ESKIMO OF Hudson's strait. 227 



As far as could be learned tbey believe in a supreme spirit who 

 rules over the earth and sky, and some minor spirits who rule the 

 tides and other changes in nature, wdth whom their Angekok has 

 power to converse. 



Of a future life they believed in a heaven and a hell, the former to 

 be a place where those go who do not lie and are good. This place is 

 southward where the sky and earth meet, where there is no snow, 

 plenty to eat, and no work to be done. Hell is a place where the 

 Avicked go especially those who have told lies and have done wrong to 

 their fellows. Here it is always snowing, is very cold, and those that 

 go there have to work as they did upon this earth. 



The Angekok is only a man or woman rather shrewder than their 

 fellows who exhorts the spirits to do whatever the people want, for 

 which service they are paid. They are treated with little or no 

 deference by their people excepting at times when they are employed. 

 An Angekok, who often tried to make me believe he was better than 

 his people, was entrapped by the rising tide one day while gathering 

 seaweed, and in spite of his influence with the spirits the tide con- 

 tinued to rise driving him back under a steep ice cliff, and being un- 

 able to scale it he perished miserably. 



During my stay in the Strait they we)'e never seen praying but 

 Ugaluk who often saw us at our prayers when told to whom we were 

 praying said his people did the same. 



One of their most interesting and peculiar religious customs is the 

 offering of food and other things to the spirits. By the graves of 

 many of their dead were found scraps of food, tobacco, powdei", shot 

 and other articles and at first it was supposed that these were offered 

 only to those who had died. To my surprise, however, a numljer of 

 like articles w^ere found upon the beacon we had built in the shape of 

 a man. Still more surprising was the fact that when we found two 

 cannons upon the shore near Cape Prince of Wales, that had un- 

 doubtedly been left by some of the early explorers, and standing 

 them on end a quantity of bullets, shot, and other rubbish rolled 

 out. On enquiry as to how this had got there I was informed it 

 had been given as an offering to the spirits. 



