318 THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS AND THEIK FOLK-LORE 



have a special reverence, and they never kill one with- 

 out mentally pleading, " Forgive me, O Moose !" 



At Lake Tschotagama and elsewhere, I have found 

 the heads of large pike placed on poles near the edge 

 of the water, just as the skulls of bears and beavers 

 usually are. 



In Eastern Labrador, so long as game was plentiful, 

 the Nascapees cared little for fish or fishing. Some 

 of them, when they took ill, blamed a fish for being 

 the cause of it, and wrapped a piece of fishing-net 

 about the throat. A more westerly band, that depend 

 largely on fish as a means of subsistence, told the 

 Jesuit missionary Lalement that the spirit of the fish- 

 ing-net had once appeared to them in human form, 

 complaining that he had lost his wife, and warning 

 them that unless they could find him another equally 

 immaculate they would catch no more fish. These 

 Indians, who hunt and fish in the Ottawa district, 

 were in the habit, like the Hurons, of marrying their 

 nets every year to two young girls of the tribe. Mere 

 children were chosen, because it was indispensable 

 that the brides should be virgins. The net was held 

 between them, and its spirit w T as harangued by one of 

 the chiefs, who exhorted him to do his part in furnish- 

 ing the tribe with food, while the fish were frequently 

 also addressed from the shore, and urged to take cour- 

 age and be caught, with the assurance that the utmost 

 respect should be shown to their bones.* 



The territory hunted by each Indian family in Lab- 

 rador is as much its own for hunting purposes as is a 



* See Relation des Hurons (1639), and Le Grand Voyage du Pays 

 des Hurons, by Sagard. 



