gl2 THE CENTRAL ESKIMO. 



these are buried in the snow or under stones. Neither parent is 

 allowed to eat raw flesh during the following year. The woman must 

 cook her food in a small pot which is exclusively used Ijy her. If she 

 is about to enter a hut the men who may be sitting inside must come 

 out first, and not until they have come out is she allowed to enter. 

 If she wants to go out of the hut she must walk around all the men 

 who may happen to be there. 



The child is sometimes named before it is born. Lyon says upon 

 this subject (p. 369): 



Some relative or Iriend lays her hand on the mother's stomach, and decides what 

 the infant is to be called, and, as the names serve for either sex, it in of no conse- 

 quence whether it proves a girl or a boy. 



On Davis Strait it is always named after the persons who have died 

 since the last birth took place, and therefore the number of names of 

 an Eskimo is sometimes rather large. If a relative dies while the 

 child is younger than four years or so, his name is added to the old 

 ones and becomes the proper name by which it is called. It is 

 possible that children receive the names of all the persons in the 

 settlement who die while the children are quite young, but of this 

 I am not absolutely certain. When a person falls sick the angakiit 

 change his name in order to ward off the disease or they consecrate 

 him as a dog to Sedua. In the latter event he gets a dog's name and 

 must wear throughout life a harness over the inner jacket. Thus it 

 may happen that Eskimo are known in different tribes by different 

 names. It may also be mentioned here that friends sometimes ex- 

 change names and dogs are called by the name of a friend as a token 

 of regard. 



The treatment of the sick is the task of the angakoq, whose manip- 

 ulations have been described. 



If it is feared that a disease will prove fatal, a small snow house 

 or a hut is built, according to the season, into which the patient is 

 carried throiigh an opening at the back. This opening is then closed, 

 and subsequently a door is cut out. A small quantity of food is 

 placed in the hut, but the patient is left without attendants. As 

 long as there is no fear of sudden death the relatives and friends may 

 come to visit him, but when death is impending the house is shut 

 up and he is left alone to die. If it should hai^isen that a person dies 

 in a hut among its inmates, everything belonging to the hut must be 

 destroyed or thrown away, even the tools &c. lying inside becoming 

 useless to the survivors, but the tent poles may be used again after a 

 year has elapsed. No doubt this custom explains the isolation of 

 the sick. If a child dies in a hut and the mother immediately 

 rushes out with it, the contents of the hut may be saved. 



Though the Eskimo feel the greatest awe in touching a dead body, 

 the sick await their death with admirable coolness and without the 



