Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/211

 CHAPTER XIII.

I this chapter with the sketch from my diary of a sad scene which passed under my observation:—

"October 28th, 1861.—This morning, or during the night, ' Mam-ma-yat-che-ung,' 'Mary,' the wife of 'Sharkey,' died. This Innuit woman has long been an invalid. Her disease was consumption, one that is carrying off more Innuits than all other diseases together. Some months ago it was thought she could not survive long; the Innuits gave her up, I may add, as one dead. Her wing-a—husband—Sharkey, though all his previous conduct was kind to her, gave her up as dead. A tupic was made, and into it Mary was removed; it was her living tomb! Sharkey took to himself another wife. For weeks and weeks Mary lived helpless and almost starving. Occasionally some few of the Innuits would carry this dying woman morsels of seal, duck, or walrus. Of course, all that was valuable or convenient for Mary's comfort was taken away when the Innuits carried her to the 'house of her death,' for it is their custom to leave everything in the tupic or igloo where one of their number dies as unfit to be touched ever after. Mary must have died during the night, for when Suzhi called this morning at the tupic with cooked meituk—duck—sent her by Tookoolito, no answer was made, and, on looking in, Suzhi saw that she was dead. Innuit custom will not permit