The imperfect arithmetic of these people, which resolves every number above ten into one comprehensive word, prevented our obtaining any very certain information respecting the population of this part of North America and its adjacent islands. The principal stations of these people not visited by us are Akkoolee, Toonoonee-roochiuh, Peelig, and Toonoonek, of whose situation I have already spoken. The first of these, which is the only one situated on the continent, lies in an indentation of considerable depth on the shores of the Polar Sea, running in towards Repulse Bay on the opposite coast, and forming with it the large peninsula situated like a bastion at the north-east angle of America, which I have named Melville Peninsula, in honour of Viscount Melville, the First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty. From what we know of the habits and disposition of the Esquimaux, which incline them always to associate in considerable numbers, we cannot well assign a smaller population than fifty souls to each of the four principal stations above-mentioned; and including these, and the inhabitants of several minor ones that were occasionally named to us, there may perhaps be three or four hundred people belonging to this tribe with whom we have never had communication. In all their charts of this neighbourhood they also delineate a tract of land to the eastward, and somewhat to the northward, of Igloolik, where they say the Seadlērmeoo, or strangers, live, with whom, as with the Esquimaux of Southampton Island, and all others coming under the same denomination, they have seldom or never any intercourse, either of a friendly or a hostile
nature. It is more than probable that the natives of the inlet called the river Clyde, on the western coast of Baffin’s Bay, are a part of the people thus designated; and, indeed, the whole of the numerous bays and inlets on that extensive and productive line of coast may be the residence of great numbers of Esquimaux, of whom these people possess no accurate information.
Whatever may be the abundance sometimes enjoyed by these people, and whatever the maladies occasioned by their too frequent abuse of it, it is certain that they occasionally suffer very severely from the opposite extreme. A remarkably intelligent woman informed Captain Lyon that two years ago some Esquimaux arrived at Igloolik from a place near Akkoolee, bringing information that during a very grievous famine one party of men had fallen upon another and killed them; and that they afterwards subsisted on their flesh while in a frozen state, but never cooked nor even thawed it. This horrible account was soon after confirmed by Toolemak on board the Fury; and though he was evidently uneasy at our having heard the story, and conversed upon it with reluctance, yet by means of our questions he was brought to name, upon his fingers, five individuals who had been killed on this occasion. Of the fact therefore there can be no doubt; but it is certain, also, that we ourselves scarcely regarded it with greater horror than those who related it; and the occurrence may be considered similar to those dreadful instances on record, even among civilised nations, of men devouring one another, in wrecks or boats, when rendered desperate by the sufferings of actual starvation.
The ceremony of crying, which has before been
mentioned as practised after a person’s death, is not, however, altogether confined to those melancholy occasions, but is occasionally adopted in cases of illness, and that of no very dangerous kind. The father of a sick person enters the apartment, and after looking at him for a few seconds without speaking, announces by a kind of low sob his preparation for the coming ceremony. At this signal every other individual present composes his features for crying, and the leader of the chorus then setting up a loud and piteous howl, which lasts about a minute, is joined by all the rest, who shed abundant tears during the process. So decidedly is this a matter of form, unaccompanied by any feeling of sorrow, that those who are not relatives shed just as many tears as those that are; to which may be added that in the instances which we witnessed there was no real occasion for crying at all. It must therefore be considered in the light of a ceremony of condolence, which it would be either indecorous or unlucky to omit.
I have already given several instances of the little care these people take in the interment of their dead, especially in the winter season; it is certain, however, that this arises from some superstitious notion, and particularly from the belief that any heavy weight upon the corpse would have an injurious effect upon the deceased in a future state of existence; for even in the summer, when it would be an easy matter to secure a body from the depredations of wild animals, the mode of burial is not essentially different. The corpse of a child observed by Lieutenant Palmer, he describes “as being laid in a regular but shallow grave, with its head to the north-east. It was decently dressed in a good deer-skin jacket,
and a seal-skin, prepared without the hair, was carefully placed as a cover to the whole figure, and tucked in on all sides. The body was covered with flat pieces of limestone, which, however, were so light that a fox might easily have removed them. Near the grave were four little separate piles of stones, not more than a foot in height, in one of which we noticed a piece of red cloth and a black silk handkerchief, in a second a pair of child’s boots and mittens, and in each of the others a whalebone pot. The face of the child looked unusually clean and fresh, and a few days only could have elapsed since its decease.”
These Esquimaux do not appear to have any idea of the existence of One Supreme Being, nor indeed can they be said to entertain any notions on this subject, which may be dignified with the name of Religion. Their superstitions, which are numerous, have all some reference to the preternatural agency of a number of toōrngŏw, or spirits, with whom, on certain occasions, the Angetkooks pretend to hold mysterious intercourse, and who in various and distinct ways are supposed to preside over the destinies of the Esquimaux. On particular occasions of sickness or want of food the Angetkooks contrive, by means of a darkened hut, a peculiar modulation of the voice, and the uttering of a variety of unintelligible sounds, to persuade their countrymen that they are descending to the lower regions for this purpose, where they force the spirits to communicate the desired information. The superstitious reverence in which these wizards are held, and a considerable degree of ingenuity in their mode of performing their mummery, prevent the detection of the imposture, and secure implicit confidence in these absurd oracles. My
friend Captain Lyon having particularly directed his attention to this part of their history during the whole of our intercourse with these people, and intending to publish his Journal, which contains much interesting information of this nature, I shall not here enter more at large on the subject. Some account of their ideas respecting death, and of their belief in a future state of existence, have already been introduced in the course of the foregoing pages, in the order of those occurrences which furnished us with opportunities of observing them.