CAEEIEE SOCIOLOGY. 11 S 



whole establishment ; so every village asked for and obtained from that personage what 

 is now called a chief. As that trading company's officers and, no doubt, some of their 

 employees as well, wore finger-riugs, the Carriers thought to raise themselves in the social 

 scale by making for themselves and wearing such previously unknown ornaments ; and 

 as copper was rather rare amongst them, they substituted therefor boiled caribou horn, 

 which circumstance accounts for the fact that a ring of such material was lately found 

 here.' 



If potlaching and old-fashioned dancing did not at once fall into desuetude, it was 

 because both were countenanced by the North- West Company and, later on, the Hudson 

 Bay Company people, who, the better to keep the natives under subjection, gave 

 themselves every year a kind of tobacco potlach, in connection wherewith the traditional 

 differences of rank among the receivers were scrupulously observed, and more than once 

 found a welcome recreation in attending the dances and other amusements of the Indians. 

 So that our Carriers were perfectly justifiable if they supposed that both potlach and dance 

 were as much in honour in the country of the whites as the peculiar rank privileges which 

 the latter unconsciously helped to perpetuate. 



As the foreign traders had only one wife, the natives, who seemed to have but one 

 ambition — that of raising themselves to the standard of their social superiors — abandoned 

 polygamy even before any minister of religion had set foot among them. So they acted 

 with regard to the cremation of the dead, which, to imitate the whites, they replaced by 

 interment, and that so soon and so spontaneously that I doubt whether there now lives 

 among them an eye-witness of the traditional ceremony. 



With the arrival of the missionaries, what remained of their old customs gradually 

 gave way : ceremonial paraphernalia were burnt ; sequestration of women was stopped ; 

 in most cases landed estates were parcelled out to heads of families, and, in general, such 

 practices as were distinctively aboriginal and unconnected with, or resulting from, human 

 frailty, disappeared as if by enchantment. To-day it is considered insulting among the 

 Carriers to be called an Indian, and, in their estimation, a person of Caucasian descent is 

 no more a white man than the redskin who conforms to European social notions. Their 

 innate power of imitation and propensity for self-betterment have also led them into 

 appreciating the value of literary knowledge. They now read and write their own 

 language, and even support a monthly periodical of their own. 



As regards their present material condition, this much can be said : that, as a rule, their 

 houses are just as well built, and often quite as comfortable, as those of any white man 

 who ever ventured in their country. They possess horses and cattle, which they keep in 

 stables and feed at the cost of much personal exertion during their long winters. Close 

 by their habitations some of them have regular carpenter shops, wherein they turn out 

 si^ch difficult work as window-sashes, fancy boxes, etc., while in every village a number 

 boast the possession of sleighs, c\itters, pack-saddles (and, among the Chi[Koh'tin, riding- 

 saddles) of their own manufacture. They dress well, insist upon getting such garments, 

 household utensils and working tools as are the most in vogue among white men ; and, 

 in a few cases, it is even amusing to see some of them attired in their best clothes parading 

 the village street, cane in hand, as a dandy would in some fashionable resort. 



' Stuart's Lake, where the author is stationed. 



