178 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. xi. 



humoured and neglected in moral training when young, as they grow up are 

 apt to become turbulent and bad members of society. As one of the most 

 effective means for training and forming the character of the Indian youth, 

 fasting seems to have been established and practised from time immemorial, 

 and prevailed, I am led to believe, universally among the Indian tribes of 

 this continent. As soon as children were thought capable of reasoning they 

 were required to practise fasting, imtil they were married. Besides their 

 regularly abstaining from food for so many days successively, at different 

 parts of the year, they were obliged to fast before they were allowed to take 

 any of the wild fruits of the earth, at the different seasons as they became 

 ripe. The same rule was observed with regard to the produce of the farm. 



' The Indians were most exact in enforcing their rules of fasting. With 

 young children it lasted the whole day, and if a child put anything in his 

 mouth during the day, as, for instance, snow or a piece of icicle which 

 children are very apt to do when playing in the open air in winter that 

 day went for nothing, the child was then permitted to eat, with strict in- 

 junctions to renew his fast the next day. It was also imposed as a punish- 

 ment upon those children who manifested a disposition to be disobedient 

 and disrespectful ; and was found an excellent means of discipline to make 

 children sensible of their duties, and exercised a wholesome restraint upon 

 the youth. With young men from sixteen to twenty-five years of age it was 

 no longer necessary to remind them of the practice. It was looked upon as 

 a duty by every young man, who had too much honourable feeling to sub- 

 mit to the sneers of his companions as a worthless glutton. They moreover 

 believed gluttony to be highly displeasing to the Great Spirit; and that, in 

 order to obtain special favours from him, it was absolutely necessary to 

 restrain the appetite. The young men frequently spent one or two months 

 during the winter in fasting, taking only one meal in the day after sunset. 

 In summer less time was spent, but the fast was more severe ; it lasted from 

 two to four and even five days, according to 'the strength of the individual. 

 On these occasions it was usual for the young men to withdraw from the 

 family residence to a retired spot, under the shade of a tree, where they 

 passed their time in fasting and contemplation. To this spot the mother 

 sometimes repaired with a small bunch of wild unripe berries, which she 

 suspended from a twig about a foot and a half from the ground, so that the 

 young man might have the poor consolation of fixing his eyes occasionally 

 upon them. The sight of these berries had the effect of watering the mouth 

 in the same way as we feel before tasting any unripe fruit, especially when 

 we have reason to suspect its being sour. The dreams of the last night 

 which terminated their regular fasting days at any time of the year were 

 considered the most important, and were carefully studied as revelations 

 from the Great Spirit. In the evening small wigwams were put up at a 

 little distance from the family residence, each just big enough for the 

 accommodation of one person. The youths who were practising the rite of 

 fasting had to take up their quarters in these lodges for the night, using, if 

 possible, only new furniture. Next morning it was the 'duty of the grand- 



