Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/244

Rh my finger. On digging the drift away, I found a portion of a snow block that had been a snow door. As it had become but a fragment, of insufficient size to seal up the entrance from the took-soo, or passage-way, into the main igloo, slabs of 'black skin' had been piled up, to make up the deficiency of the snow block. Whether this was done by the deserted woman or not I cannot decide. There is a probability that the Innuits, who so cruelly abandoned her to her fate, nearly filled up the entrance, then withdrew, turned round, and, by means of their arms and hands, reaching within through the small opening, completed the sealing up, the last act being to place a block of snow in the small remaining crevice. "The woman, I doubt not, was so helpless as to be unable to get off the bed-platform from the time the Innuits left till her death. On the network over the fireplace was a single article—a pau-loo (mitten). Over the instrument used by the Innuits to contain their fire-light was hung a long iron pan in which to make snow-water. This contained ice, leaving the evidence that the woman's fire had ceased to burn, that the water had become frozen, and that, in order to quench her burning thirst, she had chipped ice from the pan (which hung close by her head as she lay in bed) by means of her oodloo (woman's knife). A tobacco-pipe was near her head also, apparently having been used just before she died. By her side—between her and the wall of the igloo—was a four-gallon tin can, containing articles of the character and variety possessed by every Innuit woman—needles, reindeer sinews (for thread), oodloo, beads, &c. &c. There was abundance of whale skin within the igloo, and so of ooksook with which to continue a fire; but all of it was down on the floor of the igloo, without the reach of the woman, if she were unable to get from her bed, which I presume was the case when the Innuits left her. The bedding was extremely scanty. Over her limbs was nought but an old sealskin jacket, over her body and shoulders the shreds of a tuktoo skin and piece of an old blanket. As I turned back the covering from her shoulders, I saw that she was reduced to