OF BEITISH AND RUSSIAN AMERICA. 317 



but in such a manner that it is perfectly well understood by all who is referred 

 to. As soon as it is dark, for they never conjure in the daytime unless in cases 

 of great emergency, the doomed person goes to the doctor with his beads, makes 

 a short speech, in which he extols the power and ability of the doctor, laments 

 the fate which threatens himself, and finally presents him with his beads and 

 entreats him to retard, or, if possible, prevent the doom which awaits him. The 

 doctor replies that he is sorry to give him pain and would not wish to take his 

 beads for nothing, that it is probably a mistake, and may even' refer to some 

 other person. In his wanderings among his medicinal spirits, or familiars, he 

 merely observed a shade which overhung a particular individual, still it may not 

 indicate anything serious, but he will ascertain correctly during the night and 

 let him know. In the mean time he retains the beads with a secret determina- 

 tion that they shall not leave his possession in future. I have known several 

 fall sick and actually die from the efifects of such stories on the imagination, 

 while in other cases it was with the greatest difficulty I could remove the im- 

 pression produced on their minds by these threatened calamities. The predic- 

 tion invariably told most fearfully on the imagination, producing first low spirits, 

 languor, then sickness, particularly in bilious subjects, and very frequently even 

 death. When such things occur, the character and power of the cunning rogue 

 has reached its height, and he is ever after looked upon with fear and respect, and 

 consulted with confidence. No hunting excursion, no voyage, nothing, in fact, 

 is undertaken without consulting him. Often have I known a party of Indians 

 on the eve of starting to pass the winter or summer at some place fiivorable for 

 hunting, when a medicine-man would suddenly set all their plans at naught by 

 circulating the idea that starvation, sickness, death, or other misfortune awaited 

 them in that particular diiection, Avhile he would cunningly recommend them 

 some other place, which, from knowledge of the country, proximity to his own 

 lands, or in some way or other was more suitable to his own views. 



When any of their relations die all their beads which have not been given to the 

 medicine-man, or otherwise destroyed or disposed of t) show their grief, and the 

 estimation in which the deceased was held, are either buried with the body 

 or broken up, and the fragments sprinkled about the grave, or, what of late has 

 been customary, they are kept to be finally distributed among the Indians 

 at the dance for the dead, which takes place nine or twelve months after inter- 

 ment, when their mourning and all outward tokens of grief are supposed to 

 end. All the beads they have on their persons are also distributed in this way, 

 or destroyed, together with their clothes. Their hair is cut close to the head 

 or singed, which certainly gives them the appearance of miserable, grief-stricken 

 wretches Sometimes too they will cut and lacerate their bodies with flints, or, 

 as sometimes happens, they will, in a fit of revenge against fate, stab S(me poor, 

 friendless person who may happen to be sojourning among them. Those who bury 

 the dead receive a quantity of beads in payment, but fear of the lifeless body makes 

 them averse to the office, and they generally endeavor to evade being selected 

 to perform the service, owing to the restrictions imposed by their rules on all 

 those who are selected to perform that duty. For instance, they must not eat 

 fresh meat, unless the absence of every other kind of food rendei s it absolutely 

 necessary to preserve life, and that only when it is cold. They must tear the 

 meat with their teeth, the use of a knife being prohibited. They must drink 

 out of a gourd, carried for the purpose, as they are not allowed to slake their 

 thirst out of any drinking or cooking vessel. Those, too, who have handled a 

 dead body wear peeled willow wands round the arras and neck, or cany peeled 

 willow wands, about two feet long, in their hands. These are supposed to keep 

 off infection, and to prevent any evil effect which might follow the handling of 

 a deceased body. After a certain time subsequent to the death of a relative, 

 the nearest of kin to the deceased, if a man of wealth, makes a general festival 

 for the dead — the " dead dance" — when he distributes the rest of his beads — his 



