256 SUPERSTITIONS AND CUSTOMS OP THE 



I was smoking at the time. The great chief of the Plain Crees Is 

 styled •' the Pox ;" he is well figured in a photograph. " The 'Fox " 

 is held in high esteem by all the Plain Indians with whom he comes 

 in contact, either in peace or war. He is dreaded by the Sioux, the 

 Blackfeet, the Bloodies, the Tall Indians, the Assiniboines, and all 

 the tribes who occasionally hunt on the Grrand Coteau de Missouri 

 and the south branch of the Saskatchewan. 



The cruel, barbarous treatment of prisoners so often described in 

 narratives of Indian warfare, is common even now in the prairies 

 south of the Qu'appelle or Calling River and the Assiniboine. Not a 

 year passes without two or more of the !^d Eiver half-breeds being 

 scalped by Sioux : sometimes, as was the case last year, quite close to' 

 the settlement of St. Joseph, on the boundary line, about 30 miles 

 west of Eed Eiver. "When a prisoner is taken, the Sioux sometimes 

 adopt a terrible mode of death, during the summer season. They 

 have been known to strip a half-breed, tie him to a stake on the bor- 

 ders of a marsh in the prairie, and leave him exposed to the attacks 

 of millions of mosquitoes, without being able to move any part of his 

 body ; and when the agony of fever and the torment of thirst come 

 upon him, they leave him to die a dreadful lingering death, with 

 water at his feet, and buzzards hovering and circling around him in 

 loathsome expectation. By way of illustrating the character of the • 

 medicine or conjuring ceremonies, which may be witnessed during all 

 seasons of the year, when several families are encamped together, I 

 shall describe a scene of which I was an eye witness last summer near 

 the Hudson Bay Company's post in the Touchwood Hills, between 

 the south branch of the Saskatchewan and the Assiniboine, The 

 conversation was carried on in Cree, but, I believe, faithfully inter- 

 preted to me by the oflBcer then in charge of the post, who was pre- 

 sent. The interpretation was pronounced exact by one of the Cree 

 half-breeds attached to my party. 



At the time of my arrival at this Post, a conjuror of some celebrity 

 was endeavoring to cure an invalided woman by the exercise of his 

 cunning. The sick woman was lying in a buffalo skin tent ; the con- 

 juror, painted and decorated, employed himself in beating a medicine 

 drum within a few feet of her, and in singing at intervals the follow- 

 ing words, first uttered slowly, with a pause between each word, thers 

 as in ordinary conversation ; lastly, with energy and rapidity : 



