Godthaab who, playing one day with several others in the neighbourhood of his mother's grave, suddenly saw a shape rising up from it. He and the others took to their heels, but the ghost ran after them, caught her son, 'embraced him, kissed him, and said, "Do not be frightened of me; I am your mother, and love you";' with more to the same effect.
Their customs at the death and burial of their friends show how much they fear the dead, and especially their souls or ghosts. The dying are often dressed in their graveclothes—that is to say, in their best garments—a little while before death. The legs too, are often bent together, so that the feet come up under the back, and in this position they are sewed or swathed in skins. The object is, no doubt, that they may take up less space and need a smaller grave; and it is done during their life in order that the survivors may have to handle their corpses as little as possible. This dread of touching a dead body goes so far (as before mentioned on page 137) that they will not help a man in danger—for example, a kaiak-man who is drowning—when they believe that he is at the point of death.
When they are finally dead, they are taken, if it be in a house, out through the window; if in a tent, through an opening cut in the skins of the back
