324 



THE POr^AH WORIJ). 



A CltEE VILLAGE. 



The ordinary wigwams, skin tents, or " lodges " of the Tinne and Crees are 

 exactly ahke in form, being extended on poles set tip in a conical maimer; but 

 as a general rule the tents of the latter are more commodious and more fre- 

 quently su])plied with a fresh lining of the spray of the balsam-fir. They also 

 occasionally erect a larger dwelling of lattice-work, covered Avith birch-bark, in 

 which forty men or more can assemble for feasting, debating, or perfoi-ming 

 some of their reUgious ceremonies. The entire nation of the Eythin}iiwuk cul- 

 tivate oratory more than their northern neighbors, who express themselves more 

 simply and far less fluently. 



Vapor baths are in common use with the Crees, and form one of the chief 

 remedies of their medicine-men. The operator shuts himself up with his patient 

 in the small sweating-house — in which red-hot stones besprinkled with water, 

 and having a few leaves of a species oi j^runKS strewed around them, produce 

 a damp atmosphere of a stifling heat — and shampoos him, singing all the time a 

 kind of hymn. As long as the medicine-man can hold out, so long must the 

 patient endure the intense heat of the bath, and then, if the invalid be able to 

 move, they both plunge into the rivei". If the patient does not recover, he is at 

 least more speedily released from his sufferings by this powerful remedy. 



The Crees are a vain, fickle, improvident, indolent, and ludicrously boastful 

 race. They are also great gamblers, but, instead nf cards or dice, they play 

 "with the stones of a species of p7'i(jii(s. The difticulty lies in guessing the num- 

 ber of stones which are tossed out of a small wooden dish, and the hunters 

 will spend whole nights at this destructive sport, staking their most valuable 



