36 



EXPLORATIONS IN THE FAR NORTH 



the Pauguk, or Death Demon, had appeared to him, a sign that 

 his course was nearly run. He and his "old wife" made an 

 image of Pauguk for me of substantial birch wood and moose- 

 skin. This creation, dressed in mooseskin and daubed with 

 paint — representing the most terrible of all spiritual powers, 

 preceded me on the voyage home, where, upon my return 

 I found it temporarily entered in the museum catalogue as 

 "Indian Doll." Ooskanatchet gave me his peace-pipe — with 

 the request that it be preserved in the museum, which I had 

 described to him. The bowl, of fine-grained sandstone, he 

 had obtained, perhaps a half century before, from Red Deer 

 River, west of Lake Winnipegoosis; the stem was from a shrub 

 called nepemenana. The old man solemnly and ceremoniously 

 filled and lighted the pipe, then turned the stem towards the 

 four cardinal points, towards the zenith and nadir, took two or 

 three puffs, and then handed it to me. I did not wish to offend 

 by refusing to take two or three whiffs, but I did not use 

 tobacco and not for all the tribal wampum would I have smoked 

 that nicotine-soaked uspwahgun, filled with negro-head to- 

 bacco. 



His medicine drum was very similar in shape to an old fash- 

 ioned dasher churn. It was of birch wood, a foot in diameter 

 by eighteen inches in height. The head was of mooseskin 

 parchment dampened and stretched when used. The drumstick 

 was a birch rod bent at a sharp angle, as shown in the figure. 

 The drum is accompanied by a rattle, formerly made of moose- 

 skin parchment with gravel enclosed, but the advancement of 

 modern civilization and the old man's inventive genius had sub- 

 stituted a tomato can containing a few grains of shot, with a 

 handle attached by thongs. 



He warned me not to take whiskey jack's or crow's eggs dur- 

 ing my spring collecting. No matter how valuable they might 

 be, I would certainly have bad luck if I tampered with the nests 

 of these birds. Old Antoine, who interpreted for me, said that 

 he had once found the nest of a whiskey jack or Canada jay, 

 and since then several of his children had died; this proved the 

 matter conclusively. 



Ooskanatchet was unusually liberal in his gifts and one might 

 have inferred that he anticipated a speedy departure from this 

 life. I had learned not to be too profuse in my thanks under 



