THE WESTERN DENES. 



145 



would erect for herself and children a small hut of similar form and 

 material. 



Thenceforth hers was a miserable lot indeed. From the very 

 moment of her husband's decease to the time (two or three years 

 later) of the final giving away of property in his honor, she was the 

 s]a^■e of her brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, one of whom would at 

 once cut her hair to the roots and take care to renew the operation 

 whenever needed as a badge of the abject condition of her widowhood 

 She was also obliged to wear ragged clothes, and in case she was 

 young and likely to re-marry when the period of mourning ceased, 

 decency constrained her to pollute her face with gum lest her guardians 

 (so they wei'e called) should suspect her of desires vnisuited to her 

 condition. Meantime, she would be her master's real factotum and 

 the women especially would endeavour to I'ender her life as unbeai'able 

 as possible, leaving her no other " pi-ivilege " (?) than that of nightly 

 bewailing in as loud tones as she could for her departed husband. 



Men who had lost their wives were obliged to undergo the same 

 ordeal, though treated somewhat more humanely than the weaker sex. 



When the future successor of the dead notable had succeeded in 

 gathering a goodly amount of dressed moose and other skins and 

 ]n'ovisioris, the inhabitants of all the surrounding villages were in- 

 vited to witness the cremation of the corpse (such was the way the 

 Carriers and Western Nah'anes disposed of their dead). The funeral 

 pile being kindled in the outskirt of the village by men not belonging 

 to the deceased's clan (who wei'e paid on the spot by the latter's 

 relatives) the widow was obliged by custom to embrace the remains 

 of her late husband even though surrounded by the flames, amidst 

 the bowlings and wailings of his fellow-clansmen. When momentar- 

 ily withdrawn by the bystanders, etiquette demanded from her 

 repeated endeavours to burn herself along with the remains. Supposing 

 she had not been a good wife, she was in many cases jostled by the 

 mourners, and sometimes horribly disfigured with the view to diminish 

 her chances of re-marriage. The cremation over, a bark hut was 

 built on the spot and everybody would retire except the widow who 

 had to dwell there during the period of her bondage. In the evening 

 following the cremation, as a rule, woiild take place the " pot-latch " 

 according to the rites which shall be described in the next paragraph. 

 10 



