The religious ideas of the Innuits are very vague. They believe that there is one Supreme Being who created the earth, sea, and stars; and also a secondary divinity, his daughter, who created all things having life, whether animal or vegetable. She is the tutelary deity of the Innuits. They believe in a heaven and a hell, but have no very well defined ideas about them. According to Tookoolito, heaven was upward; it is light there all the time, and there are no ice or storms. Hell is downward; no sun there, but storms and snows all the while; it is cold, and there is a great deal of ice there. Any one who has been killed by accident goes straight to heaven. They have a kind of priests, or rather conjurers, called Angekos, whose business is to charm away sickness, and secure good hunting-seasons, with an abundance of seals, walrus, and deer, and an early disappearance of the ice. When his services are called for, he is always, like a wise man, careful to get his pay in advance, and it is generally understood that the success of his incantations depends greatly upon the amount of his fee.
158. FINDING THE DEAD.
Upon the whole, the Innuits must be regarded as an amiable and kindly people. They are exceedingly tender parents, and not unaffectionate husbands and wives. The main exception to their general kindness is their treatment of the aged and infirm. When one, especially a woman, is hopelessly sick or infirm, she is not unfrequently abandoned. Mr. Hall relates several incidents of this kind which came within his own knowledge. In one case the husband, when he found that his wife was hopelessly sick of consumption, abandoned her, and took another while the poor creature was still alive. The deserted woman lingered several weeks, supplied with food by the neighbors. In another case a sick woman, in the depth of winter, was left behind in an igloo, with a small quantity of provisions. Hall, learning of this, made an attempt to go to her rescue. But in the mean time a heavy snow-storm had come on, and the igloo was entirely buried, so that no traces of it could be found. A few days after, Hall, accompanied by Ebierbing, made another attempt. The spot was finally found, though the snow lay level above the ice-hut, the position of which could be ascertained only by exploring with their spears. They broke through the roof, and, looking down, saw the woman frozen as solid as a marble statue. She had been dead for days, and the indications showed that she had perished from cold very soon after being abandoned. There were supplies of whale-skin for food, and blubber to keep up the fire, but she was too feeble to rise from the bed and replenish the lamp.
159. INNUIT SUMMER VILLAGE.
The Innuits of the present day are a purely nomadic race, roaming from place to place, following the seal, walrus, and deer. But their wanderings appear to be confined to the region of the coast, never extending far into the interior. Their dwellings are therefore constructed for mere temporary occupation, being snow-huts (igloos) for winter, and tents (tupics) for summer. But there are indications in the form of trenches and excavations which show that they formerly led a more settled life, and constructed more permanent habitations. Their numbers have been gradually diminishing ever since they have come into contact with the whites. How this comes to pass is a mystery. There is nothing to show that the climate has become more rigorous, or that the animals which constitute their food have grown scarcer or less easy of capture. The Indians of America have been destroyed by the occupation of their hunting-grounds, by whisky, and the small-pox, introduced by the whites. The natives of the South Sea Islands have been eaten up by nameless diseases, contracted from their licentious white visitors. There is scarcely a trace of either drunkenness or licentiousness among the Innuits. Consumption is the great destroyer among them; but we can see no reason why this should be more prevalent now than it was generations ago.
160. RETURNING TO THE SHIP.
It seems that in former times there were chiefs among the Innuits, but at the present time there is no trace of any thing like government among them. In each community there is usually some one who, from age, personal prowess as a hunter, or native shrewdness, is looked up to with respect, and his opinions are regarded with deference; but he has no sort of authority except that which each person voluntarily concedes to him.