110 TUENEE ON THE INDIANS 



wider thau the hips, the body usually straight-lined. The chest is generally flat. Their 

 hair is black, coarse and abundant, occasionally disposed to waviness, though this is more 

 especially noticeable in the women than in the men ; and is, doubtless, due to their pecu- 

 liar manner of wearing the hair on a piece of curved wood about which it is rolled. 



The number of this tribe is nearly three hundred and fifty souls, the females slightly 

 preponderating. Each sex has its allotted work, and one sex is seldom seen assisting the 

 other. The men spend their time in hunting and fishiug. The abundance of game 

 in the country, and of fish in the streams and lakes, insures with but little exertion a 

 plentiful supply of food ; but as only certain individuals are fired with a desire to procure 

 their subsistence, the others are, at times, compelled to pass stormy days with little food 

 in the tent. 



The men hunt the reindeer, fur-bearing mammals, and the various birds, principally 

 ptarmigan, for food. The reindeer lorms the principal source of the food supply, and 

 affords skins suitable for conversion into garments well adapted to the climate. No man 

 or youth is considered worthy of honor unless he has slain a reindeer ; and not until he 

 has done so is he entitled to take a wife. 



The means adopted to procure these deer are by preparing nooses, or snares, suspended 

 from the trees or biishes in the defiles through which the creatures are made to pass ; and, 

 by entangling their horns or feet within the noose, the reindeer is securely held until the 

 hunter A^isits the scene. In a favorable situation, these nooses may be set so as to secure a 

 victim for each one. Some amusing incidents are related of the antics of the reindeer 

 when the noose tightens over his antlers. Another method is to spear them as the creatures 

 swim the streams and lakes in quest of food or the opposite sex, or to drive them into a 

 snow-drift and attack them with the spear, the hunter on his snow-shoes being able to 

 pass over the surface without sinking. The gun has taken the place of the bow^ and 

 arrow, but as the weapon now employed is of an inferior quality its shooting power is 

 limited. 



The number of reindeer wantonly killed is astonishingly great. It appears, however, 

 to make no appreciable difference in the number annually slain. The women flay the 

 deer, cut the meat into thin slices and hang it within the tent and over the fire to dry and 

 smoke. They dress the skins of these creatures, and convert the pelts into garments, or 

 else into buckskin and parchment ; in the latter case the skins are stiff" and not pliable 

 as in the former. The skins are dressed by a process peculiar to this people. The green 

 skins, just as they are taken from the body, are placed in piles where partial decompo- 

 sition ensues and the hair is loosened in its follicle ; the skin is now placed upon a log 

 and the hair remoA'ed by means of an instrument prepared from the leg-bone of the 

 deer. A portion of the cylindrical bone is removed lengthwise ; the two edges are thus 

 left sharp, one, however, is dull, and with the other edge pressed against the lay of the 

 hair, the operator pushes from her body and the edge removes the hair from the skin. The 

 instrument is similar in appearance to the spokeshave of the w^heelwright. If the skin is 

 to be used for clothing, the hair is left on it for the winter garments of both sexes. In 

 either condition of skin the muscles and adherent fleshy particles must be removed before 

 the pelt can acquire the desired pliability. An instrument is specialljr made for remoA'- 

 ing that part. The heel-bone is cut very oblic[uely at the lower end, so that the fiat edge 

 may form a blade, which is ground sharp and then finely serrated. A strap-like loop is 



