570 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, with devices. They appear to have no king or governor, but, like the 
patriarchal tribes, to venerate and obey the aged. They have some 
Get. times a great fear of the old women who pretend to witchcraft. 
It seems probable that their religion is the same as that of the 
Eastern Esquimaux, and that they have similar conjurers and sor- 
cerers. We may infer that they have an idea of a future state, from 
the fact of their placing near the graves of their departed friends the 
necessary implements for procuring a subsistence in tliis world, such as 
harpoons, bows and arrows, caiacs, &c. and by clothing the body decently ; 
and from the circumstance of musical instruments being suspended 
to the poles of the sepulchres, it would seem that they consider such 
state not to be devoid of enjoyments. Their mode of burial differs 
from that of the Eastern Esquimaux, who inter their dead ; whereas 
these people dispose the corpse upon a platform of wood, and raise a 
pile over it with young trees. The position in which the bodies are 
laid also differs; the head being placed to the westward, while in the 
eastern tribes it lies to the north-east. 
They are taller in stature than the Eastern Esquimaux, their average 
height being about five feet seven and a half inches. They are also a 
better looking race, if I may judge from the natives 1 saw in Baffin’s Bay, 
and from the portraits of others that have been published. At a com- 
paratively early age, however, they (the women in particular) soon lose 
this comeliness, and old age is attended with a haggard and care-worn 
countenance, rendered more unbecoming by sore eyes, and by teeth 
worn to the gums by frequent mastication of hard substances. 
They differ widely in disposition from the inhabitants of Igloolik 
and Greenland, being more continent, industrious, and provident, and 
rather partaking of the warlike, irascible, and uncourteous temper of the 
Tschutschi. Neither do they appear by any means so deficient in 
filial affection as the natives of Igloolik, who as soon as they com- 
menced their summer excursions left their aged and infirm to perish 
in the villages ; of whom it will be recollected that one old man, in 
particular, must have fallen a victim to this unnatural neglect, had not 
his horrible fate been arrested by the timely humanity of the com- 
mander of the polar expedition. 
