382 
wind and thunder; and on their aid he could rely at all times. He 
then became one of the recoo-nized medicine-men of the community, 
able to cause and cure rliseases, and to deliver the people in times of 
famine. Real deities seem to have been lackinji; in the old Sekani 
religion; and if there were local spirits, supernatural beings that 
haunted special localities, the present generation of Indians has for- 
gotten them. Yet they still believe that man and the animal world 
are linked together in some mysterious way, and that the animals 
possess special powers which they may grant the Indian if he seeks 
them in the proper manner. 
Harmon states that in the early years of the nineteenth century 
the Sekani of the upper Parsnip basin burned their dead, following 
the custom of the Carrier, whereas at an earlier period they buried 
them in the ground.^ The present-day Sekani have a clear remem- 
brance of cremation, but not of burial in the ground. They assert 
that they discontinued cremation before the middle of the century, 
and reverted to an ancient custom, never entirely abandoned, of 
covering the dead with the brush huts that had sheltered them during 
their last days and then deserting the locality ; but men of influence 
during that period they deposited in coffins raised on platforms or 
trees.- To-day, like all other Indians, they bury in the ground, fol- 
lowing the Christian ritual. 
The Sekani numbered Kit) in 1923, 61 having their headquarters 
at Fort McLeod and 99 at Fort Grahame. In addition, there was a 
mixed Sekani-Kaska band, with an infusion of European blood, that 
roamed between the Finlay and Liard rivers, trading sometimes at 
Fort Grahame, sometimes at 1 lease lake; it numl)ered between 40 and 
50. What the ])re-European pojmlation must have been it is difficult 
to estimate, but, judging from the number of the Beaver Indians 
lower flown the Peace liver, it must have exceeded 1.000. 
BEAVER 
About the middle of the eigliteenth century, according to 
Mackenzie, the Beaver occuined not only tJie entire basin of the 
Peace river below its junction with the Smoky, but the district 
around lake Claire and the valley of the Athabaska river as far south 
as the Clearwater ami Methy portage. Probably the inhabitants of 
iHnrnion: Oii. cit.. p. 310. 
2 Cf. Morice, A. G. : “Tin- W(‘st(^ni Denes"; Proc. Cnn. Inst., 3:'(] ser., ^'ol. ^■ii, p. 146 (Toronto, 
1888-9), 
