74 G- Holm. 



Death is not artificially accelerated, except when the patient 

 gets 'mad', that is to say talks in delirium. 



They told us how a clever young man in the winter had 'gone 

 mad' , the chief symptom of his madness being that he kept on 

 singing 'kavdlunak songs'. One day when the sea was very rough, 

 he was pushed into it by his mother and the headman. The 

 plunge into the sea restored him to his senses, and he struggled 

 hard to get to shore. He had already managed to raise the upper 

 part of his body above the water, when a heavy breaker caught 

 him and carried him away for good and all. 



When people fall seriously ill and there is no prospect of their 

 recovery, they get tired of their sufferings, and then they often put 

 an end to their lives by throwing themselves into the sea. They 

 are often prompted to take this step by a word of admonition 

 from their relatives, telling them that 'they have no longer any- 

 thing to live for . 



For internal diseases they know of no remedies; unless the 

 angakok performances, of which we shall hear more presently, are 

 to be reckoned as such. 



The remedies used for external diseases are few in number: 

 amongst them I may mention that of rubbing all kinds of wounds 

 with blubber. 



If 'dead flesh' forms in the wound, it is cauterised either by 

 applying to the wound blubber which has just been held in the 

 lamp, or by heating a knife in the lamp, then dipping it in train- 

 oil, and touching the wound with it; or, finally, the 'dead flesh' is 

 sometimes cut away with a knife. 



Death. — When a death occurs, the corpse is arrayed in its best 

 winter clothes. If it be a man, it is clothed in his kaiak frock; the hood 

 is drawn over the head, and the frock is tied together be- 

 tween the legs. A rawhide thong is fastened round the legs, and 

 the dead body is then quite unceremoniously dragged out through 

 the passage, or, in order to save trouble, through the window^). 



') In Egede's: "Grönlands Perlustration" (p. 84) we are informed лукЬ regard to 

 the heathen Greenlanders on the West coast: "When an\'one dies in a honse, 



he must not he carried out b}^ the passage-waj' but must be carried 



out b}' the window; and if he dies in a tent, he is carried out backwards". 

 This custom was also to be found amongst the Scandinavians. In "li\rbyggja" 

 {Grønlands historiske Mindesmærker III, p. 639) we find the following: "Then 

 he wrapped a cloth round Thorolf's head, and performed unto the corpse all 

 that belonged to tiie customs of that time. Then he had a hole made in tiie 

 wall behind the dead man and carried him out through if. In a note on this 

 l)assage in Grenlunds hisluriske Mindesm<rrker we find (p. 728): "This custom 

 is spoken of in several tales as being in use among the heatiien Icelanders". 



