8 Social Life among our Aborigines. [ January, 
repeat the wailing afterwards at intervals, sometimes for several 
years. It seems to be in compliance with custom and independent 
of grief, which is often sincere and deep. 
The wooden vessel used for a certain purpose, and of which 
every Eskimo owns one, is invariably placed over his remains and 
usually broken. Other property is left about him, differing in 
amount according to the panic, if any, caused by sickness at the 
time; to his whole stock of worldly goods or to the grief of the 
mourners. The personal property of a wife goes back to her 
relations if they claim it, or is given away to the community. 
The house-fellows or the community, rather than the relatives, 
are the inheritors of property; which is more likely in the latter 
‘case to go to brothers than to children or wife of the deceased. 
These house-fellows being the persons who joined forces to build, 
and who jointly occupy and own the house, form a hittle society 
subsidiary to the village commune. These subordinate groups 
have in domestic affairs considerable importance. The most . 
important, oldest or wealthiest individual takes precedence of the 
others, and has always assigned to him the corner of the sleeping 
platform or space at the right hand of and next to the door. He 
~- settles disputes, directs the course of domestic affairs of the com- 
= mon household, meets strangers, assigns them their place on the 
sleeping platform and offers them refreshment by the hand of his 
= wife. There is a certain allegiance due him by all inmates who 
also have certain duties toward each other. 
This imperfect attempt at conveying some idea of the social 
thought and feeling of a barbarous people, may be followed here- 
after by additional matter of a similar nature, but for the present 
I will close by sketching the daily round of an Eskimo house- 
wife in early winter. Rising in the early hours when first a faint 
glimmer through the parchment cover of the smoke hole indi- 
cates the peep of dawn, her first care is to remove the necessary 
wooden vessels before alluded to, to the antechamber of the house 
where their contents are preserved for tanning and other useful 
purposes. This done she removes the cover of the smoke hole 
and searches the hearth, where carefully covered embers should 
= still be glowing, and if they are not extinguished, carefully gathers 
them together, places some light dry sticks upon them and going _ 
outside arouses the sleepers by pitching down a quantity of fuel — 
_ through the aperture in the roof. Before coming in she arranges | 
‘some bits of wood or boards so as to aid the draught through the 
