CASTOROLOGIA. 1 3 



all living things, the Good Spirit "smoothed with his hand the giant 

 beasts, making them gradually smaller, ' ' and then he deprived them 

 of the power of speech. Though animals were thus subjected to 

 man, both were accountable to the Manitou ; and even the animals 

 and their departed spirits had powers affecting man. Many records 

 relate the petitions of the Hunter before starting for the chase, 

 which invariably included the promise of all reverence to be paid 

 his victims. In this respect, the beaver, as the most valuable con- 

 tributor to the social economy of the Indian, was the object of special 

 regard, and roasted beaver was the highest desire of the Indian. 

 After the feast the sacred bone was raised to its altar, an evidence 

 of honor paid to the departed beaver, and then the remains were 

 gathered with care and returned to the water, so that the dogs 

 touched none of it. Woe to the luckless hunter who did dishonor 

 to the bones of the beaver, and thus displeased the spirits ; the 

 beavers at once became shy, and in vain might he lay his traps. 



Many of these matters may seem childish and unworthy serious 

 repetition, but surely they are of more profit than the fabulous 

 accounts of the beaver which practically constitute the popular 

 range of beaver literature. The animal itself has been represented 

 in forms the most grotesque, some of which are selected as the 

 illustrations of this chapter ; and his works have been exaggerated 

 beyond all recognition. The dam has been described as formed of 

 stakes five or six feet long driven into the ground in rows, with 

 pliant twigs wattled between "as hurdles are made;" and the 

 lodge has been extended to a five story building with windows and 

 other conveniences ; while in the erection of these, the tail has been 

 converted into a vehicle for convejdng the materials, a pile-driver 

 for placing the stakes, and a trowel for plastering the house. In 

 fact as Hearne wrote in 1771, the only thing that remained to make 

 their natural history complete, was the adding of " a vocabulary of 

 their language, a code of their laws, and a sketch of their religion." 



Either from a misinterpretation of the Indian legends, or a mis- 

 use of the imaginative faculties, or from both, there exists univer- 

 sally in the early colonial writings the most astonishing references 



