Ps se 7 > a 
426 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
The custom of covering the body with stones appears to be universally 
prevalent east of the Mackenzie region.' 
The bodies seen by Dr. Richardson in the delta of the Mackenzie 
were wrapped in skins and loosely covered with driftwood. and a sim- 
ilar arrangement was noticed at Kotzebue Sound by Beechey, who fig- 
ures’ a sort of little wigwam of driftwood built over the dead man. 
At Port Clarence Nordenskiéld* saw two corpses ** laid on the ground, 
fully clothed, without protection of any coffin, but surrounded by a 
close fence consisting of a number of tent-poles driven crosswise into the 
ground. Alongside one of the corpses lay a kayak with oars, a loaded 
double-barreled gun with locks at half-cock and caps on, various other 
weapons, clothes, tinder-box, snowshoes, drinking-vessels, two masks, 
* * * and strangely shaped animal figures.” On the Siberian coast 
the dead are sometimes burned.* 
Nordenskiéld believes that the coast Chukches have perhaps be- 
gun to abandon the custom of burning the dead. but I am rather in- 
clined to think that is a custom of the “*deermen,” which the people of 
the coast of pure or mixed Eskimo blood never fully adopted. Dall, 
indeed, was explicitly informed that the custom was only used with the 
bodies of ** good” inen, and at the time of Nordenski6ld’s visit he found 
it ‘at least certain that the people of Pitlekaj exclusively bury their dead 
by laying them out on the tundra.” The body is surrounded by an 
oval of stones, but apparently not covered with them as in the east.® 
The Krause brothers observed by the bodies, besides * die erwihnten 
Geriithschaften ” [Lanzen, Bogen und Pfeile fiir die Manner, Koch- und 
Hausgeriithe fiir die Weiber], ‘unter einen kleinen Steinhaufen ein 
Hunde-, Renthier-. Biiren- oder Walross-Schidel.” This custom shows a 
little Children die and are buried, they put the Head of a Dog near the 
curious resemblance to that described by Egede’ in Greenland: ** When 
Grave, fancying that Children, having no Understanding, they can not 
1 See the passage quoted from Bessels. for Smith Sound; Egede, Greenland, p. 148; Crantz’s History of 
Greenland, vol. 1, p. 237; East Greenland, Holm. Geografisk Tidskrift. vol. & p. 98, and Scoresby, 
Voyage to Northern Whalefishery. p. 213 (where he speaks of finding on the east coast of Greenland 
graves dug and covered with slabs of stone. Digging graves is very unusual among the Eskimo, as 
the nature of the ground on which they live usually forbids it. Parry mentions something similar at 
Tglulik: **The body was laid in a regular, but shallow grave, * * * covered with flat pieces of lime- 
stone” (Second Voyage. p. 551): Lyon, Journal, p. 268 (Iglulik): Kumlien, Contribution, p. 44 (Camber- 
land Gulf) ; Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 124 (Baffin Land): Rae Narrative, pp.22 and 187 (northwest shore 
of Hudson Bay), and Ellis, Voyage to Hudson's Bay, p- 148 (Marble Island). I myself have noticed the 
same custom at the old Eskimo cemetery near the Hudson Bay post of Rigolette, Hamilton Inlet, 
on the Labrador coast. Chappel. however. saw a body ‘‘closely wrapt in skins and laid in a sort of a 
gally,” Hudson’s Bay. p. 113 (north shore Hudson Strait), and Davis's account of what he saw in 
Greenland is as follows: **We found on shore three dead people, and two of them had their staues 
lying by them and their olde skins wrapped about them.” Hakluyt . Voyages. 1589, p: 788. 
? Franklin, Second Expedition, p. 192. 
3 Voyage, pl. opposite p. 332. 
+ Vega, vol. 2. p. 238, and figure of grave on p. 239. 
5 See Nordenskiéld. Vega, vol. 2. p. 88, and Dall, Alaska, p. 382. 
®See Nordenskiold, Vega, vol. 2. pp. 88-9 (Pitlekaj), and 225 (St. Lawrence Bay); Krause Bros., Geo- 
graphische Blatter, vol. 5, p. 18 (St. Lawrence Bay, East Cape, Indian Point, and Plover Bay) and Dall. 
Alaska, p. 382. 
7 Greenland, p. 151- See also Crantz, vol. 1, p. 237. 
