136 A MOUNTAIN MISCELLANY 



like joy, and he would settle himself comfortably 

 to listen until the whistler had disappeared. Their 

 own method of hunting consists in five or six of 

 them marking an animal down, at least in the case 

 of the wapiti, which is their most important quarry, 

 returning for a big feed and a council of war, then 

 sallying forth that evening or the next day, posting 

 themselves at various points and trusting to luck 

 that between them they will bring their victim 

 to bag. 



Whilst we were hunting, the doctor had been 

 collecting birds and small mammals, a list of which 

 I give in an appendix. On his first visit to 

 Archuen two years previously the natives had been 

 very suspicious. When they saw him stuffing 

 specimens for preservation they asked if we had not 

 got any such animals in England that he took so 

 much trouble, and if he made them alive when he 

 got them home ! 



When they have a grudge against an enemy they 

 make an image of sticks and clay and transfix it 

 with sharpened twigs or burn it, after the fashion of 

 witches in England many years ago. 



They kill a few sheep and roe-deer, and snare the 

 latter, and very occasionally young wapiti, as 

 follows : Finding a deer path, they bend a young 

 sapling and fasten it with a notch by the side of the 

 run. At the end of the sapling is a cord of hemp 

 or flax, and for this purpose they are clever at 

 making strong cords. The loose end terminates in 

 a running noose, which is fastened to the sides of 

 the path with bits of grass. The roe is caught by 

 the neck and soon strangled, or sometimes by the 

 foreleg. They also catch musk-deer in this manner. 



