e ancient rite of exorcising oppressed
persons, houses and other places supposed to be haunted by unwelcome
spirits, the form of which is still retained in the Roman ritual? And is
not our enlightened America "the land of spiritualists, mesmerism,
soothsaying and mystical congregations"?

When the native of Saint Michael's invokes the moon, or the native of
Point Barrow his crude images previously to hunting the seal, in order
to bring good luck, is not the mental and emotional impulse the same as
that which actuates more civilized men to look upon "outward signs of an
inward and spiritual grace," or not to start upon any important
undertaking without first invoking the blessing of Deity? And are not
the rites observed by the natives on the Siberian coast, when the first
walrus is caught, the counterpart of our Puritan Thanksgiving Day?

Perhaps the untutored Eskimo has the same fear of the dangerous and
terrible, the unknown, the infinite, as ourselves, and parts with life
just as reluctantly: but it cannot be said that our observation favors
the fact of his longevity, although long life seems to prevail among
some of the circumpolar tribes, the Laps, for instance, who, according
to Scheffer, in spite of hard lives enjoy good health, are long-lived,
and still alert at eighty and ninety years.--(De Medecina Laponum.)

Owing to his hard life, the conflict with his circumstances and his want
of foresight, the Eskimo soon becomes a physiological bankrupt, and his
stock of vitality being exhausted, his bodily remains are covered with
stones, around which are placed wooden masks and articles that have
been useful to him during life, as I have seen at Nounivak island, or
they are covered with driftwood as observed in Kotzebue sound, or as at
Tapkan, Siberia, where the corpse is lashed to a long pole and is taken
some distance from the village, when the clothes are stripped off,
placed on the ground and covered with stones. The cadaver is then
exposed in the open air to the tender mercies of crows, foxes and
wolves. The weapons and other personal effects of the decedent are
placed near by, probably with something of the same sentiment that
causes us to use chaplets of flowers and immortelles as funeral
offerings--a custom that Schiller has commemorated in "Bringet hier die
letzen Gaben."

The future destiny of these people is a question in which the theologian
and politician are not less interested than the man of science.