144 PROCEEDI.VOS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



XIV. 



The iJ^nes of the old stock were generrtlly I )ng livei). As a proof 

 of this, I need only to adduce the fact that last year there died at 

 this place a man who remembered the arrival in this country of Sir 

 Alexander MacKenzie in 1793. Many of the diseases which have 

 since proved so fatal to the aborigines were then unknown. Those 

 which sometimes A-isited them, had in the vegetable kingdom their 

 known antidotes, the quintessence of which may be comprised in the 

 word "purgative." They possessed also valued astringents in the 

 castorum ])ods of tlie beaver and iu the roots of heracleum, etc. 



When these remedies, joined to the incantations of the " medicine- 

 man" failed and death seemed imminent, the inoribund's relatives 

 were hastily summoned around Ids death bed. Supposing he was 

 a tceneza the above mentioned hereditary family song was struck up 

 by some person outside of his clan and was continued by exo-clansmen 

 till he expired, while his relatives would then rend the air with many 

 doleful wailings. As soon as he had passed away, two young men 

 also of a different clan, were deputed to announce the news to the 

 neighbouring villages. All of the people of these places that were 

 fellow-clansmen of the departed notable were then expected to make 

 presents to the messengers as a compensation for their ti-ouble, after 

 which the whole population would turn out in a bodv and come for- 

 ward to mourn the defunct tceneza arouud the remains and at the 

 same time console his relatives. To this end, while the deceased co- 

 clansmen were lameiiting their lo.ss, a man of another clan would rise 

 from the crowd and commence to dance to the tune of an improvised 

 song. This was intended as a diversion to the mourners' feelings, 

 and, as the strictest point of the Carriers' moral law is " nothing for 

 nothing," the latter would immediately throw at the dancer any object 

 he might intentionally mention in his chant and which thus became 

 his property. Tliis dance and giving away being repeated several 

 times on several consecutive nights, the strangers would, if in winter- 

 time (or even during the summer, if the mourners were not prepared 

 for the occasion) leturn to their respective villages, ^and the remains 

 would be provisionally placed at some distance from the habitations 

 under a ])ark roof-like "shelter" bv the side of which the widow 



