The Life-history of an Indian. 143 



everything but age and size, following their mothers 

 in attending to every household duty and not mixing 

 with the boys in any way. Our little fellow had only 

 three playmates and their games were nearly all more or 

 less serious, The only one that could be considered 

 otherwise was a kind of shuttlecock. Corn cobs were 

 stripped, and three feathers stuck in atone end. These 

 were thrown up in the air as high as possible, and the 

 one which gyrated longest was declared the winner. 

 Other games represented the more or less common 

 events of every-day life, such as hunting the labba. One 

 boy represented this animal, a second the dog and the 

 third and fourth two huntsmen. The first huntsman took 

 up his position in a canoe, while the other gave 'Maw" 

 to the labba and followed it with the dog. The labba 

 ran into the forest, twisting and turning here and there, 

 the dog following on his trail and barking, while his 

 companion egged him on. Presently they made for the 

 creek and the labba took to the water, followed closely 

 by the others, while the one in the canoe was guided by 

 the barking and tried to intercept the supposed animal. 

 The play was rather rough, especially when they were all 

 swimming in the creek, but the boys heartily enjoyed it 

 and were for the time transformed into something differ- 

 ent from their usual quiet and taciturn natures. 



The education ol our Indian boy was gleaned almost 

 entirely by himself. Whatever semblance of teaching 

 he received was from his father, who showed him how 

 to handle a gun, bow and blow-pipe. All the rest he 

 learnt by imitation and pra6lice. The only attempt he 

 ever made at writing was to scratch figures on the sand 

 like those on his mother's queyu (bead apron), or out- 



