70 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [rhll. 43 



TLeu the savage, seeing him within gunshot, lets the deer head fall to the 

 earth, passes his ready (hande) gun from his left hand to his right with 

 admirable skill and rapidity, shoots the animal, and kills it, for he very rarely 

 misses it.° 



Dii Fratz thus describes the hunting of deer : 



The natives go to hunt the deer, sometimes in common and often singly. 

 The hunter who goes alone provides himself for this purpose with the dried 

 head of a deer, the brain being removed and the skin of the neck being still 

 hanging to the head. This skin is provided with circles made of cane splints, 

 which are kept in place by means of other splints lengthwise of the skin so 

 that the hand and arm can easily pass inside. Things being so arranged, the 

 hunter goes into those parts where he thinks there are likely to be deer and 

 takes the precautions which he thinks necessary not to be discovered. As soon 

 as he sees one he approaches it with the step of a wolf, hiding himself behind 

 one thicket after another until he is near enough to shoot it. But if before 

 that the deer shakes its head, which is a sign that it is going to make caprioles 

 and run away, the hunter, foreseeing his fancy, counterfeits this animal by 

 making the same cry that these animals make when they call each other, which 

 very often makes the deer come toward the hunter. Then he shows the head, 

 which he holds in his hand, and causes it to make the movement of a deer 

 which browses and looks up from time to time. The hunter while waiting 

 iilways holds himself concealed behind the thicket until the deer has approached 

 within gunshot, and although the hunter sees little of its side he shoots it in the 

 shoulder and kills it. It is in this way that a native without hunting compan- 

 ions, without dogs, and without cliasing comes finally, by means of a i)atience 

 which we do not have, to kill a deer, an animal of a swiftness which at most is 

 only exceeded by the number of excitements which take hold of it at each 

 instant and carry it very far oft", where the hunter is obliged to go to hunt it 

 with patience for fear a new fantasy will take it away forever and make its 

 enemy lose time and trouble. Let us now see how they chase in coniiiany and 

 take a deer alive. 



When the natives wish to hold the deer dance, or wish to exercise themselves 

 pleasantly, or even when the desire seizes the great Sun, a hundred go to hunt 

 this animal, which is brought back living. This is why many young men go, 

 who scatter in the prairies where there are thickets to find a deer. xVs soon as 

 they have perceived it the band approaches it in the form of a very open 

 crescent. The bottom of the crescent advances until the deer springs up and 

 takes to flight. Seeing a company of men in front of it, it very often flees 

 toward one of the ends of the crescent or half circle. This point stops it. makes 

 it afraid, and thus sends it back toward the other point whieli is a quarter of a 

 league or thereabout distant from the former. This second does the same as 

 the first and drives it back. 



The play is continued for a fairly long time, which is done expressly to 

 exercise the young people, or to give pleasure to the great Sun, or to some 

 little Sun whom he names in his place. Sometimes the deer tries to flee and 

 go out of the crescent by the opening between the points, but then those who 

 are at the very points show themselves to make him reenter and the crescent 

 advances to keep him always inclosed between the youths. In this way it 

 often happens that the men have not goiH> a league while the deer has made 

 more than twenty with the different tui-ns ;ind caprioles which it has made 

 from one side to the other, until at last all the men come together a little 



« Dumont, Mf'm. Hist, sur La Louislane, i, 150-151. 



