96 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



Bay, and extends in its various tribes and dialects down to 

 the arctic. Of these tribes the chief are Chipewyan, Yellow- 

 Knives, Dog-Ribs, Slaveys, Hare, Caribou -Eaters, whose 

 language has mere dialectic differences. Then there are 

 the Loucheux, on the Mackenzie River, which have a 

 more distinct tongue, sharper features, almond-shaped 

 eyes, and are the most intelligent and thrifty Indians in 

 the country; and the Eskimo, that never hunt more than 

 a hundred miles south of the arctic coast, have their own 

 variation of the Eskimo speech, and, notably enough, av- 

 erage of greater stature than is commonly believed of this 

 people. 



Missionaries have now reached all these tribes from the 

 different Hudson's Bay Company posts, and their labors 

 have been rewarded by the outward acceptance of their 

 doctrines by a large number of the Indians that come into 

 the forts to trade. The French half-breeds, and certainly 

 seventy-five per cent, of the converted Indians, have adopt- 

 ed the Roman Catholic faith ; the remainder have been 

 won over to the Protestants. The most tangible evidences 

 of church influence thus far seen are in the very general 

 disappearance of the medicine-man and the suppression of 

 polygamy and incest. So far as I could learn, the Indians 

 never had any defined worship. Their religion was and is 

 one of fear. They are ever propitiating the bad spirits, 

 the demons of their dreams, and the imaginary " enemy" 

 of the woods. I have seen burned leggings, worn-out 

 moccasins, and broken snow-shoes hung up as peace sacri- 

 fices to change bad luck in hunting or a head-wind in trip- 

 ping, and I never failed to note the predominant avarice 

 stronger than the superstition, as revealed by the worthless 

 character of the offerings. They lean to an inferior species 

 of "totemism," although no religious ceremony was ever 

 attached to its acceptance. Any animal or bird dreamed 



