BOAS.) TAI.E OF ITITAUJANG. 615 



death, and even then only when all the surviving members of the family have re- 

 moved to another place. Whenever they return to the vicinity of their kindred's 

 grave, a visit is made to it with the best of food as a present for the departed one. 

 Neither seal, polar bear, nor walrus, however, is taken. 



According to Klutscliak (p. 154:), the natives of Hudson Bay avoid 

 staying a long time on the salt water ice near the grave of a relative. 



On the fourth day after death the relatives may go for the first 

 time upon the ice, but the men are not allowed to hunt; on the 

 next day they must go sealing, but without dogs and sledge, walking 

 to the hunting ground and dragging the seal home. On the sixth 

 day they are at liberty to use their dogs again. For a whole year 

 they must not join in any festival and are not allowed to sing certain 

 songs. 



If a married woman dies the widower is not permitted to keep 

 any part of the first seal he catches after her death except the flesh. 

 Skin, blubber, bones, and entrails must be sunk in the sea. 



All the relatives must have new suits of clothes made and before 

 the others are cast away they are not allowed to enter a hut without 

 having asked and obtained permission. (See Appendix, Note 7.) 



Lyon (p. 3U8) makes the following statement on the mourning cere- 

 monies in Iglulik : 



Widows are forbidden for six months to taste of unboiled flesh ; they wear no 

 * * * pigtails, and cut off a portion of their long hair in token of grief, while the 

 remaining locks hang in loose disorder about their shoulders. * * * After six 

 months, the disconsolate ladies are at liberty to eat raw meat, to dress their pigtails 

 and to marry as fast as they please ; while in the meantime they either cohabit with 

 fheir future husbands, if they have one, or distribute their favors more generally. 

 A widower and his children remain during three days within the hut where his 

 wife died, after which it is customary to remove to another. He is not allowed to 

 fish or hunt for a whole season, or in that period to marry again. During the three 

 days of lamentation all the relatives of the deceased are quite careless of then- 

 dress; their hair hangs wildly about, and, if possible, they are more than usually 

 dirty in their persons. All visitors to a moui'ning family consider it as indispensa- 

 bly necessary to howl at their first entry. 



I may add here that suicide is not of rare occurrence, as according 

 to the religious ideas of the Eskimo the souls of those who die by 

 violence go to Qudlivun, the happy land. For the same reason it is 

 considered lawful for a man to kill his aged parents. In suicide 

 death is generally brought about by hanging. 



TALES AMD TRADITIONS. 



ITITAUJANG. 



A long, long time ago, a young man, whose name was Ititaujang, 

 lived in a village with many of his friends. When he became 

 grown he wished to take a wife and went to a hut in which he 

 knew an orphan girl was living. However, as he was bashful and 

 was afraid to speak to the young girl himself, he called her little 



