Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/187

 instance, when the supply of food at any particular place becomes exhausted, and through starvation the people are forced to go elsewhere in search of the necessaries of life, the aged or feeble, or those who have become too weak to travel, are left behind to perish. If, however, food is soon found, a portion is at once taken back, and after all, what more could be done, even by white people?

When an Eskimo dies at home in the igloe, his body is never taken away for burial by carrying it out through the doorway, but an opening must be made in the rear for its removal. The place chosen for the burial of the dead is some almost isolated point of land, a hilltop difficult of access, or some remote island where there is the least danger of the bodies being disturbed by wild beasts.

The deceased are first wrapped in their skin robes, then laid to rest and covered over with piles of stones.

At times these graves are made very large, while in other cases the bodies are barely covered over. Usually some kind of a memorial is raised over the grave: frequently a long stone, but more often a topick pole or paddle, to the top of which a flag or streamer is fixed to mark the last lonely resting-place of the departed.

Beside the lonely grave are placed the hunting implements of its occupant, and there, upon the dreary waste, imprisoned in his rocky tomb beneath the snows of many a winter storm, the poor Eskimo lies awaiting the sound of the last trumpet.