404 
We know very little about the religion of the Kiitchin. Theii 
hunters often prayed to a moon-deity before starting out on their 
expeditions, and burned fat in the fire to obtain success in the 
chase. They had the same belief as other Indians in supernatural 
beings that haunted special localities, and they tried to propitiate 
them with offerings of beads. Every jnisfortune was attributed to 
witchcraft, and the Kutchin paid great deference to the medicine- 
men who claimed to acquire special powers from the unseen world 
through the usual fasting anrl dreaming. The dead were either 
burned immediately and their ashes suspended in bags from the tops 
of painted poles, or, if persons of note, deposited in trees within 
wooden coffins and burned several months later when the fiesli had 
decayed; for the Kutchin dreaded burial in the ground. Relatives 
destroyed their property, lacerated their bodies, and made the same 
display of grief as the Mackenzie River Indians, but they also 
adopted from the Tlinkit the custom of holding a memorial feast 
or potlatch within a special enclosure, when the guests sang mournful 
songs, danced, and indulged in various games, and departed with 
gifts for which they subsequently made a partial return. 
There are perhaps 700 Kutchin living within the borders of 
Canaria to-day. A census made by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 
1858 gave a population of 1,179.^ Seeing that even then the tribes 
had declined greatly through infanticirle. wars, and European diseases, 
Mooney estimates a pre-European population of 3,000.^ 
1 O.awpon ; “Report of nn Esi'loration iii tlio Yukon District, “ p. 206 ]i. 
2 Mooney ; Op. cit., p. 26. 
