The people of Oonalashka bury their dead on the summits of hills, and raise a little hillock over the grave.  In a walk into the country, one of the natives, who attended me, pointed out several of these receptacles of the dead.  There was one of them, by the side of the road leading from the harbour to the village, over which was raised a heap of stones.  It was observed, that every one who passed it, added one to it.  I saw in the country several stone-hillocks, that seemed to have been raised by art.  Many of them were apparently of great antiquity.

What their notions are of the Deity, and of a future state, I know not.  I am equally unacquainted with their diversions; nothing having been seen that could give us an insight into either.

They are remarkably cheerful and friendly amongst each other, and always behaved with great civility to us.  The Russians told us, that they never had any connections with their women, because they were not Christians.  Our people were not so scrupulous; and some of them had reason to repent that the females of Oonalashka encouraged their addresses without any reserve; for their health suffered by a distemper that is not unknown here.  The natives of this island are also subject to the cancer, or a complaint like it, which those whom it attacks are very careful to conceal.  They do not seem to be long-lived.  I no where saw a person, man or woman, whom I could suppose to be sixty years of age; and but very few who appeared to be above fifty.  Probably their hard way of living may be the means of shortening their days.

I have frequently had occasion to mention, from the time of our arrival in Prince William’s Sound, how remarkably the natives, on this north-west side of America, resemble the Greenlanders and Esquimaux, in various particulars of person, dress, weapons, canoes, and the like.  However, I was much less struck with this, than with the affinity which we found subsisting between the dialects of the Greenlanders and Esquimaux, and those of Norton’s Sound and Oonalashka.  This will appear from a table of corresponding words which I put together.

It must he observed, however, with regard to the words which we collected on this side of America, that too much stress is not to be laid upon their being accurately represented; for, after Mr Anderson’s death, we had few who took much pains about such matters; and I have frequently found, that the same words written down by two or more persons, from the mouth of the same native, on being compared together, differed not a little.  But still, enough is certain, to warrant this judgment, that there is great reason to believe, that all these nations are of the same extraction; and if so, there can be little doubt of there being a northern communication of some sort, by sea, between this west side of America and the east side, through Baffin’s Bay, which communication, however, may be effectually shut up against ships by ice, and other impediments.  Such, at least, was my opinion at this time.[23]