ESKIMO GRAVES. 263 



lowing extract from "The three voyages of Martin 

 Frobisher," second voyage, 1577, Hal<luyt Society, Lon- 

 don, 1867, p. 136 : 



" In one of the small islands here [near Lecester's 

 Hand in Beares sound] we founde a tombe, wherein the 

 bones of a dead man lay together, and our savage being 

 with us and demanded (by signes) whether his country- 

 man had not slain this man and eat his flesh so from the 

 bones, he made signes to the contrarie, and that he was 

 slain with wolves and wild beastes.'* 



Although it is generally stated that the Eskimos seldom 

 if ever bury their dead, the foregoing statement would 

 show that in early times at least they took pains to place 

 the corpse in stone tombs. I found at Hopedale, in 1864, 

 two skeletons, evidently Eskimo, interred in the follow- 

 ing manner : while walking over a high bare hill north- 

 east of the station I discovered a pole projecting from 

 what seemed a fissure in the rock ; it proved to be the 

 sign of an Eskimo grave ; the pole projected from the 

 chasm, which was about fifteen inches wide and twenty 

 or twenty-four inches in depth ; the opening was covered 

 by a few large stones laid across the fissure. At the 

 .bottom lay the remains of two skeletons entirely exposed 

 to the elements, with no soil over them. The skulls 

 were tolerably well preserved, and so were the long 

 bones, but the vertebrae, ribs, etc., had mostly decayed. 

 Judging by the way in which such objects are preserved 

 in the open air on this coast, the burial must have been 

 made at least over half a century ago, but more probably 

 from one to three centuries since. 



Mr. Holme found on Eskimo Island, twelve miles 

 west of Rigolet, about seventy graves. "These graves 



