ASsroiBOlNE AND SASKATCHEWAN INDIANS. 259 



white man's medicine. A laughable incident occurred at the Touch- 

 wood Hills. The conjuror of whom mention has just been made? 

 entered the room at the post where I was sitting with Mr. and Mrs. 

 IS.., who were temporarily in charge. The Indian and a companion 

 seated themselves upon one of my boxes which contained a small 

 medicine chest. Mrs. H. asked me to give her some sticking plaster. 

 I crossed the room to open the medicine chest, when Mrs. H. (a half- 

 breed) said to her husband, in the Cree language : " Will his medi- 

 cine do me any harm if I stop here while he opens them ? " Mr. H. 

 answered jestingly, " yes, you had better go into the other room." I 

 motioned the Indians to move, they rose, and I opened the chest ; 

 the moment they saw the bottles they hurried out of the room, has- 

 tened to the summit of a neighboring hill, and divesting themselves 

 of every article of clothing, shook their garments repeatedly, and, 

 after hanging them on bushes in the sun, squatted on their haunches 

 to await the deodorizing influence of the breeze. 



In the valley of the Qu'apelle River, we frequently found offerings 

 to Manitou or Eairies suspended on branches of trees ; they consisted 

 of fragments of cloth, strings of beads, shreds of painted buffalo hide, 

 bears' teeth and claws, and other trifles. Our half-breeds always re- 

 garded them with respect, and never molested or liked to see us mol- 

 est these offerings to Manitou. This custom prevails everywhere in 

 the valley of Lake "Winnipeg, and it may truly be said that the 

 Medicine drum is heard far more frequently in some parishes of Sel- 

 kirk Settlement than the sound of church bells. 



A conjuror celebrated for the potency of his charms will often exer- 

 cise a very injurious influence over an entire band consisting of ten 

 or twelve families, in deterring them from frequenting particular 

 hunting or fishing grounds if they offend him. Out of numerous 

 instances of this dangerous influence, I select the following. It oc- 

 curred on the Dauphin River. When ascending that stream, we 

 eame upon a large camp of Ojibways who were on their way to the 

 Hudson Bay Company's Post, at Eairford. Their usual wintering 

 place was at the Pike's Head, an excellent fishing station, on Lake 

 Winnipeg 5 but they had abandoned the intention of wintering there 

 in consequence of a threat which had been conveyed to them from a 

 noted conjuror of the Grrand Eapids of the Saskatchewan, to the 

 eflect that if the band ventured to winter at the Pike's Head, "He 

 would do something." This ambiguous threat was quite sufficient to 



