410 BURIAL. CHARACTER. 



always buried with them ; and sickly aged people are some- 

 times buried alive, as it is considered a kindness to spare 

 them the pain of a lingering death. The Esquimaux 

 observed by Captain Parry had a superstitious idea that any 

 weight pressing upon the corpse would give pain to the 

 deceased. * Such a belief would naturally give rise, in a more 

 favored country, to vaulted tumuli ; but in the extreme 

 north, the only result is that the dead bodies are but slightly 

 covered up, in consequence of which the foxes and dogs 

 frequently dig them up and eat them. This the natives regard 

 with the utmost indifference ; they leave the human bones 

 lying about near the huts, among those of animals which 

 have served for food ; another reason for doubting whether 

 their burial customs can be regarded as satisfactory evidence 

 of any very definite and general belief in a resurrection, or 

 whether the objects which they bury with their friends are 

 really supposed to be of actual use to them. On the whole, 

 the burial customs of the Esquimaux are curiously like those 

 of which we find evidence in the ancient tumuli of northern 

 and western Europe. 



In character the Esquimaux are a quiet, peaceable people. 

 Those observed by Ross in Baffin's Bay, -"could not be made 

 to understand what was meant by war, nor had they any 

 warlike weapons, "t Like other savages they resemble chil- 

 dren in a great many respects. They are such bad arithme- 

 ticians that the " enumeration of ten is a labour, and of fifteen 

 an impossibility with many of them/'J Dr. Rae, whose 

 partiality for the Esquimaux is well known, assures us that 

 if a man is asked the number of his children, he is generally 

 much puzzled. After counting some time on his fingers, 

 he will probably consult his wife, and the two often differ, 

 even though they may not have more than four or five. 



* I.e. pp. 395, 417, 550. f I.e. p. 186. J Parry, Lc. p. 251. 



