BULL. 30] 



SARSI 



467 



Laudonnidre in 1564, a great lake about 

 2 or 3 days journey n. e. from the Calusa 

 territory and situated between that and 

 C. Canaveral. It had an inhabited island 

 whose people were warlike and independ- 

 ent and traded coonti root to the neigh- 

 boring tribes. This body of water was 

 probably Kissimmee or, possibly, Okee- 

 chobee lake, (j. M. ) 

 Sarrope.— LaudonniSre (1564) in Basanier, His- 

 torie, in French, Hist. Coll. La., n. s., 282, 1869. 

 Serrope. — Del'Isle, map, 1700 (incorrectly marked 

 as a town on the s. w. coast of Florida). 



Sarsi (from the Siksika sa arsi, ' not 

 good ' ). A tribe of the eastern group of 

 the northern division of the Athapascan 

 family. There is a myth or tradition 

 found among the Tsattine, according to 

 which their secession from the tribe is 

 said to have been the sequel of a blood 

 feud. According to this story, a dog 

 belonging to a member of one division 

 was killed by a young man of the other 

 division, who was slain by the owner and 

 avenged by his relatives. The ani- 

 mosity engendered between the two fac- 

 tions became so rooted and vindictive 

 that the weaker party migrated. The 

 explanation the Sarsi themselves give is 

 one common in the Plains region. The 

 people were crossing a lake when the 

 hand of a boy became attached to a horn 

 protruding from the ice. When the horn 

 was struck the ice broke. Those who 

 had not reached the neighborhood re- 

 mained in the n. as the Tsattine, those 

 who had already passed went on to the 

 s. and became the Sarsi, and those near 

 by were engulfed in the lake and became 

 mythical water beings. At the beginning 

 of the 19th century the Sarsi numbered 

 120 warriors, in 35 tents (Mackenzie, Voy., 

 I, Ixx, 1801). Their hunting grounds 

 were on the upper Saskatchewan, toward 

 the Rocky mts. Umfreville, in 1790 

 (Maine Hist. Soc. Coll., vi, 270, 1859), 

 spoke of them as one of the leading tribes 

 trading with the Hudson' s Bay Co. Mac- 

 kenzie found them on the n. branch of 

 Saskatchewan r., few in number and ap- 

 pearing to have come from the N. W. 

 He identified them with the Sekani. 

 Richardson ( Arct. Exped., ii, 6, 1851) said 

 they lived near the Rocky mts., between 

 the sources of Athabasca and Saskatche- 

 wan rs. Their customs have been greatly 

 modified by their long residence among 

 the Siksika, but their language remains 

 fairly constant. Gallatin said that the 

 Tsattine and Sarsi together numbered 

 150 hunters. AVilson, in 1888, found 

 two bands, the Blood Sarsi and the real 

 Sarsi. In 1897 two divisions were re- 

 ported, one at Ft Calgary, on Bow r., 

 iat. 51°, and the other near Battieford. 

 In 1909 there were 197 engaged in farm- 

 ing, stock-raising, and woodcutting on the 

 reserve at Calgary, Alberta, mingling little 



with other Indians except on occasions 

 of ceremony. Rev. E. F. Wilson, who 

 visited them in 1888, describes them as in- 

 ferior in mental capacity to the Siksika, 

 not so fine and tall a race, and less com- 

 municative, having no liking for white 

 people. 



Their dress consists of the breech- 

 clout, blanket, leggings, beaded mocca- 

 sins, and a gray, white, or colored blanket 

 thrown loosely over one or both shoulders. 

 Both men and women paintthe upper part 

 of their faces with ocher or vermilion. 

 They wear brooches and earrings of steel, 

 and bracelets and necklaces of beads, 

 bones, claws, teeth, and brass wire, and 

 finger-rings of coiled brass wire. They 

 live in conical tipis in summer, and in 

 low log huts, i^lastered with mud, in 

 winter. Their chief handicrafts are the 

 preparation of skins, of which they make 

 their clothing and saddles fortheir numer- 

 ous ponies, and the making of bows of 

 cherry wood and arrows of willow, which 

 are winged with feathers and pointed with 

 sharp filed pieces of scrap-iron, the shaft 

 having four shallow grooves down its 

 entire length. Some of the men have from 

 two to four wives, whom they can divorce 

 at pleasure, restoring the presents re- 

 ceived with the wife, or their equivalent. 

 Girls are often betrothed at 10 years of age 

 and married at 14. After betrothal they 

 must look no man in the face. A man 

 must notmeethis mother-in-law, and if he 

 accidentally touch her he must give her a 

 present. The Sarsi have little knowl- 

 edge of medicinal roots and herbs; most 

 of their physicians are women. As 

 among many other Indian tribes, a doctor 

 when called in heats a stone in the fire, 

 touches it with his finger, and with the 

 same finger presses various parts of the 

 patient's body in order to divine the 

 seat and character of the malady. He 

 then sucks the affected place, pretend- 

 ing to draw out the disease and spit 

 it from his mouth, the performance 

 being accompanied with the beating 

 of a drum and the shaking of a rattle. 

 The Sarsi know how to cauterize effica- 

 ciously with burningtouchwood, and they 

 use the vapor bath, building a low bower 

 of bent green saplings covered with blan- 

 kets, within which red-hot stones are 

 placed in a hole in the ground, and over 

 these the patient pours water that is 

 handed him from outside. When thor- 

 oughly steamed he rushes out and 

 plunges into cold water, sometimes with 

 fatal result. The dead are wound in 

 tent cloths and blankets and deposited on 

 scaffolds in a burial ground. A warrior's 

 pony is shot, and blankets, clothing, uten- 

 sils, and food are left beside the corpse. 

 The bodies of distinguished warriors 

 or chiefs are placed in tipis (4th Rep. 



