172 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute [vol. x 



those of America (and, indeed, of Kamtchatka, as we have just seen). 

 Our Indians follow an exactly similar custom: they put the bears' head 

 out of the reach of dogs or wolves, unclean animals with which contact 

 is defiling and therefore humiliating for the whole bear gens, which 

 would not fail thereafter to avoid giving the careless hunter another 

 opportunity of allowing such unbecoming treatment. 



Apropos of game and hunting, such of my present readers as may be 

 familiar with my previous writings will perhaps recollect how sharply 

 the hunting grounds of the Western D^nes are divided, and what re- 

 ligious attention must be paid to the traditional delimitations of the 

 same. Now John Ledyard writes of the Tungus that "they, and the 

 other roving Tartars, have the limits of their hunting grounds ascer- 

 tained and marked like the aborigines of North America".^ 



Another point of the native sociology seems identical, or at least 

 very similar, on both Asiatic and American continents. As long as 

 twenty-six years ago, I wrote in my first published paper on the D6nes 

 a rather elaborate account of the various potlatches, or ceremonial 

 banquets, in vogue among the Carriers and Babines. Such feasts were 

 no less in honour among the original Kamtchadales, if we are to believe 

 two joint authors I have already quoted. They write: "Les fetes de 

 rejouissance se font a I'occasion d'une noce, ou d'une heureuse chasse, 

 ou d'une peche abondante, a laquelle un village invite ses voisins fort 

 ceremonieusement. lis traitent leurs hdtes avec une si grande pro- 

 fusion et ceux-ci mangent avec tant d'exces qu'ils sont presque toujours 

 forces de rendre".- 



The reader may compare this statement with what I wrote on "The 

 Western Denes; their Manners and Customs".^ 



The funeral or remembrance of a departed friend is, among my 

 former Indians, the chief occasion of such public feasting. Something 

 akin thereto obtains among the Kirghis of Siberia, as we gather from a 

 perusal of Atkinson's Travels. We see therein that one of those feasts 

 "continued for seven days, during which other Sultans and Kirghis 

 were constantly arriving. It was supposed that near 2,000 people 

 assembled to assist at the funeral".^ 



1 John Ledyard, "Memoirs", p. 316. Amongst the Denes of old, the wolverine, 

 if caught, would be skinned alive, probably as a punishment for its misdeeds, for it is 

 a great thief and a perfect nuisance to the trapper (Petitot, Autour du Grand Lac des 

 Esclaves, p. 318), while, speaking of wolves, Hue says that, among the Tatars, "on 

 ecorche 1 'animal tout vif, puis on le met en liberte" {Op. ciL, vol. i, p. 134 of 1854 

 edition). 



* Grieve and Jefferys, op. cit., pp. 73-74. 



' Proceedings of the Can. Inst., 3rd Series, Vol. VII, pp. 147-53. 



* Op. cit., p. 65. 



