APPENDIX IV. 257 



All that is requisite is the sanction of the mother of the girl, 

 and often it is a matter of negotiation between lier and the 

 suitor when the girl is in her childhood. The father has no voice 

 in the matter whatever, nor any other of the girl's relatives. 



The tribes frequenting Peel's Eiver bury their dead on 

 stages, the corpse being securely enclosed in a rude coffin 

 made of hollowed trees." About the Youcon they were formerly 

 burnt, the ashes collected, placed in a bag, and suspended on 

 the top of a painted pole. Nightly wailings follow for a time, 

 when the nearest relative makes a feast, invites his friends, and 

 for a week or so the dead-dance is performed, and a funeral 

 dirge sung, after which all grief for the deceased is ended. I 

 witnessed their dance at the fort, and have been told by Qthers 

 that the dead-song is full of wild and plaintive strains, far 

 superior to the music of any other tribes in the country. 



Altars or rites of religion they had none, and, before the 

 traders went away there, not even an idea of a Grod to be wor- 

 shipped. Medicine-men they have, in whose powers they 

 placed implicit faith, and whose aid they dearly purchased in 

 seasons of sickness or distress. They were emphatically a 

 people ' without God in the world.' Knowing their prejudices, 

 I commenced my labours among them with much fear and 

 trembling, but earnestly looking to God for help and strength, 

 and cannot doubt that both were granted. For before I left, 

 the medicine-men openly renounced their craft, polygamists 

 freely offered to give up their wives, murderers confessed their 

 crimes, and mothers told of deeds of infanticide that sickened 

 one to hear. 



No. IV. 



THE ESQUIMAUX OF ANDERSON'S RIVER. 



Under date July 14, 1857, E. Macfarlane, Clerk at Fort 

 Good Hope, writes to James Alexander, Esq., Chief P'actor 

 Hon. H. H. Co., the following details respecting the Esquimaux — 



VOL. II. S 



