BELIEF IN SPIRITS. 275 



They do not entertain any clear idea of a future state of existence, 

 nor can they apparently imagino that a person altogether dies. 

 Although death is a subject they dislike to talk of, we have heard 

 the sentiments of several upon this, and the nature of the soul. 

 About the last they differ a good deal, but they all agree in looking 

 upon death as the greatest of human evils, and would invariably 

 " rather bear the ills they have, than fly to others that they know not 

 of." The soul is a turn'-gak, they say, seated in the breast, or rather 

 in the lungs, and seems closely allied to the breath ; from it 

 emanate all thoughts, which as they rise the tongue gives utterance 

 to. Even as to its unity they hold different notions, for one person 

 told us a man had four turn' -gain in his breast; and another, that 

 wherever a man went there was in the ground beneath him his 

 " familiar spirit," which moved as he moved, and was only severed 

 from him in death. However this may be, in death the body sleeps 

 and the spirit descends into the earth to associate with those which 

 have gone before, and subsists on bad food, such as roots, stones, 

 and mosquitoes. 



In order not to offend the spirits of the departed, their bodies are 

 wrapped in skins and laid on the earth beside others already there, 

 with the head to the east at Point Barrow ; but for this direction 

 there is no general rule. As his clothes and other portions of 

 property he habitually used, including the sledge on which he was 

 carried, would bring ill-luck to any one else who took them, they 

 are left with the body in a torn or broken state, and the family to 

 which he belonged keep within the hut for five days, not daring to 

 work lest the spirits should be offended; and instances can be 

 readily adduced where they believe death to have happened to 

 persons who infringed the custom of mourning five days. Diseases 

 are also considered to be turn'-gaks ; and so hurtful do they think 

 the touch of a corpse, that it is unwholesome to smoke from the same 

 pipe or drink out of the same cup with any one who was the wife, 

 mother, or other near relative of a deceased person ; this, they say, 

 is because these relatives from tending the sick person become 

 tainted by his breath, and another by using the same pipe or cup 

 might acquire the disease. 



John SlMPSON, Surgeon, R.N. 



