st where my
friend Barlow was _facteur_ for so many years. His acquaintance with
the chieftain dated from an afternoon many years before, when he had
first seen him, steering his large oomiavik, or flat-bottomed boat, up
to the station, while his four lusty wives cheerily worked at the
sweeps with his eldest son--an almost regal procession. It was on that
same evening that he had told the _facteur_, after watching Mrs.
Barlow prepare the evening meal, "Ananaudlualakuk" ("She is much too
good for you"), and the frankness of his speech, far from seeming to
disparage his host, endeared the speaker all the more to that
hospitable and discerning person.

Kaiachououk possessed qualities which evoked the respect and
admiration of all with whom he came in contact. Very noticeable among
these was his affection for his family. To this day on the coast there
is a story told of him and his youngest wife. He had been camping on
their outside walrus-hunting station, and as was customary, he was
sometimes away two or three days at a time, having to take refuge on
one of the off-lying islands, if bad weather or the fickleness of
fortune involved longer distances to travel than he was able to
accomplish in a short winter's day. It was on his return from one of
these temporary absences that he was greeted with the news that his
youngest wife, Kajue, was very ill. One might have supposed that
having so generous a complement of that nature, the news would not
have afflicted him in the same degree as one less gifted. But exactly
the reverse proved to be the case. Kaiachououk was completely
prostrated; and when the girl died two days later, having failed to
make any rally in spite of all her husband's generous presents to
Angelok, he literally went out of his mind.

The Eskimo custom, still observed in the North, is to lay out the dead
in all their clothing, but with no other covering, on the rocky summit
of some projecting headland. The body thus placed on the surface of
the rocks is walled in with tall, flat stones standing on end, long,
narrow slits being left between them, so that air and light may freely
circulate, and the spirit of the departed may come and go at will and
keep watch on passing animals, whose spirits must serve the person in
the spirit land just as, when embodied, they paid tribute to the
needs and prowess of the dead. The top of the grave is also covered
with large, flat slabs; and in a small separate cache of simila