avoid injury to themselves, partly in
order to place no hindrance in the way of the departed soul on its
journey to the other world.

They must weep and mourn for a stated time over the deceased; and if
they meet acquaintances or relatives whom they have not seen since the
death took place, they must, even if it be a long while after, begin
to weep and howl as soon as the newcomer enters the house. Such scenes
of lamentation must often be exceedingly ludicrous, and are, in fact,
the merest comedy, ending in a consolatory banquet. They have also many
other mourning customs, which exercise a tolerably powerful influence
upon their lives. Those, for example, who have carried out a body must
do no work in iron for several years. Moreover, we must remember the
before-mentioned dread of uttering the name of the deceased.

The great object of all this is no doubt, as the East Greenlanders
said to Holm, 'to keep the dead from being angry;' whence we see what
a powerful influence over this life they attribute to the departed.
There is, therefore, nothing improbable in the theory that the whole
belief in the tornat and tornarssuk may have developed from this fear.
In process of time, however, other kinds of superstition have doubtless
come to play a part in the matter.

The Greenlanders believe in a whole host of other supernatural beings.
Of these I can only mention a few.

Marine animals are under the sway of a gigantic woman whom some call
'the nameless one,' others _Arnarkuagssak_, which simply means 'the old
woman.'

Her dwelling is under the sea, where she sits beside a lamp under which,
as under all Greenland lamps, there is a saucer or stand to catch
the dripping train-oil. In this saucer whole flocks of sea-birds are
swimming, and out of it proceed all the sea animals, such as the seal,
the walrus, and the narwhal. When certain impurities gather in her
hair, she keeps the sea animals away from the coasts, or they remain
away of their own accord, attracted by the impurities; and it is then
the angekok's difficult d