decayed bow and arrows, spears, 

 and all their hunting implements, were at one time plenty in graves, is 

 very apparent ; but of late years they have so amended this usage that 

 it is no longer necessary for the articles to remain very long, so they are 

 taken out and used by the relatives. In very recent graves we found 

 tin cups and pots, knives, and even one fork and spoon, comb, pieces of 

 cloth, needles, thread, thimble, and in one a photograph and a Harpers 9 

 Weekly newspaper, tub for meat, &c. ; in fact, all the equipments and 

 treasures of the deceased. The more valuable of these articles were out- 

 side, and would undoubtedly soon have been appropriated by the rela- 

 tives. This is the reason that so little is found in graves at the present 

 day. In the old graves the wood and bone implements seem to decay 

 very fast, and can seldom be handled without falling to pieces. All the 

 graves contain entire or partial skeletons of some animal or bird, mostly 

 the netsick seal. This was put in for food, undoubtedly. Very few 

 graves contain the perfect skeleton of the inmate. The dogs, wolves, 

 and foxes despoil the graves, and scatter the bones in every direction. It 

 is seldom that these tombs are so well constructed that the dogs cannot 

 tear them down. 



