18 RECREATION. 
same as that of the Tahltans, not more than 
25 per cent. of the words differing material- 
ly. They are good cross-country hunters 
but poor canoe men. In winter their dogs 
draw sledges, in summer the women and 
the dogs carry packs; and it is wonderful 
what loads the women can carry. Even 
over the muskeg, or rough mountain trail 
they often carry 200 pounds. 
Filial affection is unknown amongst 
them; the aged and helpless are leit to die 
when they can no longer keep up with the 
band. 
The dead are buried wherever death may 
overtake them; a shallow grave is scooped 
out and the body covered hastily and left. 
They never cremate as do their neighbors, 
the Tahltans. Should a child die, a section 
of tree is split, the halves hollowed out, the 
body placed in the cavity, the halves are 
bound together with thongs, and suspend- 
ed from the branches of some large tree. 
inereise aul, 
The children, when young, seem exceed- 
ingly bright, but beyond 15 years they de- 
teriorate, and while lapsing in intelligence 
acquire all the vices of the adults. No mis- 
sion has ever been established amongst 
them, no school offered them. 
Should a woman, on the march, be taken 
in travail, she retires alone to some thicket, 
or with some single female companion, and 
undergoes the crucial ordeal of the sex 
alone and unregarded. (To do otherwise 
would bring bad luck upon the hunting.) 
Her travail over, she adds her new baby to 
her pack and proceeds to overtake the 
party! 
When a girl reaches that age when she 
“. . stands with reluctant feet 
Where the brook and river meet,” 
she is consigned to some isolated spot and 
remains there alone for—a week or a year 
—according to the dignity of the family. 
Here she sees no one but the friend who 
brings her food—dried meat and water. 
During her isolation she is compelled to 
wear a large hat made of bent willows cov- 
ered with moose skin. This head-gear is 
cone-shaped, about 4 feet across, and 
3 feet high. Drink must be drawn 
through the hollow bone of a swan’s leg. 
One of these bones I managed to obtain, 
but could not get the hat. 
The women are expert tanners, being 
able to tan the skin of a young caribou as 
soft as chamois and white as snow. ; 
I am having two elaborate suits made, 
one of yellow moose skin, the other of 
white caribou. They will be complete even 
to gun wrappers, and will be finished in the 
highest style of the art. 
They believe in a Happy Beyond for good 
Indians, and a world of woe for bad ones. 
Thunder and lightning they believe to be 
produced by a gigantic bird having enor- 
mous wings but no legs. When it raises its 
wings the fire beneath it gleams, and we 
have lightning; the sudden closing of 
its wings produces thunder. 
Mosquitoes swarmed from the cloven 
head of a giant, who was slain by a young 
man long ago, and have ever since plagued 
the earth. 
They believe in the Deluge, and that 
some of their ancestors were saved on a 
raft. The raft is still to be seen in the 
mountains. 
Although these people are completely 
isolated from civilization, neglected by 
schooland church, shut into this muskeg and 
mountain home whence not one of them 
has ever migrated, none of them having any 
conception of the outside world, yet they 
have a history not entirely devoid of inter- 
est, and at some future time we hope to 
describe them more fully. 


A DAY IN THE WOODS.. 
AGNES H. SHORES. 
Tramping and fishing 
The livelong day, 
Whiling with pleasure 
The time away. 
A day with Nature 
Refreshes and cheers, 
And helps to dispel 
Our worries and fears. 
. 
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