188 



RECREA TION. 



deaths of similar character occurred, of 

 which the trader informed me. Coming 

 down the Liard with Air. Simpson late in 

 the fall, in a large boat, it became neces- 

 sary to unload and carry around Cranberry 

 rapids. We found ourselves compelled to 

 spend one night at the portage with our 

 job unfinished. As we ate our suppers 

 under the shelter of our canvas we were 

 visited by an Indian named Iron and a 

 boy. Iron came into the shelter and ac- 

 cepted a bountiful share of our supper. 

 but the boy, a miserable object, apparently 

 of 12 or 14 years, remained outside ex- 

 posed in his few filthy rags to the fury of 

 the raging storm. I asked Mr. Simpson 

 why the boy did not come in, and was in- 

 formed that he was an orphan! This con- 

 dition, which would have appealed to a 

 civilized heart at once, only made him a 

 friendless slave to an Indian! 



We stacked his plate high with some of 

 everything we had and watched him stow 

 it away, glad we could show him the 

 sunny side of a human heart for once. His 

 subsequent history was brief and sad. He 

 was taken into the woods on a hunt by 

 his master, Iron, and an Indian doctor 

 named Powder, and when they returned 

 the boy was not with them. Such boys 

 are often accused of witchcraft and put to 

 death. This was the fate of the boy we 

 fed, as I was afterward informed by the 

 Hudson Bay Company's trader, who, while 

 admitting it. justified his silent acquies- 

 ence by saying that interference would 

 have jeopardized his own life. 



Various methods are employed in such 

 executions. In summer the victims are 

 bound naked to a tree in a swamp and left 

 to be stung to death by insects. In win- 

 ter thev are bound and left to freeze, or 

 to be devoured by wild animals; or they 

 are killed and sunk through a hole in the 

 ice into a lake or river. The religious 

 world spends money liberally in the effort 

 to reclaim Darkest Africa. I trust the ac- 

 appearance of this brief incident in the 

 count of this incident in Recreation may 

 suggest to them the duty that lies at our 

 very door. 



Passing on down the river we found the 

 last tribe actually occupying its banks to 

 be the Cho-tinas, a tribe much reduced in 

 numbers. They have long been under the 



control of the Hudson Bay Company, and 

 if they ever possessed such malignant na- 

 tures as I have just described they have 

 lost them. They are harmless, though insuf- 

 ferably lazy. Murder is to them a crime 

 unknown. They occupy the country along 

 the river from the mouth of the Nelson to 

 the mouth of the Nahanna, about 100 miles 

 below Fort Liard. From there to the Mac- 

 kenzie, perhaps 120 miles, the country is. 

 divided among tribes who trade at Fort 

 Simpson — the Tko-ga-ho-ti-nas, the Et- 

 tcho-tas, and Ta-kul-las at Hell's Gate, the 

 Spa-to-ti-nas of Beaver river, the moun- 

 tain Indians farther back, called His-to-ti- 

 nas, and the Tsa-lvo-nas of the Upper Nel- 

 son, all of whom trade more or less at the 

 fort at the mouth of Black river on the 

 Liard. They are unexcelled as moose 

 hunters, and procure many valuable furs. 

 marketing probably as many dressed 

 moose hides as any tribe in the North. 



Considerations of personal safety pre- 

 vented me from measuring or photograph- 

 ing any of them, as the act would have 

 excited their distrust at once. A young 

 hunter was fast dying with consumption 

 while I was among them, and had I at- 

 tempted any such work his condition 

 would have been attributed to my magic 

 and I should have been murdered. My 

 knowledge of their superstitions was my 

 safeguard. 



The chief and most valuable furs gath- 

 ered by these people are beaver and mar- 

 ten. Few foxes are taken, especially cross 

 and black. The Chotinas farther down are 

 in a good moose country, but, as a conse- 

 quence, find few furs; hence they are mis- 

 erably poor, and are incorrigible thieves 

 perforce. 



While these tribes have words common 

 to all, they yet differ widely in their lan- 

 gauge. Notwithstanding this difference, 

 they manage to converse from tribe 

 to tribe through the medium of this 

 limited common stock. To illustrate: Beo- 

 cho means Big-knife, and is used by all 

 the tribes. Sus, meaning bear with the 

 Tahl-tans, or Kaskas, is here changed to 

 Suh. This will serve to show how the 

 word may be recognized by one of the pa- 

 rent tribe in its new garb. In many words, 

 however, the change is entire, and the 

 word would be unrecognizable. 



Sunday School Teacher (in Chicago) — 

 Why did the wise men come from the 

 East? 



Scholar — Because they were wise men. — 

 Philadelphia Record. 



