156 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 



feet. It is covered with moose skin parch- 

 ment, painted with rude figures of men and 

 beasts, having various fantastic additions, 

 and is beat with a stick. The seeseequay 

 is merely a rattle, formed by enclosing a 

 few grains of shot in a piece of dried hide. 

 These two instruments are used in all their 

 religious ceremonies, except those which 

 take place in a sweating-house. 



A Cree places great reliance on his drum, 

 and I cannot adduce a stronger instance 

 than that of the poor man who is mentioned 

 in a preceding page as having lost his only 

 child by famine, almost within sight of the 

 fort. Notwithstanding his exhausted state, 

 he travelled with an enormous drum tied to 

 his back. 



Many of the Crees make vows to abstain 

 from particular kinds of food, either for a 

 specific time or for the remainder of their 

 life, esteeming such abstinence to be a cer- 

 tain means of acquiring some supernatural 

 powers, or at least of entailing upon them- 

 selves a succession of good fortune. 



One of the wives of the Carlton hunter, 



