395 
blades, })ows and arrows^ and babiche snares for luintin^’, nets of 
willow bark, and probably speai's for fishing. The dwelling was the 
usual rectangular hut of poles and brush with a gabled roof and 
covering of spruce boughs; during the sunuuer they often contented 
themselves with simple lean-tos. In the nineteenth century many 
families possessed tipis coveretl with caribou hides, later replaced by 
cloth; but tipis were probably iiii'e in pre-European times. Like all 
other northern Athapaskans, they macle fire with pyrites, cooked 
in water-tight baskets of interwoven spruce roots and willow, and 
served up their food in dishes of wood or bark. 
Their social life also contained very little that was remarkable. 
The tribe comprised several independent, semi-leaderless bands, each 
controlling a definite territory; there were five in the middle of the 
nineteenth century, but these may not have corresponded exactly to 
the pre-European alinement. The hardshi]>s of life caused frequent 
desertion of the aged and the destruction of female infants. Male 
])risoners taken in raids were staked to the ground, and their ciuiver- 
ing hearts given to the women to devour, a custom that savoured 
more of the plains’ tribes and the Iroquoians than of the Atha- 
j:»askans. Alone of all the Canadian Indians, the Hare and the 
“Loucheux”- seem to have practised circumcision.'^ In these same 
two tribes medicine-men permitted themselves to be suspended in 
the air to facilitate communion with their guardian spirits. There 
were two ceremonial feasts; a memorial feast to the dead a year 
after burial, and a lunar feast on the occasion of each new moon. 
The latter was celebrated by most Athapaskan tribes, but at eclipses 
only. The memorial feast, and indeed all the burial custojns of the 
Hare, were identical with the Dogrib rites. Some Hare death chants 
recorded by Petitot^ greatly resemble the corresponding chants of the 
Tahltan. 
The Hare have experienced all the epitlemics that have ravaged 
the other tribes along the Mackenzie river. Their original popula- 
1 Their arrows were lotifter Ilian lliose of neiirhliourinjc trihes. whence Ihe name I.ong- Arrowed 
Indians ar>i>lied to them hy Keith (Mass,!]!; Op. eit., series ii, ]). 117), Cf. Petitot: .Monograpliie 
des liene-Oinfljie, p. 37 f. 
-Petitot: Moriograiiliie ile.s Dene-Dindjie, i>. 7S. By Lfincliem," he prohalilv means the Bataril- 
r.oueheux. a band of niinsled Hare and Kntcliin that hunted between the Mackeii'/de river and tlie 
Eskimo lakes in the first, lialf of the nineteenth eentnry. 
3 Petitot: .Monofiraphie, j). 78: Traditions indiennes dn Canada nord-oue.st, p. 24!) f, Paris, 1.S87. 
Mackenzie (op. eit., ]>, 36) stales that tlte ai>p''arance of ciieumcLsion was tieneral amonfi some Slave 
and Dogrib Indians lie eneonntereet below Oreat Slave lake. Yet the restriction of the |iraetice to 
this small aria, and the lack of any refeiences (o it by other travellers, raises a suspicion ihal 
.Mackenzie and Petitot may have been deceiv'cd. 
■i Petitot : Monograpliie des Deiie-Ditidjie, p. fi!) f. 
