174 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



supposedly dead. He recovered after seven days and became in consequence 

 a very famous shaman. There is also a story of a native named lyillik who 

 announced that he would die and recover at the end of four days, but when 

 his people laid him out on top of a rock an animal with the body of a wolf and 

 the head of a polar bear came and devoured his corpse; so his prophecy came 

 to naught. Strangest of all is the tale of Akarak, a Kilusiktok Eskimo. A 

 spirit or the mahgnant shade of a dead man struck him on the nape of the neck 

 while he was hunting south of Bathurst inlet. He fell dead into a swanip and 

 his face was buried in the Water. There at sunset his son found him; his face 

 was blue, his hands were frozen stiff and his body was cold and dead. The son 

 caught hold of his ring finger with one hand and extended the arm, then laid 

 his other hand on Akarak's shoulder. Forthwith the latter's soul returned to 

 his body and he wa^ restored to life again. Then his son tied his quiver round 

 him and helped him to his feet. Stiff and sore he staggered home, leaning on 

 the younger man's shoulder. As soon as they arrived in camp the shamans 

 invoked their magic powers and restored the hunter to health again. Akarak 

 had been a fairly powerful shaman before this adventure, the natives said, but- 

 afterwards his prestige was greatly augmented. 



It so happened that I never witnessed the actual death and burial of a 

 Copper Eskimo. The natives of Bathurst inlet and farther east leave the corpse 

 inside the hut or tent and abandon the camp immediately. In 1913 two white 

 men, Radford and Street, were killed close to one of the small islands in Bathurst 

 inlet; thereafter the natives avoided this side of the island and camped instead 

 on the opposite side, fearing the white men's shades that still lingered round their 

 death place.^ In the Coppermine region and in Dolphin and Union strait the 

 Eskimos also leave the body inside the tent in summer and move on to another 

 camping ground. In winter, however, they lay the corpse out in the snow, and 

 build a wind-break of snow-blocks around it to protect it from, the weather. 

 Usually it is conveyed to the land a few days later and deposited on the beach 

 above highwater mark, though sometimes it is simply left neglected on the ice. 

 The relatives remain in their dwellings and mourn the day after the funeral, then 

 resume their ordinary occupations and try to forget their loss. Probably 

 certain taboos are observed, but my enquiries on the subject failed to yield any 

 information. 



Some or all of the dead man's implements are broken and laid on the ground 

 beside him for his use in the future hfe. The man is dead, the natives say, and 

 wants to have his implements dead also. Should he die outside his tent the 

 survivors build a wind-break of stones and sods around his corpse to keep it 

 warm, like the wind-break of snow in winter. In the summer of 1915 we found 

 an old camp site in south-west Victoria island where a woman had died many 

 years before. The tent had disappeared through the ravages of time, but its 

 broken poles were still lying on the ground. Near them was the woman's knife, 

 a hunter's bone pin for fastening the reticulum of the caribou when filled with 

 blood, a needle case and the toggle of a woman's belt. I would have taken two 

 of the tent sticks to use for fuel, but my companions protested that the dead 

 woman needed them to keep her warm. 



In a few places stone cairns are found protecting the corpse from the ravages 

 of birds and animals. Captain Bernard unearthed human bones and a few 

 implements from some cairns on Bell island in south-west Victoria island, where 

 he noticed also the ruins of houses built of wood and sods. Mr. Stefansson 

 discovered other cairns at Cape Parry and in Langton bay.^ Dr. Anderson 

 tells me that he never saw or heard of them farther west than this, logs of drift- 

 wood taking their place; he considered Langton bay as their western limit. 

 The Copper Eskimos, as far as I could learn, never cover their dead, so these 



•Report of the Bathurst Inlet Patrol, Ottawa, 1917. 

 'Anthrop. Papers, A.M.N.H., Vol. XIV, pt. I, p. 212, etc. 



