144 PROCEEDIXGS OF THE CAN'ADIAX INSTITUTE. 



XIY. 



The D^nes of the old stock were generally bng lived. As a proof 

 of this, I need only to adduce the fact that last year there died at 

 this place a man who remembered" the arrival in this country of Sir 

 Alexander MacKenzie in 1793. Many of the diseases which have 

 since proved so fatal to the aborigines were then unknown. Those 

 which sometimes visited them, had in the vegetable kingdom their 

 known antidotes, the quintessence of which may bo comprised in the 

 "word " purgative." They possessed also valued astringents in the 

 -castorum pods of the beaver and in the roots of heracleum, etc. 



When these remedies, joined to the incantations of the " medicine- 

 man " failed and death seemed imminent, the moribund's relatives 

 were hastily summoned around his death bed. Supposing he was 

 a tceneza the above mentioned hereditary family song was struck up 

 l>y some person outside of his clan and was continued by exo-clansmen 

 till he expired, while his relatives would then rend the air with many 

 doleful wailings. As soon as he had passed away, two young men 

 also of a different clan, were deputed to announce the news to the 

 neighbouring villages. All of the people of these places that were 

 fellow-clansmen of the departed notable were then expected to make 

 presents to the messengers as a compensation for their ti-ouble, after 

 which the whole population Avould turn out in a body and come for- 

 wai'd to mourn the defunct tceneza around the remains and at the 

 same time console his relatives. To this end, while the deceased co- 

 clansmen were lamenting their loss, a man of another clan would rise 

 from the crowd and commence to dance to the tune of an improvised 

 song. This was intended as a diversion to the mournei's' feelings, 

 and, as the strictest point of the Carriers' moral law ia " nothing for 

 nothing," the latter would immediately throw at the dancer any object 

 ]ie might intentionally mention in his chant and which thus became 

 his property. This dance and giving away being repeated several 

 times on several consecutive nights, the strangers would, if in winter- 

 time (or even during the summer, if the moui'ners were not prepared 

 for the occasion) return to their respective villages, '^and the remains 

 would be provisionally placed at some distance from the habitations 

 Tinder a bark roof-like "shelter" bv the side of which the widow 



