CANADIAN ENVIRONMENT OF THE OUANANICHE 133 



either Spirit. "When the chase turns out badly, or 

 anything else connected with their small concerns 

 goes wrong, it is the work of the Evil Spirit, who 

 must consequently be propitiated. The Good Spirit 

 never causes them a moment's consideration ; he is 

 simply their presiding genius when all goes well, and 

 there is nothing whatever to be gained by troubling 

 themselves about him at all. He would never do 

 them any harm in any case, and consequently there 

 is no object in trying to propitiate him. These Eski- 

 mos never bury their dead, notwithstanding the efforts 

 made by the few whites upon the coast to induce 

 them so to do. The remains of their dead friends 

 are simply carried back from the shore and left upon 

 the ground, generally upon some little eminence, 

 where boulders are often placed over them. Some 

 of them now enclose their dead in rough coffins, but 

 until quite recent times the coffin was unknown to 

 their funeral arrangements. In order that the de- 

 ceased may not be without the means of securing 

 his game upon the happy hunting-grounds to which 

 he has gone, his gun is left within an arm's length of 

 him, and his kayak or skin-covered canoe is placed so 

 near as to be always available — not for the crossing 

 of the Styx or the Acheron, but rather for the use of 

 the dead hunter in his expeditions in and about his 

 new abode, where his surviving friends at least are 

 not of the opinion that " there shall be no more sea." 

 Not infrequently have they persuaded themselves 

 that the departed have had need, in the great beyond, 

 of the canoe, the gun, and the other implements of 

 the chase that were placed at their disposal. And 



