87 
and went outside the tipis carrying walking sticks. A dance and a special 
song were performed, and as they visited each tent they were presented 
with some food, a piece of meat or fish. By this symbolic offering it was 
thought the hungry spirit that was devouring the moon would be 
placated. 
A special feast for the spirits was described at Good Hope. For this 
ceremony skins and other goods were collected for many years and a large 
supply of meat was stored up. When the feast finally was made, every- 
thing was divided. This was done, according to the informant, in order 
to show sorrow. In some cases the celebrants burned their hair and 
dressed themselves to look as ugly as possible. 
Feasts were also made after a burial, a marriage, after the first pelt 
of value was caught by a boy, and when he killed his first moose or caribou. 
When meat was plentiful in the camp, especially when one man had made 
a successful hunt and others not, a feast was given. Also the head of a 
camp gives a feast for strangers. Pike (1892, page 153) mentions this latter 
obligation occurring in an instance when the chief of the Yellowknives 
was bound to give a feast to his guests, a band of Dogribs. 
Messiah Cult. A new religious cult reached Great Bear lake in the 
winter of 1925-26. It was introduced by the Rae Dogribs by way of 
Marten lake. A message was sent by their chief to the Bear Lake chief 
apprising him of the importance of the new cult and he has acted since 
as its leader in that vicinity. The cult activity is principally a dance. 
Before starting the ceremony, everyone must wash and dress his hair. 
Both men and women dance in a single circle to the accompaniment of a 
beaten drum before which each of the dancers bows in passing. 
The cult is supposed to have originated with a man of supernatural 
power who lived at Providence on the upper Mackenzie river. When one 
of the Indians was ill with an epileptic fit, this shaman was called in. He 
thereupon hit the ground with his stick and told the man to rise, which 
he immediately did, completely cured. So great did his fame become for 
this and other deeds that he was called a ‘Messiah’. How the ceremony 
became part of the cult, no one seemed to know. 
The ‘Messiah Cult’ is widespread among the Indians but it may be 
only of temporary significance, especially since so much sickness and death 
have appeared con current ly. 
MYTHOLOGY 
The Satudene are fond of felling stories, and have a great mass of 
mythological lore. The commonest type of story is scarcely describable 
as a myth, but rather as a more or less exaggerated narration of events, 
many of which have a historical basis. These stories, even more than the 
actual myths, are in extreme Rabelaisian style and the Satudene find them 
greatly amusing. 
The Satudene do not tell riddles. 
Myths of origin, flood legends, and tales of monsters, vary from tribe 
to tribe, and from individual to individual. On the whole, there seems to 
be less tendency to formal accounts and development of detail among 
the Satudene, than among surrounding tribes. From Good Hope come the 
cycle of legends about the First Brother. 
