306 NOTES ON THE TINNEH OR CHEPEWYAN INDIANS 



constitutions before tliey come of age. The most prevalent maladies are influ- 

 enzas, coughs, bilious affections, dysentery, and indigestion, brought on by 

 gluttony. Scrofulous cases are not uncommon, and all the tribes are more or 

 less subject to a pseudo-syphilis of great virulence, and which is, so far as I can , 

 learn, indigenous. Ophthalmic afiections are very common, chiefly among the 

 Athabascan and English River Chepewyans. They probably have their origin 

 in syphilis. There are a few instances of total blindness, produced by the snow 

 glare on the great lakes in spring. Lice literally overrun all the natives. Fleas 

 are unknown. The former insects are eaten as a species of relish, and are 

 cracked in the teeth and nibbled, in order the better to enjoy the flavor, which 

 the Indians represent as sweet. The tapeworm (ti3enia) is rather common. Like 

 all hunter tribes these people have the senses of sight and hearing in perfection, 

 while, owing to the dirtiness of their habits, that of smell is greatly blunted. 



RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 



It is a task of no ordinary difficulty to arrive at correct conclusions respect- 

 ing the mental characteristics and religious ideas of the eastern Tinneh. They 

 are exceedingly averse to laying open their belief, such as it is, to strangers, 

 and their real disposition is exhibited only in the camp, amidst the freedom of 

 social intercourse. Deprived as I am of reference to the works of McKenzie 

 and Hearne, I must, unaided by any gleams thrown on the subj.ect from the 

 past, describe things as they exist, under the light of the present. 



These people seem to possess as cold and simple a theology as any known 

 race of mankind. I am not, however, certain that such was the case seventy 

 years ago. Many causes, all of which must have had more or less power, have 

 combined to wean them from the faith of their ancestors. They are great imi- 

 tators and respecters of more, civilized races, and, so far as I can judge of their 

 idiosyncracy, would have been very likely to cast aside their old ideas and 

 superstitions, if ridiculed by the whites, who, being fur traders and not mission- 

 aries, were far less likely to impart to them the Christian truths instead. They 

 would thus have gradually and imperceptibly moved downwards to the condition 

 of having no religion Avhatsoever. 



It is now many years since the Roman Catholic priests first instructed the 

 Beavers, Cariboo Eaters, Chepewyans, and Yellow Knives ; and although it is 

 only four years since the Slave communities came under the direct influence of 

 the gospel, still, from intercourse with the others, their superstitions had, in a 

 good measure, either faded away or been imbued with a considerable quantity of the 

 ideas derived from the sacred writ. When the Christian religion spreads, as it 

 certainly will in a very short time, among the eastern, northern, and mountain 

 Tinneh, their former faith will become a dream, and all traces of its existence 

 be lost to the inquiring ethnologist. No heathen people, in my opinion, offer 

 an easier field to the enterprise of missionaries. Their teaching will meet with 

 but little opposition from the theological system or superstitions of the natives, and 

 although I have great doubts if many will become sincere Christians at heart, 

 they will at least submit willingly to the outward semblance of religion and 

 conform to its ceremonies in a highly plausible manner. Their knowledge of 

 a First Great Cause, the Maker and Ruler of the Universe, is very faint, yet I 

 think it has always existed ; but as they have no idea of a future state of rewards 

 and punishments, this credence, if they possess it, exercises neither power nor 

 control over their actions, and appears to be of about as much use in their my- 

 thological system as the Great Mogul was in modern times to the government 

 of Hindoostan. Their religion is one of fear. They deprecate the wrath of 

 demons, but no abstract notion of a single evil principle, antagonistic to and at 

 war with the good one, appears to exist among them. The demons are, among 

 tJie unsophisticated and unchristianized natives, many in number. They people 



