346 SCIENCE TN RUPERTS LAND. 



" The tribes frequenting Peel's River dispose of their dead on 

 stages, the corpse being securely enclosed in a rude coffin made out of 

 a hollowed tree. About the Youcon, the older practice was to have the 

 ashes collected, placed in a bag, and suspended from the top of a painted 

 pole. Nightly wailings follow for a time, when the nearest relative 

 makes a feast, invites his friends, and for a week or so the dead dance 

 is performed, and a funeral dirge sung, after which all grief for the 

 deceased is ended. I witnessed one of these dances while at the 

 Fort ; and have been told by others that the dead song is full of wild 

 and plaintive strains, far superior to the music of any other tribes in 

 the country. Altars or rites of religion they had none ; and before 

 the traders went there, apparently they had no idea of a God to be wor- 

 shipped. They have their medicine men, in whose powers they place 

 implicit faith, and whose aid they purchase in seasons of sickness or 

 distress." 



Mr, Kirkby describes his labours among these degraded savages as 

 having been attended with many ameliorating results. Mothers, he 

 says, confessed to him their deeds of infanticide, in terms sickening to 

 listen to ; evidencing as they did the misery of the wretched mother, 

 driven to the revolting crime from a perverted tenderness for the 

 child ; and at the same time he bears testimony to the beneficent 

 influence exercised by the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company 

 in the Mackenzie River and Youcon valleys, in lessening the savage 

 characteristics of the wild tribes by whom these are peopled. He 

 describes the Flora of the region as exceedingly rich and varied ; 

 though expressing regret that he does not himself command a sufficient 

 knowledge of Botany to describe it in detail. The Chive, a species of 

 Onion, he speaks of as growing abundantly on the banks of the 

 Porcupine River ; and he promises to furnish in future communica- 

 tions a minute account of the geological features and the fauna of 

 the district; as well as some of the legends of the Indian tribes 

 occupying that remote and inhospitable region. 



Such is a specimen of some of the first gleanings of science in 

 " Rupert's Land," giving a foretaste of the valuable contributions 

 which may be looked for from a band of intelligent labourers, com- 

 bined to reap the rich harvest of varied knowledge in that virgin field. 

 The incidental notice of the Esquimaux met with by Mr. Kirkby 

 between Point Separation and Peel's River, though slight, is import- 

 ant, in its confirmation of recent notices by Arctic voyagers. The 



