Note 18 — NARRATIVE, &c. &c. (continued 2)

This practice was common to almost all the antient world; especially to the Celtic and Gothic tribes, as manifested by the antiquities now found in their sepulchres. Possibly, therefore, the Asiatic origin of the Esquimaux may hence be deduced. The same custom also exists among the Greenlanders; who are, in fact, a branch of the Esquimaux. “They like,” says Crantz, “to make the grave in some remote high place, laying a little moss upon the bare ground (for the rock admits of no digging), and spread a skin upon it. . . . . Near the burying spot they deposit the kajak and darts of the deceased, and the tools he daily used.”—See Crantz’s Greenland, vol. I. p. 237. London, 1767.