270 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [ETH. ANN. 18 
houses, and one body was found halfway out of the entrance. Most of 
the bodies lying about the villages had evidently been dragged there 
and left wherever it was most convenient by the living during the later 
period of the famine. The total absence of the bodies of children in 
these villages gave rise to the suspicion that they had been eaten by the 
adults; but possibly this may not have been the case. The strongest 
evidence in this regard, however, was in one village where there were 
over two hundred dead adults, and although I looked carefully for the 
bodies of children, none could be found; yet there was no positive evi- 
dence that cannibalism had been practiced by the natives. That this 
custom sometimes prevailed, however, in ancient times, during famines, 
I learned from the Unalit; nevertheless they openly expressed their 
abhorrence of the practice. 
On the bluff at the northwest point of this island we found a couple 
of surviving families living in round-top, walrus-hide summer houses. 
At the foot of the hill not far from their present camping place was a 
winter village, where about 100 people lay dead; the bodies were scat- 
tered about outside or were lying in their blankets in the houses, as we 
had seen them in other places. 
The two families living there consisted of about a dozen people; the 
adults seemed very much depressed and had little animation. Among 
them were two bright little girls, who had the usual childish careless- 
ness, and kept near us while we were on shore. When I shot a snow 
bunting near the village they called to me and ran to show me its nest 
on the hillside. 
When I asked one of the inhabitants what had become of the people 
who formerly lived on that part of the island, he waved his hand toward 
the winter village, saying, ‘All mucky mucky,” being the jargon term 
for “dead.” 
I tried to obtain a photograph of the women and little girls, and for 
that purpose placed them in position and focused the camera. While 
I was waiting for a lull in the wind to take the picture, the husband of 
one of the women came up and asked in a listless, matter-of-fact tone, 
“All mucky now?” meaning, ‘ Will they all die now?” He evidently 
took it for granted that my camera was a conjuring box, which would 
complete the work of the famine, yet he seemed perfectly indifferent to 
the consequences. 
A curious trait noticed among these survivors was their apparent 
loss of the customary fear which the natives usually show when near a 
spot where many persons haye died. The death of all their friends 
and relatives seemed to have rendered them apathetic and beyond the 
influence of ordinary fear of that kind. The two families mentioned 
were camped on the hill just above the village full of dead bodies, and 
whenever they went down to the shore to launch their umiak they were 
forced to pass close to the dead, yet they seemed oblivious to their 
gruesome surroundings. 
