374 
in a separate hut aiul subjected to many taboos, underwent intensive 
training* for from one to two years. Outdoors they covered their 
heads with robes so that no men could see their faces, and they often 
carried little sacks into which they confessed their wrong;doin^s and 
prayed for deliverence from further sin. Boys in their teens fasted 
at frequent intervals to obtain guardian spirits, then sought the 
counterparts of the animals or birds that had appeared to them in 
their dreams and preserved the skins as tokens of their blessings. 
All the young, unmarried men in each band lived together in a special 
lodge or clubhouse, a custom rare among Canadian Indians, though 
common in other parts of the world. Whenever one of them dis- 
covered a maiden to his liking he accompanied his prospective 
parents-in-law for several months and delivered to them all the pro- 
flucts of his hunting anrl fishing. His own parents then paid the 
bride-price, which was later returned to the young couple as a dower. 
If a man’s wife died he could claim any unmarried sister she might 
have, without further payment; and when he himself died, his sister’s 
son, being his legal successor, supported the widow and as a general 
rule married hei*. 
The Tahltan cremated their dead and laid the charred bones on 
top of a post or within a small box raised a few feet above the ground. 
They sang chants over the dying to guide the souls on their journey 
to the land of sunrise; and other chants at the funeral pyre. One 
of their death chants ran as follows: 
Yana-a. This way is the trail. 
This way it goes. Don’t miss it. 
The trail goes right to the east 
where the sun rises. ^ 
Families of high rank, at the decease of one of their members, some- 
times killed a slave and threw the corpse into the river, following a 
custom of the Tlinkit; at other times, on the contrary, they freed 
a favourite slave. Widows blackened their faces and wore mourn- 
ing for about a year; though subjected to many restrictions they did 
not undergo such harsh usage as Carrier widows. The Tahltan 
believed in reincarnation, like all or nearly all Indian tribes, and at 
the funeral of a loved kinsman a woman often performed a peculiar 
ceremony to bring about the re-birth of his soul in her next child. 
1 The Tahltan were very fond of singiriR, and wt!rc always composing songs for their children. 
The death chant given above has been taken from tlie notes and phonograph records collected by 
James Teit and now deposited in the National Museum of Canada. 
