Contributions to Chipewyan Ethnology 0404583199, 9780404583194

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NUNC COCNOSCO EX PARTE I

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V

THOMAS J. BATA LIBRARY TRENT UNIVERSITY /

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CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHIPEWYAN ETHNOLOGY

VOLUME VI-NO. 3

AMS PRESS NEW YORK

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/contributionstocOOOObirk

REPORT OF THE FIFTH THULE EXPEDITION 1921—24 THE DANISH EXPEDITION TO ARCTIC NORTH AMERICA IN CHARGE of

KNUD RASMUSSEN

ph. d.

VOL. VI. NO. 3

CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHIPEWYAN ETHNOLOGY BY

KAJ BIRKET-SMITH

GYLDENDALSKE BOGHANDEL, NORDISK FORLAG COPENHAGEN L930

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Birket-Smith, Kaj, 1893Contributions to Chipewyan ethnology. Reprint of the 1930 ed. published by Gyldendal, Copenhagen, which was issued as v. 6, no. 3 of Report of the fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24. Bibliography: p. 1. Chipewyan Indians. 2. Indians of North America—Cana¬ da—Churchill River. 3. Eskimos—Canada. I. Title. II. Series: Thule Expedition, 5th, 1921-1924. Report ; v. 6, no. 3. E99.C59B5 1976 970’.004’97 ISBN 0-404-58300-8 (set)

76-21701

Reprinted from an original copy in the collections of the library of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research From the edition of 1930, Copenhagen First AMS edition published in 1976 Manufactured in the United States of America International Standard Book Number: Complete Set: 0-404-58300-8 Volume 6, No. 3: 0-404-58319-9 AMS PRESS INC. NEW YORK, N. Y.

Introduction. The object of the Fifth Thule Expedition in charge of Knud Ras¬ mussen was first and foremost the study of the Eskimos, and one of the most important problems contained within that task was that of the mutual relations between the Eskimos and the northern Indians. For this reason the investigation into matters relating to the Caribou Eskimos on the Barren Grounds was made a principal objective, and in the description of the material and social culture of that group I have sought to make a contribution to the comprehension of the posi¬ tion of Eskimo culture within the circumpolar culture as a whole1). In order to create the necessary background for an investigation of this kind it was, of course, of importance that the Expedition should also have an opportunity of viewing the matter from other directions than the Eskimo aspect alone, not least because the ethno¬ graphy of the northern Athapaskan tribes is on the whole very little known. As a consequence it was decided that I should lay my return journey from Hudson Bay 1923 via Churchill in order that I might spend some time among the Chipewyan living at the mouth of that river. My stay was not one of long duration, it is true, I having arrived with the Greenlander Jacob Olsen at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s post on July 12th and leaving there again on my way to York on Nelson River on August 11th2). Nor had we any easy task. We had trouble in finding a helper that would be of any use to us, as the Company’s regular interpreter, old George Oman, suffered from ad¬ vanced deafness. The Indians were waiting for the Government agent, a sergeant of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who was to pay them their treaty money, and they spent the waiting time at the post, where they hunted birds and fished to satisfy their immediate requirements. As a result, I never had the opportunity of travelling with them and living their own lives, and so did not get upon the q Birket-Smith 1929. t) On this see my description in Knud Rasmussen 1925—26, I 428 seqq.

6 same intimate footing with them as with the Eskimos. For these reasons the following account cannot lay claim to be more than a number of scattered contributions to a description of their culture, and not a complete monograph. A small ethnographical collection was acquired and handed over to the custody of the National Museum in Copenhagen1), together with the other collections of the Expedition. The study of the social and intellectual culture naturally gave most trouble. The Chipewyan at Churchill all belong to the Anglican Church now. It is true that this is no more than a matter of form for many of them, the explanation being, among other things, that the local English missionary did not understand a single word of the language spoken by the members of his congregation, and only very few of these knew one or two words of broken English. All the same, it meant so much that their innate shyness towards strangers naturally asserted itself first and foremost in religious questions. I was sO fortunate, however, as to obtain very great help in this respect. The leader of the Catholic Mission at Chesterfield Inlet, Mgr. A. Turquetil, O. M. I., had formerly worked for many years as a missionary among the Chipewyan at Reindeer Lake, and from this most learned and amiable man I received a very great amount of information on just those aspects of the culture which I would not be able to learn myself during my sojourn among the Indians. It is a particular pleasure to me to express here my warm thanks to Mgr. Turquetil for the many pleasant and instructive conversations at his little Mission, Notre Dame de la Délivrande. The consequence of this collaboration has been, however, that whilst the description of the material culture almost exclusively refers to Churchill, the account of the social and religious life has particular reference to Reindeer Lake. Some material is also due to a young Scotsman, Mr. James Thom, who has been in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company at Churchill for some years. For this, too, I am very grateful. I he principal writers who have previously described the Chipe¬ wyan are undoubtedly Hearne and Mackenzie; there are also, how¬ ever, important contributions to the knowledge of their life in Frank¬ lin, Richardson and King. Chipewyan tales, some of them in the original language, have been published by Father Petitot, Lofthouse, Goddard and Lowie. On the other hand, no mention is made of the Chipewyan by a number of early writers such as Jens Munk, Jérémie and Umfreville, although they report on these regions. The wan¬ derings of the Chipewyan have something to do with this of course (see p. 12 seqq.). ') In the following abbreviated lo CNM.

General Impression. When a traveller arrives at Churchill from the north, his first feeling — at any rate in summer — is that he has come to a foreign continent. The majestic river, and the spruce forest whose still, warm air hums with insect

life, seem in themselves to belong to quite

another world than the

open

blown

wind¬

tundra

to

the north, and this impression of some¬ thing

new

strange is

and

strength¬

ened by the people. To the north the Ca¬ ribou ten

Eskimos:

fairly

according

of¬

well to

off their

small standard, still possessing that selfreliance

that

consequence

is of

a the

fact that connection with an old, deeply rooted

culture

has

been preserved, very impressionable, help¬ ful,

and almost

al¬

ways smiling. In con¬ trast to them the In¬

Fig. 1.

Middle-aged Chipewyan.

Churchill.

(Photo by G. Third).

dians: timid, reticent towards strangers, afraid of lowering their dignity, poor, importunate to an incredible degree, and, according to report, not entirely inno¬ cent of being unreliable and thieving. In both a somatic and a psychological sense there are undoubtedly great differences betwreen the Chipewyan and the Eskimos; a closer examination show's, how'ever, that the gulf between them is narrower than first impressions would indicate. From a racial point of view the Chipewyan are not nearly so pronouncedly “Indian” as the tra¬ ditional American type. They are neither taller nor darker-skinned than the Eskimos (in w'hich they differ from the Cree, for instance). The men, however — but not the women — are rather thinner, with high, marked cheek bones. The nose is rarely that prominent eagle-

8 beak required by romance, but small and straight as a rule

(fig.

1—-)• Among the Caribou and Netsilik Eskimos I have seen many individuals who from their appearance could not be distinguished from Chipewyan. It is the same with their character. Like the Eskimos, the Chipewyan are decidedly peaceful up to the point where self-control fails; yet !

their

wars

with

the Eskimos and the Cree show that under certain circumstances they were not afraid of

taking

when with

up

arms,

they the

fought

same

wild

savagery as their ene¬ mies.

Their

shyness,

penchant for begging, etc. be

must

in

regarded

reality in

the

light of their general deculturation. their gained

Once

confidence they

are

is al¬

ways hospitable, and among

themselves

they regard theft, un¬ truthfulness and un¬ reliability as most re¬ Fig. 2.

Chipewyan boy.

Churchill.

(Photo by G. Third).

prehensible.

A

real

psychological diffe¬ rence between these Indians and the Eskimos undoubtedly lies in the formers’ more serious appearance, their fear of displaying their feel¬ ings; but it must not be thought that Eskimos are clowns or that Chipewyan are proot against fun; and one often hears hearty laughter at any rate from the Indian women. It is my belief

in which of course I may be wrong — that

neither physically nor psychically can the Chipewyan compare with the Eskimos or the Cree. Against both peoples they have waged san¬ guinary and protracted feuds, and to this day one will look long for any amiability between them. The Cree are regarded as the hereditary enemy; their name [En a] is almost synonymous with enemy on the whole, and the Chipewyan regard with a contempt blended with fear these “hare-eating” Cree who, in their opinion, live in a wret-

9

Fig. 3.

The mission at Churchill.

cited, swampy country and barely know how to hunt caribou. The Eskimos are called [°tREn'a], a contraction of [otREL-En'a], “the ene¬ mies from the flat — i. e. woodless — land”. These, too, the Chjpewyan look down upon with contempt; their more impulsive charac¬ ter is regarded by the Chipewyan from the angle of childishness. 1 his,

however, does not prevent the Eskimos being decidedly

their superiors in the intercourse between the two peoples. Many Indians can speak a little Eskimo, whereas no Eskimo would stoop to speak Chipewyan. As soon as an Eskimo w7hale boat puts in to Churchill the crew7 are at once subjected to the most embarrassing begging for meat, caribou skins, etc. by the Indians. Consequently, as far as possible the Eskimos keep to themselves when at Churchill. White men are called [baunlai], “those for whom the land exists”, i. e.

“our superiors”. As significant of the weak character of the

Chipewyan as this name is, it would certainly be wrong to take it to be an expression of more cordial feelings towards the victorious race. On the whole the Chipewyan seem to have been rather fortunate with the wThite men with whom they have been in contact. Venereal disease is said to be little in evidence among them, whereas smallpox has formerly wrought great devastation. The Catholic mission among the Etthen-eldeli was founded by Eather Grollier, who spent his first winter among them

1853—541).

younger. 1) Duchaussois 1922, 256.

The

Protestant mission is much

10 In 1923 there were an Anglican missionary at Churchill (fig. 3), two young Scots in the service of the H. B. C., and two or three halfhreed families. One of the halfbreeds was married to a Cree woman and had his old mother-in-law from Trout Lake in the house. Other¬ wise there were no permanent inhabitants; but the Chipewyan, and occasionally

some of

the

southern

Caribou

Eskimos

(Padlimiut),

traded regularly in the store.

Phonetic Writing. With each culture element I have as far as possible given its name in the dialect spoken at Churchill. I must expressly add, however, that the possibility of errors exists, as I have not been able to effect any control like that used with Eskimo words, and therefore I ap¬ peal to the indulgence of philologists in such cases of almost una¬ voidable inaccuracies. The words

were written

down

as

I heard

them, with the use of the following symbols, although the musical tone that is said to play a great part in the Chipewyan tongue is not especially indicated: m as in “met”,

a as in “father”,

n as in “net”,

a nazalized a. b half-voiced

or

voiced

as

in

o as in “note”,

in

p voiceless consonant correspond¬

o open o, almost as in “law”,

“bit”. d half-voiced

or

voiced

as

ing to b.

“did”. 5 voiced as th in “this”,

r as in North German

“Regen”,

e closed almost as in “they”,

different from the point r re¬

e nasalized e.

corded

e open as in “met”,

the Chipewyan at Cold Lake.

by

Goddard

a as in “to”.

R as ch in Scotch “loch”,

g half-voiced or voiced as in “go”,

s as in “sit”.

g as g in North-German “Regen ”,

J as sh in “shall”,

Danish “age”’. h as in “hit”,

t dental t. t! ejective t. cerebral (?) t.

i as in “pique”.

t

T nasalized i.

Ti ejective T.

j as y in “yard”,

ji as th in “thin”,

k voiceless stop corresponding to g. k! ejective k.

u as in “rule”. wr as in “will”, z as in “lizard”,

1 as in “let”.

g as z in “azure”.

L voiceless 1, also common in

6 as in German “schon”.

Eskimo.

o nasalized o.

among

11 1 he sounds that give the language its character are the many nasal vowels, the interdental fricatives and the ejective tenues. It must expressly be observed that the half-voiced consonants g, d, b and the corresponding voiceless k, t, p, are taken to be the same sounds. The same person may be heard pronouncing the same word sometimes with voiced, sometimes with voiceless consonants. An ex¬ ponent designates a faintly uttered sound. The stress is indicated by ' before the particular syllable. All words spelt in phonetic writing are placed in crotchets [ ].

1. Habitation. Migration and Settling. The Chipewyan form one of the most noteworthy tribes within the Northern or Dene Group of the great Athapaskan stock. The

Handbook of the American Indians the Chipewyan are defined as “an Athapascan

word is used rather variously, however. In the

linguistic group, embracing the Desnedekenade and Athabasca, called Chipewyan proper, the Thilanotinne, Etheneldeli, and Tatsanotinne. The term was originally applied to the Chipewyan

who assailed

the Cree about L. Athabasca; subsequently the Cree and, following their example, the whites, extended it to include all Athapascan tribes known to them, the whites using it as a synonym of Tinneh, but it is now confined to the linguistic group above referred to, although the Tatsanotinne, or Yellow-knives, are generally separated in popu¬ lar usage” x). In its extended sense the name is used by Mackenzie, as appears from the distribution attributed to the group by him: "It begins at Churchill, and runs along the line of separation between them and the Knisteneaux (i. e. Cree), up to the Missinipi (i. e. Churchill River) to the Isle å la Crosse, passing on through the Buffalo Lake, River Lake, and Portage la Loche: from thence it proceeds by the Elk River to the Lake of the Hills, and goes directly West to the Peace River; and up that river to its source and tributary waters; from whence it proceeds to the waters

of the river Columbia; and follows

that river to latitude 52.24 North, and longitude 122.54 West, where the Chipewyans have the Atnah or Chin Nation for their neighbours. It then takes a line due West to the sea-coast, within which, the country is possessed by a people who speak their language, and are consequently descended from them: there can be no doubt, therefore, of their progress being to the Eastward”2). *) Hand. Arner. Ind., I 275 sec. It is this group of Chipewyan in the wider sense whom Petitot (1876, XX) groups under the name of Montagnais (not to be confused with the Algonkian tribe Naskapi-Montagnais in Labrador). 2) Mackenzie 1801, CXVII.

13 In the following the word Ghipewyan will be employed in the modern, narrower sense, exclusive of Ihe Yellow Knife. The Chipewyan group in this meaning of the word originally lived at Peace River, and its wanderings are closely hound up with the great west¬ ward advance of the (Tee at the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, which again is connected with the fact that at that time these Indians came into possession of firearms. In 1718 the Chipewyan still lived at Peace River, where they were successful in repulsing the attack of the Cree, and, taking advantage of this, they took possession of the region by Lower Peace River from which the Slavey had been driven just before. This corresponds to what Racqueville de La Potherie writes about them: “Les Michinipicpoets, c’est-a-dire homines de pierre dii grand Lac, demeurent a trois cens lienes.

Cette nation habite Nord & Sad”1). Whilst the

Desnedekenade remained at Slave River and the Athabasca by the lake of the same name, and whilst the Thilanotinne settled about Cold Lake and La Crosse Lake on Upper Churchill River, the newly established Fort Prince of Wales attracted another group, the later Etthen-eldeli, out to the coast of Hudson

Ray,

where under the

shelter of the fort walls they could trade, without fear of an attack by the Cree2). On the whole the Chipewyan as a consequence ac¬ quired the distribution which they now have, and on which Frank¬ lin writes:

“Those who come to Fort Chipewyan term themselves

Saw-eessaw-dinneh (the Indians from the rising sun, or Eastern In¬ dians),

their

original

hunting

grounds

being

between

the

Ath¬

abasca, and Great Slave Lakes, and Churchill River . . . There are about one hundred and sixty hunters who carry their furs to the Great Slave Lake, forty to Bay River, and two hundred to Fort Chipewyan. A few Northern Indians also resort to the posts at the bottom of the Lake of the Hills, on Red Deer Lake, and to Churchill. The distance, however, of the latter post from their hunting grounds, and the sufferings to which they are exposed in going thither from want of food, have induced those who were formerly accustomed (o visit it, to convey their furs to some nearer station”3). Richardson’s statements agree with those of Franklin: “Part of these wandering, solitary people resort at intervals of two or three years to Churchill for supplies, and part to Fort Chipewyan, where, from the direction in which they come, they are named Sa-i-sa-’dtinné (Eastern or Rising Sun folks). The Athabasca ’Tinne, named also ‘) Bacqueville de La Potherie

1722, I

176. These utterances are taken word

tor word by Dobbs 1744, 25. 2) The tradition of the first encounter with the English at Churchill is related by Petitot 1886, 424 seqq. Another tradition will be found in the following, p. 98 seq. s)

Franklin 1823, 155 seqq.

14 Chepewyans, frequent the Elk and Slave Rivers, and the country westward to Hay River, which falls into Great Slave Lake”1). That part of the Chipewyan tribe that especially .comes under consideration in the following is the aforementioned group.

Like most Athapaskan tribes

they call

Northeastern

themselves

[dene],

“humans”. A special name for the group is [etpEn-Eldeli], “caribou eaters”, an indication of the fundamental importance of the caribou to their lives. When the Etthen-eldeli got out to Hudson Bay they could not settle down as they have now done, at the very mouth of Churchill River, which from ancient times has been part of the Cree territory2). Even as recent an author as Coats says that this territory stretched as far north as to Seal River3). Under these circumstances the Ettheneldeli had to keep to the edge of the forest and the Barren Grounds; for this reason Coats says that the Chipewyan only come to trade every other year from a land by “a lake or sea” which is separated from Seal River by a portage4). Mackenzie says that the Chipewyan regard the Barren Grounds, and not the forests, as their country”5).

Only

gradually

has

Churchill

become

the

“native

boundary

between the Chipewyan and Cree, and the latter have now withdrawn from there entirely. Cut off from the south from the first, the Chipewyan apparently took the whole of the southern Barren Grounds into possession dur¬ ing their advance. How far north they extended their hunting trips cannot be decided. Hearne has them going right up to 68° N.;8) but this is undoubtedly greatly exaggerated. In a letter dated 28th June 1742 to Sir Charles Wager, Captain Middleton, however, writes: “Two of these Indians .... have, as far as I can understand, been at Ne Ultra (i. e. Roe’s Welcome)” and in a letter of 2nd October the same year he says that Marble Island is “not far from their country”7). When

Captain

Scroggs

discovered

Fullerton in

1722,

one

of his

Chipewyan companions wanted to leave the ship “saying he was within three or four days journey of his own country”; this, how¬ ever, may be due to a misunderstanding, so much the more as on the same voyage Eskimos were met with at the coast in lat. 62 °N.8). q Richardson 1851, II 5. z)

The Caribou Eskimos, too, have had regular summer camps at the mouth

of the Churchill (cf. Robson 1752, 64). Neither Ihe Cree nor the Eskimos seem to have been frequent guests, however: thus the Danish expedition under Jens Munk was able to winter there in 1619—20 without meeting anybody. s) Coats 1852, 33. 4) Coats 1852, 31 seqq. Cf. Dobbs 1744, 47. 6) Mackenzie

1801, LXXXI.

6) Hearne 1795, 326. 7) Coals 1852, 120, 126. 8) Dobbs 1744, 80.

15 Later on, when the H. B. C. sloop came to Dawson Inlet, however, they traded not only with the Eskimos hut also with the Chipewyan 4). Having regard to the hostile feelings of the Chipewyan and Eski¬ mos for each other, we may suppose that the Indian occupation of the southern Barren Grounds did not proceed peacefully. An histori¬ cally known example of war is given by Hearne, who relates that in 1756 the Chipewyan massacred the Eskimos at Dawson Inlet2). After this, many years passed before the Eskimos dared show themselves in the vicinity of the Indians. There can hardly be any doubt that about the middle of the eighteenth century the Eskimos were the victims of constant attacks in which, in the absence of firearms, they neces¬ sarily drew the shortest straw, and that through this they were grad¬ ually driven northwards from their old settlements. It is significant that Hearne was able to make his journey east and north about Hikoligjuaq, right up to the vicinity of Dubawnt River and back to Churchill, without meeting Eskimos. They must have left the field, perhaps as far as to Chesterfield Inlet and Baker Lake, to the Chipe¬ wyan. This has had considerable influence upon the distribution of Eskimo culture-types in these regions3). Since then the expansion of the Chipewyan has ceased, perhaps because the Eskimos in their turn were gradually provided with firearms, perhaps for other reasons, as for instance the cessation of the pressure of the Cree in the south. When the Chipewyan withdrew to the timber line, the Eskimos seem to have followed upon their heels. With regard to the distribution of the Etthen-eldeli at the present time Morice says merely that they hunt “in the vicinity of Lakes Cariboo or Reindeer, Axe, and Brochet, east of Lake Athabaska, as well as on the barren grounds which extend therefrom to the north as far as the land of the Eskimos, and in the east as far as Hudson Bay”4). More accurately defined the northern boundary of their ter¬ ritory proper in the interior is Lake Kasha5), whereas at the coast they do not go much further north than Seal River. In other words, they mostly keep to the south of the timber line. However, it is not so many years since their hunting trips extended much further north. Not only did the Tyrrell brothers at the north end of Markham Lake, south of Dubawnt Lake, see “some very old moss-grown “tepee” poles and fragments of birch bark .... indicat¬ ing clearly that in days gone by the spot had been visited by Indians, q Hearne 1795, 298, 338 footnote. 2)

Ibidem, 298, 338 footnote.

s)

Cf. Birket-Smith 1929, II 16.

4)

Morice 1906, I 267.

5) J. B. Tyrrell 1898, 20.

16 though it was now known to them only in legends”1). J. B. Tyrrell also relates that “aprés noire visite du 27 aoiit, line bande de sauvages Chippewéyens qui font la trade å Churchill se rendit dans la direc¬ tion du nord jusqu’au camp d’Ungalluk å la recherche de caribou, et nous rapporterent la chose a leur arrivée a Churchill, en Novembre. C’est lå, parait-il, la limite nord que les Chippewéyens atteignent aujourd’hui” 2). This particular spot is near the Middle Kazan, between Lake Angikuni and Hikoligjuaq (Yathkyed Lake).

Geography of the Country. The territory nowadays inhabited by the Chipewyan lies on the border between the boreal forest belt and the Barren Grounds and, in a geological sense, forms a part of the so-called Canadian shield. It is a low, rolling country, where rounded, ice-worn hills of Precamhrian formation rise up over lower Quaternary deposits. As everywhere in the North, there is a veritable wealth of rivers and lakes. The largest river is Churchill, which is only separated 'at its source from the Mackenzie system by a portage, La Loche, twelve and a quarter miles long. Later it is fed by the great Reindeer Lake and, after having flowed through North and South Indian Lakes, empties into the southwest corner of Hudson Bay. Frog Portage is 380 yards long and leads to Grass River, which falls into the Sa¬ skatchewan ), and by other portages there is easy connection between the northern end of Reindeer Lake and Wollaston Lake and thence on to Athabasca Lake, and also Thlewiaza River, which again by means of a portage gives access to Lake Kasha and Kazan River. Thus for the Indians there is nothing to prevent their travelling by canoe in practically every direction. The climate is pronouncedly continental, with long and severe winters and brief but comparatively warm summers. The nearer one approaches the coast the harsher becomes the climate, and at Hudson Bay it borders upon the arctic. The Chipewyan have made regular hunting excursions to the Bar¬ ren Grounds, especially in former times, hut it is the forest that is their real home, and it

is the adaptation to the woodlands that

stamps their lite and culture. The timber line runs from the mouth of the Churchill along the coast of Hudson Bay as far as Seal River, where it

turns abruptly towards the northwest, running south of

Thlewiaza River and over Lakes Nueltin, Ennadai, and Boyd. *) J. W. Tyrrell s. a., 92. 2)

J. B. Tyrrell 1898, 92.

8)

Ami 1915, 877.

4) Ibidem, 877.

17

Fig. 4.

Scenery near the mouth of Churchill River: spruce-clad valley and lake between naked hills.

The forest is mostly composed of black spruce (Picea nigra) and larch (Larix americana), whereas the white spruce (P.alba) is prin¬ cipally confined to dry ridges and stony river banks; aspen (Populus tremuloides) extends to the sources of Thlewiaza Riverx). At the mouth of Churchill there are also canoe birch (Betula papyrif era) and balsam poplar (P. balsamifera)2), but so far north the canoe birch does not grow to such a height that its bark is of any use to the population. Gr°at stretches of the woodlands are swampy “muskegs”, because frozen and rocky bottom prevent the water from getting away, and generally the trees are small and thin, having, on the whole, a very stunted appearance (fig. 4). The most important representative of the fauna is the caribou (Rangifer arcticus), which still occurs in enormous numbers. “The southern range of Barren Ground caribou on the west coast of Hud¬ son Bay may be said to be limited by Churchill River. Even in for¬ mer years these caribou were seldom known to cross that river, and they are still hunted within a few miles of Fort Churchill. Farther inland they reach the south end of Reindeer Lake”3). South of the boundary mentioned, which, however, for the most part coincides with the Chipewyan’s own border, occurs the big woodland caribou. ’) Bell 1881, 44. J. B. Tyrrell 1898, 187 seq. 2)

Bell 1881, 45 seq.

8) Preble 1902, 42. K. Birket-Smith

2

18 It was the summer migration of the Barren Ground caribou towards the north that at one time brought the Chipewyan on the far side of the timber line. Otherwise the fauna is characterised by the fact that typical arc¬ tic species at the timber line meet the animals of the boreal forest belt. At Churchill occur both polar bear and arctic fox, and formerly the musk-ox came south of Seal River1). On the other hand a greater part in the economic life of the Indians is played by the forest fauna proper: moose (Alces americanus), beaver (Castor canadensis), musk¬ rat (Fiber zibethicus), squirrel (Sciurus hudsonicus), porcupine (Erethizon dorsatus), black hear (Ursus americanus), lynx (Lynx cana¬ densis), otter (Lutra canadensis), pine marten (Mustela americana), mink (Putorius vison), etc. Of the birds, the rock ptarmigan and willow grouse, as well as the Canadian grouse, deserve special ment¬ ion. There are, of course, many birds of prey as well, waders and swimmers, as well as typical forest birds such as the woodpecker, Canada jay (“whiskyjack”), etc. The fishes are of very great importance to the population, fish¬ ing being an indispensable adjunct to caribou hunting. There are several species of Coregonus and Thymallus, pike, tullibee, etc. And in summer the mosquitos are an almost insupportable plague. Preble 1902; 43.

II. Food. Caribou Hunting. The Ghipewyan are exclusively hunters and fishers; every form of agriculture is unknown and the gathering of wild plants quite insignificant. Among the game animals the caribou is by far the most important; the Ghipewyan are just as dependent upon it as their neighbours on the north, the Caribou Eskimos, as already appears from the name of the group here described, Etthen-eldeli, or “Cari¬ bou Eaters”. On the other hand marine mammals are never hunted. Although there are both seals and white whales in the mouth of Churchill River, it never occurs to the Indians to hunt them. Formerly the bow and arrow, lance, dagger, and snare were used in caribou hunting. The bow and arrow have long been replaced by the rifle and are now only known from tradition; even the grouse-bow has disap¬ peared, although a middle-aged man knew of it in his boyhood1). About the big-game bow proper such an early writer as Hearne writes that it has partly fallen into disuse2). The bow [eLTRe-] was a simple long-bow like all bows in boreal America, where Eskimo influence has not asserted itself. Apparently the Chipewyan bow was not fdted with any projecting part to meet the string when shooting, such as is commonly found on the bows of the northwestern Athapaskans. The material was birch. Nothing certain can be said of the cross-section of the bow, but in all probability it was rounded, whereas the bows of the Naskapi-Montagnais in Labrador are four-sided. In CNM there is an early, simple bow with rounded section and a string of babiche, which seems to have belonged to a tribe in the Mackenzie region, and two other hows of Athapaskan tribes in Alaska are of similar form. The arrow

[k!a] had a shaft of wood and three split feathers,

J) On the other hand I have seen half-grown boys among the Cree at Nelson River use bows, and they also seem to be used by the Naskapi-Montagnais. 2) Hearne 1795; 320, 322. Cf. Jérémie 1724, 402. 2*

20 placed radially and fastened with sinew thread, but their points were not sunk into the wood. For caribou the arrow was fitted with an unbarbed head of stone or bone; the former readily br.oke off in the wound and worked its way on into the animal, whereas this was not the case with the heads of bone. Arrows for birds were fitted with a club head. Bow and arrow were also used in fishing; fish arrows

were

barbed

but had no line — in other words, they were not harpoon-arrows. When shooting, the butt end of the arrow was

held

between

thumb and forefinger, whilst the middle fin¬ ger bent the string (the so-called

secondary

release). Seton states, however, that the Cree and Chipewyan—too? — used the Mediter¬ ranean release1), which in

North America is

common Eskimos,

among but

the

other¬

wise occurs only spo¬ radically in the boreal and south-western re¬ gions 2). earlier times the bow and arrow, as with the rifle now, were used for caribou in winter. When the snow Fig. 5.

Caribou dagger (a) and decoy (b).

lies thick and soft in the limitless forests,

the Indian leaves his

camp on snowshoes to search for the animal’s trail. As the caribou sinks deep into the snow despite his wide hoof, the hunter can trail it and run it to such a point of exhaustion that he can get within range. The animal is skinned on the spot and buried in the snow if the meat is not to be used at once. In rutting time the bulls are decoyed towards the hunter by means of an implement called

[EdELEji],

consisting of a few pieces

of antler tied into a bunch and carried at the belt. With the move¬ ments of the hunter the pieces rattle against each other and produce *) Seton 1912, 28 seq. J) On distribution see Birket-Smith 1929, II 246, 317 seq.

21 a sound which the bull mistakes for a couple of other bulls fighting for the favour of the cow. It rushes up for the purpose of making use of the opportunity itself and meets its fate. H l : 44, CNM (fig. 5 b), is one of these caribou decoys, consisting of three pieces of antler of different sizes, pierced at one end and placed on a three-tongued piece of unhaired, unsmoked skin; at the top there is a cross pin to act as a toggle. Total length 51 cm. Pitfalls in the snow, such as those used by the Eskimos, are said to be unknown. On the other hand caribou are often caught in snares in winter. In open country two long, converging rows of wooden sticks [tjÉtJinl] are set up, leading to a large enclosure [tpiL] of branches. On frozen lakes in the forest, converging rows of branches are laid in the same manner, ending at a similar en¬ closure on the bank opposite to the place where the caribou are expected to come. At certain inter¬ vals there are openings in the enclosure, and there the snares are set. These snares [beL] are made of thick babiche. A specimen, H 1:43, CNM (fig. 6) consists of a twisted thong with a loop at each end for making a running noose. The length is about 1.97 m. Prior to the hunt the Indians are careful not to walk in the enclosure and only touch the snares with mittens on their hands. The caribou follow, as is their wont, along by the converging rows of sticks and branches without breaking out to the sides, and only when it is too late do they dis¬ cover that they have thus got into the enclosure. Blind with fear they run backwards and for¬ wards, trying to escape through the openings, but only succeed in getting head and antlers ent¬ angled in the snares, so that they become an easy Fig. 6. Caribou prey to the rapidly advancing hunters. snare. The animals thus caught were killed with bow and arrow or with a kind of dagger [detfÉ-kla'gatlJugE] Fig. 5 a shows one of these (H 1 : 42, CNM), which consists of a piece of round iron pointed at one end, the other end fixed into a handle of antler with a prong at the rear end; length 35 cm, of which the point measures 23 cm. Those animals that are not caught in the snares are afraid to

22 flee in the direction in which they came, but remain standing, shiver¬ ing with fright, in the enclosure, where at last they are killed, it is said that the fright makes their flesh uneatable, so that only the skin can be used. King gives the following description of this form of caribou hunt: “When the Indians design to impound deer, they look out for one of the paths in which a number of them have trodden, and which is observed to be still frequented by them. The pound is built by making a strong fence with bushy trees, without observing any re¬ gularity, varying from a few yards to a mile in circumference. The entrance to the pound is about the size of a common gate; and the inside is crowded with counter-hedges, in every opening of which a snare is set, made of thongs of parchment deerskin well twisted to¬ gether, which are amazingly strong: one end of the snare is usually made fast to a small growing tree. The pound being thus prepared, a row of small brushwood is stuck up in the snow on each side of the door or entrance, and these hedge-rows are continued along the open part of the lake, river, or plain, which, from its openness, makes them the more distinctly observed. The brushwood rows are generally placed at a distance of fifteen or twenty yards from each other, and ranged in such a manner as to form two sides of a long acute angle, becoming gradually wider in proportion to the distance they extend from the pound, which sometimes is not less than two or three miles; while the deer’s path is exactly along the middle between the rows of brushwood. From a commanding situation the Indians watch the approach of the deer, when they close in upon them in the form of a crescent. . . . ” *) On the Barren Grounds, where the great enclosures could not he erected, the Chipewyan did the same as the Eskimos by raising long, converging rows of sticks ‘ like large ramrods” at a distance of 15 or 20 yards from each other, and fastening fluttering streamers to the top, which was also furnished with a lump of moss; these fences guided the animals to the place where the hunters, armed with bow and arrow, lay behind stone walls2). In autumn they hunt from the canoe when the caribou swim over rivers and lakes3). Among the Chipewyan this method is organized in a much better manner than among the Eskimos, who simply endeavour individually to bring down as many animals as possible. The Indians conceal themselves on the bank where the caribou will come ashore. When the flock has traversed two thirds of the way b King 1836, I 155 seq. Cf. Hearne 1795, 78 seqq. Mackenzie 1801, CXXV. 2) Hearne 1795, 320 seqq. s) Cf. Mackenzie 1801, CXXV. King 1836, I 155. Pike 1892, 48.

across, the hunters put off in their canoes and lay them like a boom across the path of the animals, and while the canoes in the middle of the line remain where they are,

the two

wings swing round about the flock, thus en¬ circling it. Meantime the leading animals have become scared and try to swim back again, while those in the rear continue to press on in the opposite direction. In the midst of the result¬ ing confusion the hunters in the rearmost ca¬ noes begin to stab the animals with lances. If it is a very large flock, so that the rest of the animals get time to turn about, the canoes place themselves in another barrier on the opposite side, whereafter the same manoeuvre is repeated in the opposite direction. In this manner the flock is driven backwards and forwards until the last animal has been killed. As a weapon for this hunting they use a lan¬ ce [jiSj)] of more simple workmanship and with a much longer shaft than tral Eskimos. A specimen 7 b),

has

[bEkla]

an

that of the

Cen¬

(H 1:41, CNM, fig.

elongated-rhombic

iron

point

wedged into a crudely formed, four¬

sided wooden shaft [psp-kraL]; at the fore end of this there is a whipping of babiche, fastened by means of nails. Length 2.75 m, of which the point measures 14 cm. The hunting methods described above are common among many other tribes

in

North

America. Hunting by means of converging rows of sticks is employed i. a. by the Eskimos, the other

methods

by

Athapaskans

and

Algon-

kians x).

Hunting other Animals. Nowadays the moose is solely hunted with the rifle. In winter of course hunting proceeds .

... ,,

on snowshoes. According to Mgr. I urquetil the

a

b

Fig. 7. Fish spear (a) and caribou lance (b).

Reindeer Lake Chipewyan decoy the moose towards them by imitat¬ ing the call of the moose calf by means of a kind of trumpet formed of a conically rolled piece of birch hark. Similar decoys are common ‘) Cf. Birket-Smith 1929, II 254 seqq., 330 seq, 334 seq.

24 in boreal North America1). At Churchill, however, it is said that they are not used, possibly because the moose on the whole is fairly scarce there. In former days there were many buffaloes on the south side of Lake Athabasca, where they were pursued by the Chipewyan2). It is no rare occurrence for polar bears to come to Churchill from the north, where they must thus occur more frequently than on the coast of Hudson Bay south of Chesterfield Inlet. As the Chipewyan have had intercourse with the white man just as long as they have lived in these regions, they have always used guns for hunting polar bears. The black bear is principally hunted in winter when it is in its winter lair. When one is found it is first examined by the snow being shovelled away from the top, after which the opening is closed again with fir branches and snow. The actual killing, in which there are always several hunters taking part, is done by making an opening in the side of the lair, through which the bear is shot. In former times two poles were placed obliquely so that they crossed below the opening. When the bear woke from its torpor and put its head out, it rested in the angle between the poles, and the hunter then crushed its skull with a club.

Black bears, wolverines and smaller fur animals are caught in dead-falls, which are of various sizes but on the same principle3). A typical wolverine trap [narE-EdzEZE] is built in the following man¬ ner: A number of sticks [éjose] are placed upright in the ground close together in the form of a semi-circle, which is entirely con¬ cealed under branches or other material. On the ground in front of the semi-circle the hunter lays a short heavy beam [E^EjagEdEtRE]; the animal’s head or neck is caught fast between this and another much longer and heavier beam [EtpinaaE], which is placed above the short one and parallel to it, one end being held up by the peg [EtJaneaE] while the other end rests on the ground. As a further weight on this beam two other beams [EdzEzeklEdEla] are laid across that end of it that is nearest the semi circle. The bait is placed on the end of a stick [EnitfEnE] one end of which is connected with the peg, the other end projecting into the semi-circle. To prevent the long beam from falling to the side, two smaller sticks [EdzEzetlanageai] are placed obliquely in the ground in front of it and finally, up against these, parallel with the main beam, rests a stick across the posts that weigh the main beam down. Similar traps are widely distributed in boreal America. ’) Cf. e. g. Goddard 1916, 215. H 1907, CNM (River Desert Algonkin). 2) Hearne 1795, 250 seqq. 8) Hearne 1795, 21.

25 Otters are always caught in steel

traps nowadays.

In summer the beaver is shot when returning at sun¬ set to its home. In former days it was also caught in nets ot babiche [tsa'-tRabiL]; they were so arranged that the hunter, who was in hiding on the bank, by pulling a cord could make the net close about the animal1). In winter a search is made for the beaver’s usual hiding places, the hunter knocking on the ice with his ice pick [eMe'],

which nowadays is always of steel, whereas for¬

merly it was always made of antler, as among the Cari¬ bou Eskimos today, or of copper2). The beaver hut is then demolished with axes. When the animal flees to one of its hiding places a hole is hewn in the ice with the ice pick and the lumps of ice are removed from the hole with a scoop

[los1].

Fig. 8 shows one of these (H 1:48,

CNM), which is made out of light wood; the bowl is elongated, somewhat narrow at the rear and with a keel along the underside, and the handle widens out to the sides. Length 1.20 m, of which the bowl measures 39 by 12 cm. With a hook-shaped implement [naitjn'] the ani¬ mal is drawn out, whereafter it is killed with the ice pick3). Beavers are also caught in traps in winter4). All these methods of beaver hunting are common in

the

boreal woodlands s). Hares are caught in snares

[bEiJ,

consisting of a

simple noose fastened to the end of a thin, elastic tree stem. Tliis is bent towards the ground and the point is placed under a projection of an adjacent tree to keep it in position. As soon as the hare gets its head in the noose the elastic stem whips up into the air with the animal’s movements to escape. The snare is now made of ordi¬ nary twine, but formerly was of thin babiche. In CNM there is a hare snare of skin, from the River Desert Algonkin (H 2117). Goddard describes and illustrates a hare decoy from the Beaver6). Among the western Cree I have collected an exactly similar implement (Hl:19, CNM) which in this case, however, was stated to be a fox decoy. It con1) 2) s) 4) 5) 1911, ")

Fig. 8. Ice scoop.

Hearne 1795, 238. Mackenzie 1801, CXXVI. King 1836, I 152. Robson 1752, 69. Cf. Hearne 1795, 237 seq. Ibidem, 238. Cf. Goddard 1916, 214. Drage 1748, I 147 seq. Ellis 1750, 166 seq. Skinner 25. Turner 1894, 316 seq. Le Jeune 1635, 151 seqq. Lescarbot 1618, 898 Goddard 1916, 214.

26 sists of two flat pieces of wood tied together at the ends, with a strip of bark between them. The same type is also found sporadically among the Eskimos1), and consequently there is some probability that it also occurs among the Chipewyan, although I have no information to this effect. Birds are brought down with shotguns, formerly with arrows hav¬ ing a club head. Presumably head and shaft were made in one piece as is the case with bird arrows from the Naskapi-Montagnais in CNM (P 252—53). Ptarmigan are also caught in large numbers in simple snares of sinew thread which are placed near the bushes. A special device for suspending ptarmigan snares consists of a ring formed of a bent willow branch with the leaves on. This ring is raised about 20 cm above the ground by means of small legs of branches bent together and lashed with bass, betwTeen which the loops are suspended. On the ground among the snares the Indians strew sand, which ptarmigan swallow with avidity. Ptarmigan snares may also be placed by “mak¬ ing a few little hedges across a creek, or a few short hedges project¬ ing at right angles from the side of an island of willows, which those birds are found to frequent. Several openings must be left in each hedge to admit the birds to pass through, and in each of them a snare must he set” 2). The Indian also utilize the fondness of ptarmigan for sand to place nets by sandy places. The birds are either simply scared into the net or it is stretched in an oblique frame so that the trapper can cause it to fall over the bird by pulling at a string. Fowl such as geese, swans and ducks are caught in this way: in the water at right angles to the shore they build fences with openings in them, in which snares of plaited sinew cord or babiche are set; sometimes the snares were also placed near the nest3). Snares for very small birds are made of hair4).

Fishing. Next after caribou hunting, fishing is undoubtedly the most im¬ portant occupation. Trout, whitefish, pike, burbot, tullibee, etc. form a great part of their food, not least in summer. In former days fish are said to have been shot with the bow and arrow; fish arrows were barbed but had no line. In summer, fish are still caught with the spear from canoes. The fish spear [LuE-liogoL], is very simple, con1) Birket-Smith 1929, II 121. Recently CNM acquired a specimen from the Penobscot (H 2439), and I have seen another one from the Naskapi. 2) Hearne 1795, 22. 8) Ibidem, 275 seq., footnote. 4) Ibidem, 275 seq.

27 sisting of a barbed iron poinl placed on a wooden shaft1). A fish spear in CNM, H 1:45, is 1.57 m long, the point measuring 16.5 cm, and made of a flat piece of iron with a notch in it that forms the barb; it is fitted into a hollow cut in the side of the shaft, the join being secured by a lashing of babiclie (fig. 7 a). King describes fishing with the spear in the following manner: “One took his station in the bow with a barbed spear about six feet long, while the other placed himself in the stern and commenced paddling as slowly as possible,

in order that his

companion might be enabled to dis¬ cern the objects of his search at the bottom

of

the

water,

which,

by

the

bright light of a long roll of birch bark that was burning at the bow of the ca¬ noe, he was easily enabled to do. No sooner was a fish observed, than the canoe being stopped, it was with one dart transfixed and drawn to the sur¬ face”2). Harpoons are not known. Fish weirs are made in the form of a

fence of branchwork

leading

obli¬

quely from the deep part of the river into the bank, where a kind of slip is built. This consists of thin stems bound together, cut down placed

resembling

in form

the middle.

with

the

a cone

The device is

lower,

wider

end

Fig. 9. Fish club (a) and model of fish racket (b).

tramped firmly into the river bed and bound to a pair of posts, the upper end being fastened to a platform that is built over the surface of the water out of posts that lie across those of the slip. On this platform the fisher takes up his position and scoops up the fish with a kind of racket consisting of a coarse net¬ work of bass stretched in an oval frame with a short handle. Fig. 9 b is a model of one of these implements. The fish are killed with a club. One of these clubs (H 1 : 46, CNM, fig. 9 a) has a foursided head with rounded edges and a narrower, round handle. Length 42 cm. Fishing nets [tRabiL], are used both summer and winter, although more rarely in the latter season as it is then difficult to get them i) Cf. King 1836, I 152. s) Ibidem, I 85.

28 dried. When the net is placed below the ice, care is taken to keep two holes open in it. To the net is tied a long cord, which runs through one of the holes in the ice so that the net can'be stretched again when it has been drawn up and emptied through the other hole1). Nowadays the nets are made of ordinary twine with needle and gauge of European type. I was told that in former times nets were made of willow bass, which was knotted under water to prevent it from becoming dry; netting needles were un¬ known and the work was done with the hands alone. Otherwise the net was of the same appear¬ ance as now.

Hearne, however,

asserts that the

Chipewyan used nets of fine babiche, though they were not so good as the bass net of the Dogrib2). He adds that the jaws of otter and mink were pla¬ ced in the corners, and on the ropes the feet and beaks of white-fronted goose, long-tailed duck, gull, loon and blackhead,

“and unless some or all of

these be fastened to the net, they will not attempt to put it into the water, as they believe it would not catch a single fish”3). The Kutchin, Beaver and Cree also made nets of bass4). The fish hook [dgEp] is also used at all times of the year. In our time it is an imported hook; the lower part of the line is made of plaited sinew thread (H 1 :47, CNM, fig. 10). In summer a beatenFig. 10 Fish hook.

out bullet is used as a sinker. Formerly the hook was made of antler5). Hearne says that the bait consisted only of amulets such as “bits of beavers’

tails and fat, otter’s vent and teeth, musk-rat’s guts and tails, loon’s vents, squirrel’s testicles, the cruddled milk taken out of the stomach of suckling fawns, human hair, and numberless other articles absurd”. These things, however, were sewn to fish skins “so as in some measure to resemble a small fish”6). Hook fishing is the principal form of fishing from the ice7). The catch is drawn on to a willow branch, but no special fish needle seems to be known. *) 2) 8) 4) 5) 8) 7)

Cf. Hearne 1795, 16 seq. Ibidem, 328, seq., 264. Cf. King 1836, I 153. Hearne 1795, 328 seq. Goddard 1916, 219. Skinner 1911, 27. Jones, in Gibbs 1867, 323. King 1836, I 152. Hearne 1795, 330. Cf. Goddard 1912, 58 footnote. Cf. Hearne 1795, 15 seq.

29

Fig. 11. Drying rack. Churchill.

Gathering. Gathering plays a very small economic part. In summer they gather some birds’ eggs, and later on in the year various kinds of berries: black crowberry, cowberry, bilberry, cloudberry, etc. The leaves of the cowberry are plucked for mixing with tobacco, and the leaves of Ledum and one or two other plants are used for a kind of tea. On the whole the Chipewyan are not nearly such good botanists as the Cree.

Annual Cycle. The life of the Chipewyan is dependent upon two factors, the caribou and the forest — the caribou, which provides them with food, clothing, etc., and the forest, which yields the fuel without which they cannot survive the winter. On the whole, life is therefore a continuous moving between the forest, in which they spend the winter, and the Barren Grounds, to which they follow the caribou in summer. Nowadays the trading post at Churchill forms a third factor in their travels. As has already been said, the Chipewyan formerly travelled well towards the north, and to this day they are reluctant to spend the summer in the forest for fear of

[En'a-plini], their

invisible enemy; but it is only rarely that they move far away from the timber line, and at the coast Seal River is usually the northerly boundary.

Old George

Oman could remember,

however, that the

Chipewyan in spring travelled by sledge right up to Thlewiaza River

30

Fig. 12. Rack for smoking fish. Churchill.

or even to Sentry Island, and from there followed the rivers into the interior. When in the late summer the Chipewyan leave Churchill, some of them make their way by canoe up Seal River to Gaylin-tso or further west to Nejanilini Lake. In this region there are one or two important caribou crossing places. There the Churchill group meets the Indians from Reindeer Lake. They spend the winter south of the timber line, fishing and snow-shoe hunting. Others travel up North River and from there proceed overland to South Indian Lake, where they often come in contact with the population from Split Lake. At South Indian Lake there are only few caribou, so that the Indians there to a great extent have to live on imported foodstuffs; but on the other hand Ihere are many heaver and small furred animals. In November the snow is suitable for sledge-driving, and trap¬ setting begins in the middle of the month. Just before Christmas the men usually make a trading trip to Churchill to sell caribou meat and skins, and in February they come to the post for the second time with their furs.

During the course of summer

the

families

assemble again at Churchill, where they spend their time fishing and bird-catching until they have received their treaty money,

where¬

after they go to the crossing places to take advantage of the autumn migration of the caribou.

31 In a manner similar to the Chipewyan now being described the group at Reindeer Lake visits this post two or three times a year1). On the annual cycle J. B. Tyrrell also writes: “7/s sc nourissent j>rincipalement du poisson qu’ils prennént dans les rivieres et les lacs, et da caribou des deserts, qu'ils tuent en grand nombre lorsque ces animaux cherchent d traverser d la nage les rivieres et les parties étroites des lacs. Durant l’hiver, ils prennent au piege quelques animaux å fourrure, surtout des martres, qu'ils portent, aux printemps, aux traiteurs du lac Athabasca, du lac des Rennes on de Churchill, et qu'ils échangent contre des fusils, des munitions, de la quincaillerie, du tabac ou d autres articles dont ils peuvent avoir besoin. Ils se dis¬ persed ensuite sur le bord des lacs, ou ils vivent de poisson durant tout l'été. Dans l'automne, ils vont retrouver les traiteurs, avec un peu plus de fourrures, aprés quoi ils s’en vont dans les bois vivre sous leurs tentes, ou dans des huttes faites de broussailles et de mousse, pendant Vhiver, et ordinairement on ne les revoit plus jusquau prin¬ temps suivant” 2).

Preparation of Food. Meal and fish are the principal articles of food. Some meat and in particular marrow and fish are eaten raw 3). In most cases, how¬ ever, meat is boiled, but sometimes it is roasted at the fire or -— now¬ adays — fried in a pan. In former days they cooked by means of heated stones4). To keep meat and fish for long periods it is dried and smoked [Egon'E], A conical or other device with one or more cross-sticks upon which the fish are placed after being split is put up in front of an open fire (fig. 11—12). It is said that the Chipewyan, in contra¬ distinction to the Cree, dry their meat over a slow fire, which makes it more juicy5). Whereas smoke-curing among the Eskimos is either the result of European influence, as in Greenland, or that of the Indians, as on the Barren Grounds, this method of preserving is un¬ doubtedly pre-Columbian in the boreal woodlands. Thus it is men¬ tioned from the regions about the St. Lawrence shortly after the com¬ mencement of the French colonization6). Pemmican [etj)És-tLis‘] is prepared by the dried meat being pulverized with a hammer stone b J. B. Tyrrell 1898, 19. 2)

Ibidem,

8)

Cf. Hearne 1795, 315.

191.

4) Ibidem, 316. 6) Ibidem, 297. 6) Lescarbot 1618, other

means

firming,

of

325.

Allen

preserving than

(1889, 260) drying.

asserts

This

that the

statement

Ahtena

doubtless

know

needs

no

con¬

32 and boiled with caribou fat; the cooked mass is then poured into caribou guts and frozen. Mackenzie states that equal parts of meat and fat are used, whereas King writes one part of fat to two parts of meat1). The making of pemmican is characteristic of eastern North America and therefore presumably borrowed from the Cree2). Rotten meat is sometimes eaten, but scarcely to the same extent as among the Eskimo. Soup is made from caribou blood3). Fish soup is eaten mixed with boiled lichens 4). Caribou tongue and back fat (dépouille) are of course favourite delicacies. Of other special dishes mention may be made of eggs, which are usually eaten hard boiled, but raw if they are small. Nor does it make any difference if the eggs are half hatched5). Both men and women eat eggs, whereas among the Caribou Eskimos they are taboo for adult women. Gadfly grubs are eaten raw, as among the Central Eskimos6), whereas a kind of fungus and lichen are boiled')• The contents of the caribou paunch are dried over the fire, but sometimes are eaten raw ). As in Hearne’s time, caribou foetus is a favourite dish; beaver and bird foetus are also mentioned among the delicacies9). “Another morsel held in high esteem is the udder of a milk-giving doe, which is usually roasted on the spot where the animal is killed”10). Mention is also made of the caribou’s genitals and the uterus of caribou, musk ox, moose and beaver, which are first smoked and then boiled11), b ish roe, especially of whitefish, is also a favourite12). On special occasions boiling is done in a caribou stomach until it is distended by the steam. A similar process is described by Hearne: blood, the contents of caribou paunch,

finely chopped

meat and

chewed fat are mixed with water in a caribou stomach and hung for several days in the heat and smoke over the tire13). Some dishes are taboo for certain persons. Only old men may eat bear feet, as the young would become too slow by eating them. Old men are also the only ones that may eat the fat tail of the porcuq Mackenzie 1801, CXXI seq., footnote. ) Wissler 1922, 234. s) King 1836, I 154. 4)

Hearne 1795, 328.

6) Lofthouse 1922, 110. 6) Hearne 1795, 197. ?) Ibidem, 278. Mackenzie 1801, CXXVII 8) Hearne 1795, 317 seq. 9J Ibidem, 317 seq. 10) Pike 1892, 51. “) 12)

Hearne 1795, 318 seq. Ibidem, 212.

13) Hearne 1795, 316 seq., cf. 144.

King 1836

I 154

33 pine, which would make young people too fat. It is forbidden for women to eat caribou brains. And Pike slates about the Dogrib and Yellow Knife, that woman may not eat the gristly muzzle of caribou or she will infallibly grow a beard"1). Among the Central Eskimos there is a similar taboo, and therefore it is not improbable that it is also observed among the Chipewyan. Caribou foetus must not be eaten by pregnant women. Sexual parts of animals may only be eaten by men and boys, but must never be touched by women and dogs 2). The common drink is water, and in our time tea. As a luxury tobacco plays a great part. Nowadays the pipe is al¬ ways of imported type. The monitor pipe of the Cree, which has also spread to the Eskimos west of Hudson Bay, is not used. Yet it is said that soapstone was formerly traded from the Eskimos to be made into pipe bowls, and sometimes they seemed to have fetched it them¬ selves from Thaolintoa Lake3). Mackenzie mentioned pipe bowls of "beautiful variegated marble”4). What these more original pipes have looked like is impossible to say. At meals, each sex eats separately, and the men first. *) Pike 1892, 56. 2)

Hearne 1795, 318 seq.

s) Lofthouse 1922, 160. 4) Mackenzie 1801, CXXV1I. Cf. King 1836, I, 96, where he mentions, possibly from the Chipewyan, pipes of limestone from Pierre au Calumet.

3

III. Communication. Relations with other Tribes. In the chapter on the history of tlie Chipewyan it has been men¬ tioned how their wanderings are closely connected with a still existing hostility towards the Cree and the Eskimos. It has also been stated (p. 8seq.) that even if every form of war between these peoples has now ceased, their relations are still very cool. Active hostilities had ceased at any rate at the end of the eigh¬ teenth century, and there is no doubt that the H. B. C. has had a great share in this good result1). As to their relations with the Eski¬ mos Simpson writes: “From some of the Chipewyans I learned that they had, in the course of the preceding summer (i. e. 1836) met with a party of Esquimaux at the confluence of the noble Thelew or Thelon River with the Doobawnt of Hearne .... This meeting was of the most amicable character, and they spent a great part of the summer together ... They also informed me that, in 1832, some of the Athabasca

Chipewyans

accompanied the

Churchill

branch

of

their tribe on their annual meeting with other Esquimaux at Yath Kyed, or White Snow Lake of Hearne”2). King makes similar statements on intercourse with the Cree, the tribes having made an agreement “which gave both nations the privi¬ lege of hunting the same grounds, under certain restrictions; and they are now seen as one family, pursuing their avocations, and even tenting together in the most friendly manner”3). These statements speak for themselves, although the assurances of warm friendship seem rather exaggerated. With the closely related Yellow

Knife intercourse was

in the

best of cases cool. Back says expressly: “The Chipewyans, although they sometimes associate with the Yellow Knives, never do so without caution and watchfulness”4). 1) Coats 1852, 32.

Franklin 1823, 161.

2) Simpson 1843, 71. 8) King 1836, I 78. 4) Back 1836, 458 seq. 212.

35 Their wars consisted merely

of brutal attacks when

they felt

sufficiently superior in numbers to the enemy. In one of the legends reproduced further

on,

which

seems

to be

built upon

historical

foundations, the story tells of a massacre of the Cree (p. 97). Refer¬ ence is also made there to a kind of club of antler, which seems to have been a special weapon of warfare1). Its appearance is not other¬ wise described. It is possible, however, that this has been a special form of a pointed hatchet of antler that was probably in general use in Northwest America. In CNM. there are two specimens from the Knaiakhotana (He 106 a and b). They consists of a handle of antler on which the frontal tine is preserved and furnished with a groove for inserting a blade of stone. From the Thompson Indians there is in CNM a similar pointed hatchet pointed

(H2076), on which the tine is

instead of being adapted for a blade, and the handle has a

grip of wood at the rear end2). Similar weapons occur among the Carrier3) and Tlingit4). It is a type that is also commonly met with in the Stone Age of Northern Europe, and it is not improbable that it will some day be possible to show a connection between these two, at present widely separated occurrences. Ilearne describes shields among the Chipewyan who made the ill-famed

attack

upon the Eskimos at

Coppermine River.

“Those

targets were composed of thin boards, about three quarter of an inch thick, two feet broad, and three feet long .... each painted the front of his target or shield; some with the figure of the Sun, others with that of the Moon, several with different kinds of birds and beasts of prey, and many with images of imaginary beings, which, according to their silly notions, are the inhabitants of the different elements, Earth, Sea, Air, etc. On enquiring the reason for their doing so, I learned that each man painted his shield with the image of that being on which he relied most for success in the intended engagement. Some were contented with a single representation; while others .... had their shields covered to the very margin with a group of hieroglyphics quite unintelligible to every one except the painter”5). Otherwise, shields seem to have been very rare in the boreal region. In former times the Chipewyan apparently acted as go-betweens for the II. B. C. and the more remote Athapaskan tribes such as the Yellow Knife, Dogrib and Beaver, supplying them with European goods in return for copper and furs6). This trade has now ceased. M Cf. Lowie 1912, 176 seq. !)

Cf. Teit 1900, 264.

s) Morice 1895, 64. ‘) Niblack 1890, pi. VLVII, fig. 260. 6) Hearne 1795, 115, 149. 6) Hearne 1795, 176 seq. Mackenzie 1801, 146. 3*

36 From the Eskimos the Chipewyan sometimes barter dogs, which are highly prized, and in former times soapstone as well. In exchange they give moccasins and snowshoes.

Sign Language, Greetings, etc. In order to indicate the time at which they left a camp they set a stick in the snow and draw a line where the shadow reaches to. They do not know any real sign or picture writing. Simpson, how¬ ever, relates from Portage la Bonne that “two Indians had recently cut their hieroglyphics on the trees to notify to their friends that they had passed on a hunting excursion, and what animals they had killed”1). From the situation of this place these Indians might have been Chipewyan. Hearne tells of two parties of Chipewyan who met after long separation. They sat down, silent, twenty or thirty yards apart, until an elderly man on each side spoke and related what had happened in the meantime, whereafter they began to weep for the departed2). There is no real greeting in the Chipewyan tongue (no more than in Eskimo); if any greeting is exchanged at all it is the Cree word watchi. As among the Eskimos, the common caress among the northern Athapaskans is rubbing noses3). Presumably it is also practised by the Chipewyan.

Snowshoes. The snowshoe [ai], like ice hunting and the blubber lamp in the culture of the Eskimos, is a fundamental pillar in that of the Chipe¬ wyan. It is the snowshoe that makes possible the hunting methods of the long boreal winter and thereby the life of the whole tribe in this difficult season. 1 he snowshoe is always of the net type, proportionately narrow and rather unsymmetrical4). In this it resembles the snowshoe of both the western Athapaskan tribes and the western Cree, but is probably a little more unsymmetrical than among the latter. On the other hand it is very different to the wide, symmetrical type that occurs in the periphery of the snowshoe region, among the NaskapiMontagnais and Algonkin in the east and among the Thompson Indians and others in the west. *) Simpson 1843, 60. 2) Hearne 1795, 332 seq. *) Petitot 1887, 58. 4) Cf.

Hearne

1795, 325.

Mackenzie

1801, CXXVI.

Franklin writes (1823, 134) that the Chipewyan snowshoes “good and easy to walk in”.

are

J. W. Tyrrell famous

s. a., 221.

for making their

37 1 he frame of the snowshoe consists of two pieces of wood united front and back, but in the middle kept apart by cross sticks, of which the normal number is five, even if one or more is often lacking. Birch or larch is the wood chosen, but preferably the former. It is shaped by the men with the common crooked whittling knife. The two pieces of which the frame is made are tied together at the front, after which the cross pieces are mor¬ ticed in, and finally the side pieces are bound together at

the

back.

In

order

to

give the frame the necess¬ ary

upward

bend

at

the

front the wood is wetted, two

frames

gether course pairs)

are

laid

(snowshoes always and

are

made

hound

to¬ of in

tightly

together from the back up to the place where the bend is to begin, hut the points are forced outwards from each other with a stick. In this fashion the frames are hung up to dry on the out¬ side of the tent. The men place a thong of

fairly

thick

babiche

along the inner side of the frame, to which the meshes of the net are made fast.

Fig. 13. Snowshoes.

Ankle

straps missing.

The making of the net is the work of the women, who use for this purpose a flat hone needle, pointed at both ends and with a hole in the middle. The coarsest meshes are in the middle part where the foot rests; thick babiche is used for this, being put on wet so that it contracts during the drying process. At the fore end of the middle portion there is an opening where the toes touch the snow when walking. At the nose and heel thinner babiche is used, and the netting is finer meshed than in the middle. The snowshoe is fastened on by means of a skin thong which passes over the toes and is knotted behind the heel. This brings the weight to rest upon the toes, and the foot, which is clad in the soft Indian moccasin, has full freedom of movement when walking. The

38 stiffer Eskimo boot soles are not suitable for snowshoes. When walk¬ ing the principal movements are at the foot and hip, less at the knee. The foot is carried forward with a slight throw, so that the snowshoe is simultaneously brought over and past the other. This makes the stride a rather long one, and the movement is quite different to the even, gliding movement on skis. A pair of men’s snowshoes in CNM

(H 1 : 33) have a length of

1.17 m and a width of 34 cm. Another pair

(H 1 : 34, fig. 13)

are

slightly smaller, 89 and 25.5 cm respectively. Finally, there is also a pair of child’s snowshoes, decorated with tassels of blue, red and yellow worsted on the frame and ankle-strap;

their dimen¬

sions are 55 and 16 cm respectively. A spe¬ cimen of a netting needle for snowshoes (H 1 : 60) measures 9.11 by 0.012 cm (fig. 14).

Sledges. Whereas snowshoes are the individual means of communication in winter, all con¬ veyance of goods proceeds on the typical Canadian

toboggan

[bEtjen'E],

This

im¬

portant means of conveyance is made of Fig. 14. Snowshoe netting needle.

larch, the material being selected from the north side of a big tree, where there is no

danger of knots. The wood is split by means of wedges and hewn to shape with an ordinary axe. The subsequent working is done with a plane so that two thin regular boards are made. These are heated over the fire and wetted, whereafter they are laid on the ground, the builder giving them the desired curve by setting his foot on them and pulling by means of thongs. The boards are then tied together edge to edge, the holes for the lashing being bored with a handdrill, and two or three thin laths are placed at intervals transversally over the boards. A corresponding lath is placed right at the front on the under¬ side of the upturned part. Finally, a line is fastened along each side for tightening the load lashing line. As the average measurement of a Chipewyan toboggan Hearne gives a length of eight or nine feet and a breadth of twelve or fourteen inches; some, however, attained a length of twelve or fourteen feet with a breadth of fifteen or sixteen inches1). The so-called carriol is an ordinary toboggan, furnished at the rear with an oblique back rest, whilst on the sides is stretched un¬ haired caribou skin which is put on wet. This form of sledge is Hearne 1795, 324. Cf. Mackenzie 1801, CXXVI.

39 doubtless — as the • name indeed implies — of French origin. The Chipewyan give it the same name as the ordinary toboggan and it is not mentioned by such an early writer as Hearne. Fig. 15 shows a carriol (H 1 : 36, CNM) of the form described here. It consists of two boards bent upwards, joined by two transversal laths on the upper side and one at the front on the underside. At the back is an oblique rest of two boards. Both this and the frontal, curved part are held in place by means of stretched thongs. On both sides are stretched side pieces of unhaired skin, which, however, at

Fig. 15. Toboggan (carriol).

the fore end are improved below by means of canvas. In the upper edge of the skin are straps for the load lashing line. At the front there are one upper and two lower straps for the traces. Distance between the upper edges of the nose and the back rest 1.93 m, breadth 28 cm. If an ordinary toboggan is not handy, the Chipewyan, like so many other boreal tribes, sometimes drag their load on a caribou skin. Another form of sledge that is at a higher stage of development is described by Hearne: they “sew the skins of the deers legs together in the shape of long portmanteaus, which, when hauled on the snow as the hair lies, are as slippery as an otter, and serve them as tempo¬ rary sledges while on the barren grounds”1).

Similar sledges are

mentioned from the Tahltan2). Mgr. Turquetil has described another form of sledge, said to be used in spring and autumn on the ice in the region round Reindeer Lake. It is short and wide with runners of red pine and cross slats of birch. Like the carriol, it is fitted with side pieces of skin which are stretched between uprights at the corners of the sledge. It is im¬ possible to say more about the relation of this sledge to the toboggan as long as nothing more is known of its construction. It is very possible, however, that it is due to European influence in the same Hearne 1795, 323. 2) Emmons 1911, 53 seq.

40 way as certain other Indian runner sledges among the Penobscot, Ojibwa, etc.1). Originally the sledge was not drawn by dogs, but by the women. According to Franklin the Chipewyan would not use dogs as draught animals because they believed their tribe had descended from a con¬ nection between a dog and a woman. Hearne, on the other hand, states that dogs are used as beasts of burden, carrying tents, cooking utensils etc. on journeys; he adds that they are “equally willing to haul a sledge”2), but it is doubtful whether this refers to an Indian custom. On the contrary he expressly points out that the Chipewyan do not use dogs for running down the moose as the Cree do3). The original dog breed had a more fox-like head than the Eskimo dog, narrower chest, thinner coat and drooping tail; nowadays it is very much mixed. Very often the Chipewyan buy Eskimo dogs. According to all accounts the Indians must be much more cruel to their animals than the Eskimos.

Occasionally they keep young

wolves and bears in confinement for amusement. That the Chipewyan like other boreal tribes have now adopted the practice of allowing their sledges to be drawn by dogs is ap¬ parently most of all the result of European — i. e. French — influ¬ ence. Evidence of this is furnished by the fact that the Chipewyan use French words as driving signals. Strangely enough, it is said that no woman will ever utter these words. Harness and span are quite different to those of the Eskimos. The harness

[Li bETlulE]

consists of a thick upholstered collar of

skin, fiom which two traces run to the rear, also of caribou skin. These are connected over the animal’s back by a rather wide girth, which is sometimes decorated with bells and other ornaments, whilst the traces are connected under the belly by means of a couple of thinner straps. Fig. 16 is a set of harness of this type (H 1:37, CNM), made of unhaired, smoke-cured caribou skin. It has two traces, 1.40 m long, each ending in a split loop in w7hich is a wooden stick to act as a toggle. The back-girth is 12 cm wide and edged with canvas.. There is a similar form of harness among the Ojibwa 4) whereas the eastern Cree have adopted the Eskimo harness5). The dogs are spanned in tandem form so that they can get along the narrow trails in the forest. ') SPeck ton. 220 seq. Densmore 167 and literature cited there.

1929,

136 seq.

Cf.

Birket-Smith

1929,

II

2) Hearne 1795, 322 seq. ) Ibidem, 284.

On the use of the dog as a draught animal in North America

see Birket-Smith 1929, II 169 and literature cited there. ) Densmore 1929, 135. 6) Skinner 1911, 43.

41 In soft snow the trail has to be broken by a man who walks ahead on snowshoes. The whip [tlElpEjn] is used, hut is scarcely com¬ mon. I have never seen one myself, but understand that, in contrast to that of the Eskimos, it is a fairly short one. From the Mackenzie region Russell mentions dog socks, which are put on to the dogs so that their paws may be protected against sharp ice. These socks are in general use among the Eskimos, but otherwise they are

mentioned

only

rarely

from

the

circumpolar

region. This, however, is scarcely synonymous with their really being uncommon, even if it must be ad¬ mitted that the woodland tribes have not so much reason for using them as the Eskimos, whose prin¬ cipal journeys are over the ice1). I do not know with certainty whether they occur among the Chipewyan or not.

Canoes. The famous birch-bark canoe [k!i't!si'] is just as characteristic of life in summer as the snowshoe and toboggan are of winter.

It is a typically built-up

canoe, consisting of a bark sheath stretched out over a skeleton of wood almost as the skin is stretched over the Eskimo kayak. The frame is made of fir. Of ribs

[e'wtdz]

there

are about thirty in a small vessel and forty in a large one. They are steamed and bent into shape, then whipped with a thong to keep the curve, and after¬ wards hung up to dry in the sun. The gunwales

[Egi]

are hewn out, bound together at the ends and dist¬ ended at the middle by means of cross sticks [et'jia] in the same way as with the snowshoe frame. For stem and stern special pieces [TtpÉp] are shaped, the wood being split up with the grain and bent into

Fig. 16.

Dog

har-

ness-

position with a cord. A number of bottom staves [tlside'tjen’E] also form part of the frame, being placed on the inside. All woodworking is done by the men. The frame is covered with a sheathing of the bark of the canoe birch (Betula papyrifera), which, however, does not reach a suffi¬ cient size as far north as the mouth of the Churchill and therefore ')

Russell 1898, 174. Cf. Birket-Smith 1929, II 170.

42 has to be procured from the forests further south. The bark

[k!i]

must be entirely without knots and is carefully peeled from the trunk with a knife. The pieces of bark are sewn together with thread made of larch roots, which are split and peeled with the linger nail, one end being held by the teeth. Thread of this sort is called [Rai]. The holes for the thread are made with the hand drill, and during the sewing operation the pieces of bark are so laid together that the edge of the foremost one lies over the aftermost one in order that the seams shall not resist the flow of the water. By wetting the inner side of the hark with a cloth dipped in boiling water and placed on the end of a stick the sheath is made so pliable that it can be shaped. This is done by knocking sticks in the ground on both sides of it, thus holding the sheath in position The first step in joining sheath to frame consists in sewing the former on to the gunwales and the centre bottom stave; then the stem and stern posts are pul in and lastly the other bottom pieces and the ribs. All seams are caulked with pine resin [dze], and in former days the stem was sometimes painted with red ochre [t!si‘] which was moistened in the mouth and put on with the finger. The sewing of the sheath is women’s work. The finished canoe has “some resemblance to a weaver’s shuttle; being flat bottomed, with straight upright sides, and sharp at each end; but the stern is by far the widest part, as there the baggage is generally laid, and occasionally a second person, who always lies at full length in the bottom of the canoe”. As to the size the same autho¬ rity says: that they “seldom exceed twelve or thirteen feet in length, and are from twenty inches to two feet broad in the widest part. The head, or fore part, is unnecessarily long and narrow; and is all covered over with birch-bark, which adds considerably to the weight, without contributing to the burthen of the vessel” 4). This type seems to be most like the canoes of the Dogrib and Slavey2), whereas the form of the stem and stern especially ditfers considerably from that of the Cree and Naskapi3), Seton, however, figures a modern Chipewyan canoe which in the type of the ends seems to reflect some Cree influence4). At portages the canoe is carried in a thong over the breast5). To the canoe belong single bladed paddles

[t!d's],

which have a

longer blade and a shorter handle than the imported paddles. At the 4) Hearne 1795, 97 seq. 2) Mackenzie 1801, 39. 8) Skinner 1911, 42 seq. 4) Seton 1912, 151. 6) Hearne 1795, pi. II.

Turner 1894, 182, 304.

43 rear end the handle terminates in a knob. Hearne’s picture shows a paddle whose narrow blade has parallel edges and ends in a point al the fore end1). Double paddles were also known. Hearne writes expressly: “A few have double ones, like the Esquimaux: the latter, however, are seldom used, but by those who lie in wait to kill deer as they cross rivers and narrow lakes”'). Sails were originally unknown. I have seen the Cree use ordinary blankets as canoe sails on

Nelson River.

Bark canoes are still used by the Ghipewyan, but unfortunately I did not succeed in seeing a single specimen. They had been left behind rather a long way from Churchill, and there they exclusively used imported canoes of Canadian manufacture. On the tundra, where it is impossible to procure bark, the frame of the canoe was sometimes,

even

up

to

the

present

day,

covered with unhaired caribou skin. Mgr. Turquetil in

1906 saw one of these skin

canoes on Nueltin Lake just north of the timber line3).

Carrying Appliances. The men usually carry guns and the like across the breast; often the women car¬ ry their loads in

the

same manner,

but

sometimes, like the Caribou Eskimos, over both brow and breast simultaneously. The tump-line, which is a simple thong, is called [RoSnÉtjml]. A special carrying appliance is the characteristic carrying cradle [a'ltjenE], which, however, is original neither among the Chipewyan nor most of the other boreal Athapaskans. Ilearne expressly says that the Chipewyan “make no use of cradles, like the Southern Indians (i. e. Cree), but only tie a lump of moss between their legs; and always carry their children at their backs, next the skin, till they are able to walk4). Ross mentions a skin bag with moss, and in winter lined with hare skin5). The fact that Mackenzie describes the carrying h Ibidem, pi. II fig. f. 2) Hearne 1795, 98. 8) On the skin canoe in North America cf. Birket-Smith 1929, II 4) Hearne 1795, 313. 5) Ross in Gibbs 1867, 304.

172 seq.

44 cradle among the Beaver is probably due to the great influence exer¬ cised by the Cree upon that tribe at the time1). Without doubt the Chipewyan have also received- the carrying cradle from the Cree. Skinner figures a specimen from this tribe which greatly resembles the Chipewyan type2), and in CNM there is a similar specimen from the River Desert Algonkin (H2091). A carrying cradle from the Chipewyan in this museum (H 1 : 32, fig. 17) consists of a red painted back board made of two pieces and widest at the top, where the edge has five half-round cuts. In the median line lower down there is a triangular hole. On the lowest part of the front and highest on the back there is a cross lath, the latter projecting some way out to the sides. The carrying bag out¬ side is of dark blue cloth with a lighter border at the top and lined inside with light cloth. It is open at the front, where it is edged with unhaired, smoke-cured caribou skin with holes for lacing with a thong. Folded up inside the bag is a piece of thick-haired caribou skin with the hair-side out, intended for swathing about the child. To the back of the board is fastened a carrying strap of a piece of cloth folded several times and sewn together. Height of board 75 cm, breadth at the top 37, at the bottom 27 cm. *) Mackenzie 1801, 149, cf. 145 seq. 2) Skinner 1911, 46 fig. 25.

IV. Dwellings and Clothing. The Tent. The Chipewyan are for ever wandering. The hunt prohibits a stay of any length at the same place, and now that many families spend the summer close to the trading and mission post at Churchill it is a manifestation of the slow dissolution in which the whole of the old culture finds itself. When I visited Churchill the Chipewyan all had common can¬ vas tents of the ridge type. They had two poles placed crosswise in front and two others at the rear, connected by a ridge pole. Some¬ times short poles were placed obliquely at the gables, and there might also be a pole placed along the side of the tent (fig. 18). In former times the tent

[na'bale]

had a sheet of caribou skin spread over a

conical wooden foundation, but I have myself only seen one specimen of this type.

According to Hearne the sheet consisted of several

pieces, each of which was made of about five bull skins1). In all, sixty to seventy skins were required for a large tent2). Tent sheets of bark were not used, possibly because it was too cold in winter, but also without doubt because it was difficult to obtain sufficient birch bark. At the top there was an opening for the smoke from the fire, which burned on the middle of the floor. “The way they manage the smoke is very clever”, writes Seton, “instead of the two fixed flaps, as among the Plains Indians, these have a separate hood which is easily set on any side3). In winter a low mound of snow would be thrown up round the foot of the tent. It seems as if the snowshoe was also commonly used as a snow shovel. This use apparently extends over the whole of the boreal forest belt from Alaska4) to New England5). There are, how¬ ever, real snow shovels among several eastern Algonkians °). 1) Heame 1795, 322 seq. 2) King 1836, 153. s) Seton 1912, 149. 4) Lindenkohl 1892, 138. 5) Josselyn 1674, 138. 6) Birket-Smith 1929, II 360. To this may be added Densmore 1929, 171.

46

In a Cree tent at tlie lower Nelson River 1 have seen a sort of drying rack: cross sticks resting upon three sticks placed horizontally between the tent poles. I do not know whether similar racks were used by the Chipewyan. In the modern ridge tents they do not occur. It is possible that the conical tent is not original among the Chipe¬ wyan hut adopted from the Cree like the carrying cradle. Richardson calls the Cree and Chipew^yan tents “exactly alike”1). Even if the conical tent also occurs among other northern Athapaskans 2), various circumstances indicate that the original form of dwelling among these tribes wras the single or double wind screen, a fact which may be imagined to have paved the wTav for the imported ridge tents; for among the Cree, among whom the conical tent is evidently ancient, the introduction of textiles, as far as I have been able to observe con¬ ditions at Nelson River, has only led to a change in the material of the tent sheet, not in the construction of the foundation. I he women may sometimes erect a conical screen as a sort of temporary shelter when working (fig. 19). In camp (he tents stand in apparently unarranged order. At Churchill fifteen of them wrere pitched on a lowT, naked rocky ridge Richardson 1851, II 43. 2) On the distribution of this type in North America cf. Birket-Smith 1929, II 297 seqq.

Fig. 19.

Women sewing under temporary shelter. One of them carries a cradle.

Churchill.

a short distance from the H. B. C. and mission houses, where the wind to some extent kept the mosquitos away. Some tents, however, stood by themselves, some in small willow-grown valleys, where one would think the mosquito plague would make life intolerable.

Furniture. When the stranger enters a Chipewyan tent in summer the only furniture he notices at once is the camp stove and the mosquito nets over the sleeping places, which are arranged of spruce branches and blankets along the walls. As has already been said, the fire was origi¬ nally in the middle of the tent. Fire was produced by means of stone (pyrites?). The use of firestone is widely known in boreal North America and evidently very ancient1). It is said that caribou fat is sometimes used for illumination in winter, a wick being made out of an old rag. Whether or not this is a loan from the whites (perhaps connected with the introduction of camp stoves) I cannot say. Otherwise furniture is extremely sparse. Kettles and pans nowa¬ days are imported enamel articles. Formerly they used vessels ol bark, which was folded together and sewn with roots, whereafter the seams were covered with resin. In these vessels they cooked with i) Birket-Smith 1929, II 350 seqq.

48 heated stones1). Among the Chipewyan at Churchill bark vessels seem to have gone right out of use; but in CNM there is one of these from the district about Fort Resolution (H 1381), i. e. from an Athapaskan tribe. The rim is strengthened by dyed porcupine quills, and there is a leather strap for carrying (fig. 20). In the National Museum at Ottawa a Chipewyan vessel of similar type is preserved (VI A 32). Exactly similar specimens are in CNM from the northeastern woodlands gonkin),

(River Desert Al-

from

the

plateaux

in British Columbia (Thomp¬ son

Indians

etc.)

northwest coast It

is

a

spread

form over

and

the

(Tsimshian).

that the

is

wide¬

whole

of

northern North America and is

also

common

in

Siberia.

On the other hand it is es¬ sentially different to the cy¬ lindrical vessels of elm bark of the Iroquoian tribes. Round merly

bowls

made

of

were wood.

for¬ Men¬

tion is also made of a pecu¬ liar form of coiled basketry: twigs

(roots?)

of

pine

and

larch were made flexible in Fig. 20. Athapaskan bark vessel from the region about Fort Resolution.

boiling water and sewn on to a

bottom

of

birch

bark.

I

have never seen any referen¬ ce to this kind of basket and would not venture to guarantee for the correctness of the statement. Perhaps it is merely due to some vague recollection of ordinary coiled basketry. There is an unfinished tray of this work in the National Museum at Ottawa (VI A 30). Splint baskets are entirely lacking, as throughout the whole of the boreal woodlands with the exception of the zone of contact with the Iroquois furthest east. Spoons are now bought at the shop, but were originally made of antler; the handle was quite short. It may be that bigger dippers and ladles were also known as mentioned by Russell from the Mackenzie region-). Horn dippers are widely distributed in North America among Cf- Hearne 1795, 316. ) Russell 1898, 177.

Drage 1748, I 215.

49 the Eskimos, on the northern Pacific coast and on the plains1). Any casually selected stick is used as a marrow extractor. The Ojibwa use “a narrow willow stick” in the same way2). Meat is preserved and carried in bags of skin made of strips of the leg skin of the caribou sewn together vertical¬ ly [et'Sa’Sana'tjE]. The bottom is made of two horizontal strips of skin of the same kind. The hair side is always tur¬ ned out. A specimen (H 1 : 38, CNM fig. 21 c) has at the top an edging of unhaired skin with lace holes and a lace ending in the foot of a caribou calf with the hoof still on. Height about 42 cm width at the top about 53 cm.

Another

speci¬

men, (H 1:39, CNM, fig. 21b),

has

a

carrying

strap of thick twine in¬ stead

of

the

thong.

Height about 46, width at the top about 39 cm. Somewhat

different

is

H 1:40 (fig. 21 a), which is made of caribou calf heads

sewn

together,

the ears being left on. At the top it is edged with unhaired skin, but

Fig. 21. Deerskin bags.

has neither lace nor carrying strap. Height about 26 cm, width at the top about 20 cm Bags of sewn pieces of leg skin do not occur at all among the Eskimos but may be met with on the northwest coast (for instance II 1701, CNM, from the Tsimshian). In northern Eurasia, too, bags are made in a similar manner, by the Lapps for instance. It is thus i) Birket-Smith 1929, II 308 seq. 1)

Densmore 1929, 41.

K. Birket-Smith

4

50 a widely spread type, obviously characteristic of the culture of the boreal woodlands. Another widespread and perhaps still older type is the bag of split swans’ feet which Russell mentions from the Chipewyan1). 1 have not myself seen plaited game bags in use; but in the Natio¬ nal Museum at Ottawa there is a specimen from the Chipe¬ wyan

(VI A 37).

These bags

are made of thin bahiche of very simple workmanship of a kind like that used for plait¬ ing rugs etc. of strips of hare skin.

Clothing. In summer the clothing is nowadays quite civilized with the exception of the mocca¬ sins, which are always worn. In winter,

too,

there

is not

much left of the original dress; but at this time of the year the intense cold compels them at least to use the old material: caribou skin. Like the Eski¬ mos,

the

autumn

Indians

skins

as

prefer

these

are

shorter in the hair and do not fall so

much

as

the

winter

skins 2). In winter the men wear a hooded fur coat, open at the often edged with fox or hare skin [dEtlLo'rEe], As I have already drawn attention to, it is not very probable that Wissler Fig.

22.

Man’s deerskin coat.

front ancl

is right in regarding the open-fronted coat as being pre-Columbian in boreal America3). The sewn-on hood

[tsa]

is also obviously post-

Columbian except among the Eskimos4). The Chipewyan themselves 1) Russell 1929, II 304.

1898, 176. On the distribution in North America cf. Birket-Smith

2) Cf. Pike 1892, 50. s) Wissler 1915, 57. Cf. Birket-Smith 1929, II 178. 4) Birket-Smith 1929, II 180.

51 are aware that it is no old element of theirs, nor is it mentioned by so relatively late a writer as Franklin1). In former days the men have worn leather shirts which reached to the middle of the thigh and were held by a belt2). Without doubt the shirt originally had a point at the hack; for the term Chipewyan is a derivative of a Cree word

chipwayanawok,

which

means

“pointed skin” and actually re¬ fers to the form of the dress3) As Morice also believes, the point¬ ed shirts may have been aban¬ doned

on

account of

Cree

in¬

fluence4). In cold weather they wear the

“a ruff or tippet” neckr).

Nothing

round

much

is

otherwise known about the cut, but that it has been the two-skin cut

that

is

so

widespread

in

North America would seem to appear from the modern coats. Fig. 22 shows a man’s coat (II 1 : 23, CNM) of thick caribou skin with the hair side out. It is open down the front, where it can be tied in two places with thongs. The back consists of one large piece of skin below

and

two smaller pieces, and the hood of

a

single

piece

sewn

at

the

back of the neck with a median seam, and there is a wide border at the front. Along the edges of the front opening there is on

I ig. 23. Woman’s deerskin coat.

each side a projecting edging of dark blue cloth, partly covered with red and black-patterned cotton cloth. There are similar borders at the sleeve openings. A green and red ribbon hang down behind from the top of the hood. The total length is 1.40 m. 1) 2) s) 4) 6)

Franklin 1823; 156. Mackenzie 1801, CXXI. Franklin 1823, 156. Handb. Amer. Ind., I 275. Morice 1906—10, II 3. Mackenzie 1801, CXXI. 4*

52

Young men sometimes wear embroidered jackets of smoke-cured skin, open at the front, of the same pattern as those of the Cree. They have a wide, fringed collar and fringing down the sleeves. With the hoodless coat the men formerly wore "a fur cap or band”1). Mackenzie says that “the skin of the head of the deer forms a curious kind of cap”2). Within the boreal region in North America caps

of

this

kind,

made of a single piece of skin, are worn by Athapaskan tribes in Alaska,

the

Tahltan

and Cree3), and it is quite a common thing, too, that the sewn-on hoods on the Naskapi coats are of one piece, consisting of the head skin of a caribou4). Separate browr bands are

mentioned

by

Hearne in connection with the massacre of the Eskimos at Cop¬ permine

River

(see

p. 56).

White

and

dark ptarmigan feath¬ ers

were

stuck

into

the headgear. Fig. 24. Chipewyan girl in winter costume. Churchi (Photo bv G. Third.)

Leggings were also a part of the ancient

dress, reaching from thigh to ankle, and “in place of the waistband they have a piece of cloth round the middle which hangs down loosely before and behind”5). It is not known whether hose were used or not, whereas they are of course well known from the more westerly Athapaskan tribes such as the Hare and Loucheux6). Over the shoulders was worn a cloak “made of several deer or fawn skins sewed together”7). h Franklin 1823, 156. 2) Mackenzie 1801, CXXI. 8) Cf. Birket-Smith 1929, II 341 seq. 4) Turner 1894, 287.

Specimens in CNM.

5) Franklin 1823, 156. °) Cf. Birket-Smith 1929, II 314. 7) Mackenzie 1801, CXXII.

Cf. Franklin 1823, 156.

53 Originally, the women’s coat reached to the ankles and was held together by a helt. Mothers had an especially wide coat so that they could carry their infants on their backs1). Thus the dress was very different from that which in former days was worn among the Algonkin and other tribes in the eastern woodlands, one that must be taken to be a skirt prolonged upwards with loose sleeves2). The women’s dress as now worn in winter hears a likeness to a wide gown reaching to the feet; but in this, too, the two-skin cut is clearly preserved. This will be seen, for instance, from H 1 : 24, CNM (fig. 23). This dress is of caribou skin with the hair side out and closed at the front. Apart from a few joins in one bottom corner, the front con¬ sists of a single breadth, whereas the back is of one piece of skin at the bottom and two smaller pieces higher up at the shoulders. In the sides there are large gus¬ sets

to

give

width.

The

neck

opening, which can be closed by a thong of cured skin, has a low upright collar. At the wrists there are edgings of dark striped cloth. Length 1.39 m. Women’s

coats

may

some¬

times be provided with a hood (fig. 24). H 1 : 25

(fig. 25)

is the dress

Fig. 25. Deerskin coat of small girl.

of a small girl, consisting of an outer coat of thick caribou skin with the hair side out, and an inner coat with the hair side in. The former has a hood, but the latter none, it being sewn on to the neck opening of the outer coat. Both coats are closed at the front but at the neck may be laced up at two places with laces of unhaired skin. The sleeves are closed at the end, but in the right sleeve on the inner side there is a horizontal slit through which the hand can be put. From the under coat extends a “chin warmer” which hangs out through the opening of the hood. Length 98 cm. !) Mackenzie 1801, CXXII. 2) Birket-Smith 1929, II 179 and literature cited there.

54 Women’s leggings were shorter than those of the men and at the top only reached to below the knee1). Of mittens the collection contains only one pair of men’s (H 1 : 26, fig 26). They are double, there being a pair of outer mittens of un¬ haired caribou skin and a pair of inner mittens of caribou skin with the hair side in. In the former there is a front and back and a separ¬ ately inserted thumb; at the top they are edged with a border with serrated edge. The inner mittens, which are 37 cm long, are connected by means of a thong of babiche, 1.43 cm long, for wearing round the neck. Mittens with separately inserted thumb are a common type in Indian North America; they also occur among the Eski¬ mos,

who,

however,

also

use mittens of another cut that is widespread in Asia2). The moccasins are of a kind similar to those of for instance the Cree, but more pointed at the toe and as a rule

not

so

well

made.

Though they are made of smoke - cured Fie;. 26. Deerskin mittens.

slightest

skin,

moisture

the comes

through, and thus in sum¬ mer one is regaled with the sight of the kinsmen of the last of the Mohicans trudging about in rubber galoshes. The cut is characteristic, in that the foot consists of a single piece, sewn together at the back with a T-shaped heel seam, whilst at the front it is turned up and there sewn — more or less crimped — to a separate tongue. There is also a short upper that is open at the front and arranged for lacing round the leg with a thong through the upper part of the foot. This type of moccasin, together with the closely related “Iroquois” form, is the most important and most widely distributed in North America and is likewise common in the Old World3). One pair (H

1:27, CNM, fig. 27)

is made of smoke-cured, un¬

haired skin. The instep piece is covered with dark blue cloth edged with a red and a green silk cord. At the middle is an embroidery of blue, white, green, red and violet beads forming a flower ornament, the motifs on the two moccasins being reflections of each other and together forming a modified double curve. 1) Mackenzie 1801, CXXII. 2) Birket-Smith 1929, II 87, 181 seq. s)

Hatt 1916 a, 171.

55 Another pair (H 1:28, CNM, fig. 28 b)

is of smoke-cured moose

skin with an instep piece of smoke-cured caribou skin and a leg of uncured caribou skin. The instep

piece

is

covered

with a separate piece of skin

and

edged

partLy

with a red and a green silk cord, partly with in¬ terrupted

lines

of

green

and light blue beads. At the

middle

there

is

an

ornament somewhat simi¬ lar

to

the

above

pair,

made of blue, red, green, violet and yellow beads. The ornament on another

pair

Fig. 27. Moccasins,

of moccasins

(H 1:29, fig. 29) represents a plant with three flowers. A fourth pair, (H 1:30, fig. 28 a) is outstanding in that there is an intermediate piece in the horizontal part of the heel seam. On this pair the instep piece is covered with a piece of white, uncured skin edged with a violet silk cord and a border of crossed red, white and violet porcupine quills. At the middle is a trifoliate motif embroidered with green, blue, yellow, violet and mauve silk.

A pair

of child’s moccasins

(H 1 :3l) have the uppers serrated at the edges, and in the seam between the upper and the foot there is a narrow downturned strip, likewise with serrated edge. This downturned strip is often found on the moccasins of the Cree and other northeastern Algonkians and must probably be regarded as having developed under the influence of the turned-over upper of the Iroquois type of moccasin. This type

a Fig. 28. Moccasins.

56 has exerted influence upon the shape of footwear far to the west in North America1). A statement in Dobhs — a very uncertain one it is true — may possibly mean that a kind of sandal has been known formerly2). In olden times the usual form of decoration on the dress was em¬ broidery with split and coloured porcupine quills. Nowadays, how¬ ever, this ornamentation is only seen on moccasins. The quills are coloured by being boiled together with dyed cloth, after which the point is cut off and the quill is split with the finger nail. This form of decoration is, however, giving way more and more to bead embroi¬ dery. Undoubtedly in its ori¬ gin it is very closely related to

both

the

Eskimo

orna¬

mentation with applied skin patterns dery

and

with

their

embroi¬

caribou

hair,

which is also practised by other northern nations. All original trinkets have now disappeared.

Formerly

pieces of copper were worn Fig. 29. Moccasins.

as ornaments round the neck

and wrist3). Hearne also describes bracelets of leather, embroidered with porcupine quills and moose hair which the warriors had to wear after the massacre of the Eskimos at Coppermine River4).

Toilet. From early times the Chipewyan have been at least just as un¬ cleanly as the Eskimos, and in their unappetising European clothing they are now often worse. Everybody seems to he more or less infested with vermin. Nowadays the men cut their hair short, whereas formerly, like the women, they wore it long. Only prior to a battle was the hair cut short or bound up5). Petitot mentions tonsure from the Chip¬ ewyan'), but whilst this form of hair-dreessing is common among the Central Eskimo tribes, I have never seen it among the Indians at ’) Halt 1916 a, 174. -) Dobbs 1744, 42. Cf. the remarks in Birket-Smith 1929, I 211 footnote. 8) Robson 1752, 69. 4j

Hearne 1795, 205 seq.

5) Ibidem, 152. *) Petitot 1876, XXV.

57 Churchill. They say that they originally used the jawbone of a pike as a conab; but that this was no very much used implement appears from Hearne’s statement that not one in fifty possessed one1). Young men and women rubbed their hair and faces with fat that was boiled out of caribou bones2). Sometimes the hairs of the beard were pulled out3). Tattooing has now quite disappeared but was formerly known in the form of both prick-tattooing and needle-and-thread tattooing, men and women having “from one to four straight lines on their cheeks or forehead, to distinguish the tribe to which they belong”4). Needleand-thread tattooing has a northwesterly distribution in North Ame¬ rica and has evidently intruded in fairly recent times from Asia5). It is stated that the men had the image of a caribou tattooed on their forehead. Besides tattooing they also used to paint the body with red ochre. Their war paint consisted of a patch over each eye, one on the cheek bones and one on the nose, as well as a vertical stripe across the chin and a horizontal stripe running out from both corners of the mouth. Hearne tells of the Chipewyan who made the attack on the Eskimos at Coppermine River that they first painted their faces “some all black, some all red, and others with a mixture of the two6). The use of red and black as war colours was very widespread in both the northern and the eastern woodlands7). The Chipewyan now buy ordinary snow goggles with coloured glass. It is rather an uncertain question what they have formerly used as a protection against the glitter of the snow. They said that they once had goggles of a kind that was hammered out of bullets with a slit for the eyes, or of finely plaited babiche; the description is so vague, however, that I would not venture to put too much con¬ fidence in it. It should be mentioned, however, that snow goggles of a pierced metal plate framed in skin are used by several Siberian tribes

(Tungus,

Samoyed, etc.)

and that

snow goggles of plaited

horse hair occur among the Yakut and various Central Asiatic peop¬ les. Snow goggles from the Mackenzie region, made of skin with a T-shaped slit, are figured by Whitney8). Otherwise snow goggles, which are so common among the Eski’) Hearne 1795, 336. 2) King 1836, I 154. 8) Hearne 1795, 306. 4) Mackenzie 1801, CXX. Cf. Drage 1748, I 200. Hearne 1795, 306. 5) Birket-Smith 1929, II 185 seq. 6) Hearne 1795, 152. 7) Cf. for instance Richardson 1851, I 380. Drage 1748, I 198 seq. Ogilby 1671, 155. Loskiel 1789, 63. 8) Whitney 1896, 286.

58 mos, are only relatively little distributed and perhaps not original among the Indians1). Of the Yellow Knife it is said that to protect themselves against the glare of the snow they only used to rub their faces with blood and ashes2), and on his journey among the Cree and the northern Ojihwa (Saulteaux) Young had to travel at night to

avoid

snow

blindness,

whereas

goggles3). ‘) Cf. Birket-Smilh 1929, II 350. 2) Pike 1892, 161. s) Young s. a., 98.

he

does

not

mention

snow

V. Handicrafts. Men’s Work, The principal handicrafts of the men nowadays comprise working in wood and bone, to which must be added the relatively small amount of iron-working by cold hammering. On the other hand, nothing has been preserved of the old fashioned stone and copper technique that was known in former days but of which we know nothing otherwise. The copper was fetched from the deposit at Coppermine River, which was the reason for Hearne’s famous expedition. Of this they made spoons, ice picks, “bayonets”, knives, awls, arrow heads, etc.1). The metal was hammered cold. Dobbs writes as follows regarding the method, which does not, it is true, refer to the Chipewyan but to the Dogrib, who however approach them very closely in every respect: “In that Country they have a large Copper Mine, so fine, that without smelting it, they make

Copper of it

by

beating it betwixt

two

stones” 2). The Chipewyan had extremely little iron before the building of Fort Prince of Wales, that is to say only what they had bought at York in 1713 or 1714, and what was still to be found at Churchill after Jens Munk had wintered there 3). Even Coats points out that they are “very fond of iron and iron tools of all sorts” and when they had no ammunition, they made knives and chisels out of their guns 4). Wedges are used for splitting wood. The ordinary imported steel axe is nowadays an important im¬ plement. Shaping is done with the widely used crooked knife5). As was already pointed out by Mason, the whittling knife of the Indians differs from that of the Eskimos in having a longer and narrower blade, adapted for wood and bark in contrast to antler and walrus ivory6). The blade is very often made out of an old tile. Whereas the Eskimos have both long and short-hafted whittling knives, the ‘) Hearne 1795, XXIII, 175. 2) Dobbs 1744, 19. s) llearne 1795, 175. 4) Coats 1852, 32 seq. 6) On its distribution cf. Birket-Smith 1929, II 276, 353 seq. °) Mason 1899, 732.

60 knives of the Chipewyan are always short hafted. And they are held in another manner: the hand grips the handle with the palm up¬ wards, the thumb not resting against the handle; as with the Eski¬ mos the movement is in towards the worker. Fig. 30 b shows a knife (H 1 : 51, CNM) with a narrow, single-edged iron blade that is square at the end and bent over, set into a handle of antler that is cut off obliquely at the other end. Length 24.5 cm, of which the blade accounts for 8 cm. On another knife (H 1 : 52, CNM; fig. 30 a) the handle is only partly obliquely terminated. The blade is whipped with

a

strip

of thick

smoke-cured

skin.

Length 26 cm, of which the blade measures 10 cm. In former days a knife of a special kind was used, with a blade of beaver’s front toolh [tsaqutJiÉL]. The edge of this knife was naturally a chisel edge. The beaver’s tooth knife seems to have been spread over the whole of the boreal woodlands, from Alaska eastwards 1). The drill bow is unknown among the Chipewyan. The only form of drill that is known is a hand drill or awl of iron, the handle of which is at an angle to the blade [tpaL].

In former

days the bits

were of

copper. One specimen (H 1 : 53, CNM, fig. 31a) has a flattened bit set in the convex Fig. 30. Crooked knives.

side of a half-moon shaped handle of antler. The bit is 7 cm, the handle 10.7 cm. Another

specimen of the same type (Hi : 54, CNM, fig. 31 b) has a thick round handle of wood, and the joint between this and the bit is secured by a whipping of thin habiche. Fig. 31c represents a drill (H 1 : 55, CNM) with a handle of antler that is bifurcated at the back. Length 15 cm, of which the bit measures 5.3 cm. Steaming is the process used for bending wood.

Women’s Work. The preparation of skins is one of the most important tasks of the women.

In this work, caribou skin

is

the principal material

‘) Cf. for instance Sagard Theodat 1632, 60. Hennepin 1698, 234. Skinner 1911, 51 seq. Goddard 1916, 219. A beaver-tooth knife from the Mackenzie region is figured in Whitney 1896, 99.

61 although moose skin is also used. Beaver skins and those of other furred animals are sold now, and, as far as I know, bird and fish skins are not used at all. On the other hand garments of bird skins are mentioned in the legends. The Chipewyan have three kinds of scrapers for the preparation of skins. The inner side of the skin is cleaned of fat and remnants of flesh with a single-handed scraper [nEtJiaL] which is made of a tubular bone

cut over obliquely so that a chisel-shaped edge is formed. As

Fig. 31. Hand drills.

among the northern Algonkians, this is sometimes finely serrated. On the other hand, none of the articular end is preserved behind as among many Plains tribes and sometimes among the Ojibwa1). On the handle is a strap of skin which is pulled over the wrist, after which the hand seizes the scraper handle so that the oblique surface turns in towards the worker. This also makes the action move towards her, in contrast to that among the Eskimos, who scrape away from them. A scraper of this kind is illustrated fig. 32b (H 1 : 56, CNM). It is made out of a moose bone, the back end forming a four-sided part on whose broad sides a number of crosses have been scratched, and on the narrow sides two rows of horizontal lines. The wrist-strap is of unhaired skin, the ed^e-finely serrated. Length 37 cm, breadth across the edge 3.3 cm. For removing the hairs from the skin they use a two-handed scraper [intlilE], consisting of a split tubular bone, one side of which is sharpened. The bone is split right through and a piece of cloth or skin is wound round the ends to form a grip, whereas the northern ) Skinner 1911, 125 note.

62 Algonkians often retain the articular ends for this purpose1). The skin to be scraped is laid over a stick that is fixed in the ground with its upper end leaning towards the worker. The scraper is taken in both hands and with the concavity forwards, so that the movement is away from the worker and against the lie of the hair. II 1 : 57, CNM (fig. 33) is a scraper of this kind, of moose hone like the foregoing. One side of it is sharpened. Length 39 cm. Another scraper

of

the

same

type

(II

1 :58, CNM) is of caribou bone with

red

cloth

and

wound

black

patterned

round

the

ends.

Length 30 cm. For scraping skins thin they use a scraper with a bent iron blade, often formed out of the handle of an old frying pan set in

a

wooden

handle

[e'gwTOL].

Fig. 32 a is such a scraper

(H

1 : 59, CNM). The joint between the

blade,

corners,

which

has

rounded

and the handle is se¬

cured by a whipping of babiche, under wedge Length

which has

a also

21.5 cm,

small

wooden

been

driven.

of

which

the

blade measures 4.5 cm; the width of the edge is 5.5 cm. How these scrapers looked before the intro¬ duction of iron is uncertain. We Fig. 32. One handed scrapers.

must

perhaps

rather

imagine

something in the direction of certain Samoyed scrapers, which are made of a thin, bent piece of antler (for instance K 3:67, CNM). There is also some resemblance to the adze-shaped scrapers of the Plains Indians. Caribou skin with the hair on is prepared in the following man¬ ner. Alter the skin has been flayed oil and cleaned with a singlehanded scraper, it is first dried.

When

the further curing is to

proceed, it is softened in water, wrung out and dried, after which it is sometimes rubbed with the boiled liver of the eider duck or the goosander. In autumn after the great caribou hunt they use caribou brains, which are stirred with water into a thick mass. When the tanning material has dried, the superfluous fat is washed off the ') Skinner 1911, 34 fig. 15 b, 126 fig. 43. Turner 1894, 292 figg. 102—3.

63 skin, after which it is scraped with the iron scraper until it is of suitable thickness. Hair skins are used for coats, etc. If unhaired caribou skin [dSe'Sa'ni] is required, the hair is re¬ moved with the two-handed scraper, after the subcutaneous tissue has first been cleaned off but before the softening process. Otherwise the method is the same as described above. Moccasin legs are some¬ times made of ordinary unhaired skin. Without being scraped thin and tanned it is used for side pieces on toboggans, etc. In most cases, however, the unhaired skin is cured with smoke; it is then called [tLE dELtJul] . The curing process takes place as the

Fig. 33. Two-handed scraper.

last stage of the preparation, after the skin has been scraped to a suitable thickness. Then skin is sewn into the form of a large cylinder and hung over a fire of rotten wood so that the smoke goes up through the cylinder. In order to ensure an even effect a piece of old cloth is sewn on to its lower end. Later the skin is turned and smoked on the other side. Smoked skins are mostly used for moccasins, but some¬ times for men’s jackets too. It is supposed that smoke-curing makes the skin more watertight; but as far as my experience goes, no parti¬ cular results are gained in that direction. Moose skin is not much used. It is prepared in the same manner as caribou skin but the unhairing is done with the iron scraper, as the bone scraper is said to make the skin hard (?). Beaver skin is stretched in a ring of willow twigs, after which tepid water is spurted over it from the mouth. When it is wet, it is stretched still further and scraped. Brains are never used on these skins. Skins of furred animals are only superficially scraped and dried before being sold to the shop. As will appear from this description, the skin preparation of the Chipewyan is somewhat different from that of the Eskimos, but does not differ much from that of other boreal Indians as described for instance from the northern Algonkians *). Babiche is cut out of thick, unhaired caribou skin2). The skin is spread out on the snow and the thong cut in a spiral running sun') Skinner 1911, 33 seq., 125 seq. Turner 1894, 292 seqq. 2) Cf. King 1836, I 153.

64 wise, beginning at the outer edge and ending at the centre, in con¬ trast to the Eskimos who begin at the centre and cut contrary to the direction of the sun. A distinction is made between thick babiche [ekÉ Len’] and a thinner sort [aiTtulE] for snowshoes, etc. Sinew thread is split from the dried back sinews of the caribou 4). For sewing needles they formerly used a fin spine of a fish, but whether it was furnished with an eye or not is unknown. The Kutchin on the Upper Yukon use bone awls without an eye2). Nor can any¬ thing be said as to whether the needles were kept in a needle case cut out of a bird bone as among the northern Algonkians 3). The usual seams when sewing are overcast, used when sewing hair skins, and running stitches. A thimble of ordinary European type is placed on the middle finger, whereas an

Eskimo woman always puts it on her index

finger. The stitch is taken from left to right, also in accordance with the European method hut different to the Eskimo manner; on the other hand a Chipewyan seamstress will not push the needle into the skin towards herself but in the opposite direction. The peculiar form of “weaving” with strips of hare skin was formerly widespread in the boreal woodlands both in the west and in the east4). Although I have no information on the point, it must therefore he considered probable that this technique has been known to the Chipewyan in past days. The making of utensils of bark was undoubtedly the work of the women, as was the case in other northern tribes; hut I am unable to give any description of the process.

Ornamentation. Nowadays ornamentation is very faintly developed among the Chipewyan. As already stated, on the scraper fig. 32 b there is a very simple incised pattern of crosses and horizontal lines. Decoration with split porcupine quills is not very highly devel¬ oped either, and in our day is mostly limited to an edging along the tongue of their moccasins. It is possible, however, that decoration of this kind was much richer in former times, if anything can be con¬ cluded from conditions further west among the Slavey and Loucheux. Embroidery with moose hair is not practised now at all. On moccasins especially, embroidery with glass beads is now also !) Cf. King 1836, I 153. Pike 1862, 50. Russel! 1898, 176. 2) Sclimilter 1912, 5. s) Skinner 1911, 51. H 2154, CNM, from the River Deserl Algonkin. J) Skinner 1911, 17, 35. Richardson 1851, II 10 seq. Morice 1895, 156. Petitot 1889, 182. Jones in Gibbs 1867, 322.

65 practised. Presumably this is a loan from the Gree as among the Eskimos at Hudson Bay, as the patterns would indicate. In most cases they appear to have been derived from the double curve orna¬ ment, which is widespread in northeastern North America but has gradually penetrated both to certain Central Eskimo tribes and west¬ wards to the plateaux in British Columbia and the Pacific coast.

5

VI. Society. Social Organisation. As among the Eskimos and the northern Algonkians, life bears the stamp of a deeply-rooted individualism. In the Chipewyan community there is practically no other differentiation than the natural one that comes of sex and age. As will appear from the foregoing, there is a natural distribution of labour between men and women; but on the other hand, as far as I could see it is not observed so strictly that it is actually connected with any tahoo. In this respect they recall the Eskimos. Certain taboo rules with regard to food are connected with the age of the person (see p. 32seq.), but the privileges of age stretch no further than that. According to Mgr. Turquetil, age classes are com¬ pletely lacking, as also any puberty ceremonial. Nor has he during his many years’ sojourn at Reindeer Lake seen any sign of clans, secret societies, mask dances or the like. The early literature mentions chiefs among the Chipewyan; hut everything would seem to indicate that their authority was entirely based upon their personality and that in reality the chief was merely a primus inter pares as among the Eskimos. Real political exercising of power is scarcely credible. Nowadays the Canadian Government has appointed a “chief” and two “counsellors” (fig. 34); but their in¬ fluence, which is not rooted in the tribe’s own life, is exceedingly small, and their activities are confined to their acting as go-betweens with the Indian agent. Officially there are no medicine men now, as all the Chipewyan belong either to the Roman Catholic or the Anglican Church; but it would be strange if they nevertheless did not work in secret. The fundamental pillar in Chipewyan society is marriage, which today is of course monogamous. Formerly a man often had several wives. As a rule, marriage is settled hv the parents, at any rate as far as the girl is concerned. Sometimes little girls were already betrothed at the age of two or three years 1). Whether or not the bride is bought ') Hearne 1795, 310.

G7 I have not been able to ascertain; but according to Petitot this is com¬ mon among the northern Athapaskans *). Hearne, on the other hand, states that “it has ever been the custom of those people for the men to wrestle for any woman to whom they are attached; and, of course, the strongest party always carries oil' the prize .... The whole bu-

Fig. 34. The chief of the Churchill band and

his daughter.

siness consists in hauling each other about by the hair of the head; they are seldom known either to strike or kick one another. It is not uncommon for one of them to cut oft his hair and to grease his ears, immediately before the contest begins’ “). The only hindrance to marriage is too close consanguinity, and, according to Mgr. Turquetil,

in this respect they go further than

white men. On the other hand relationship is no hindrance to sexual intercourse out of wedlock. By this I would not make so hold as to *) Petitot 1876, XXIII. Cf. Hardisty in Gibbs 1867, 312. 2) Hearne 1795, 104 seq. 5*

68 say that incest occurs, as is undoubtedly the case among for instance the Cree and Naskapi. At any rate it is expressly said that the Chipewyan are more afraid of incest than the Cree1). On the other hand, wife-exchanging for a night was common2). There is no actual wredding ceremony. It is the usual rule that the newly married couple at any rate the first year reside with the parents of the bride. This, however, need not necessarily be taken to be the remnants of a former matriarchate, as for instance among the Yukagir in northeast Siberia we find the same custom bound up with pronounced patriarchate3). Sometimes the couple later on also stay for some time with the parents of the husband. Until the first child is born the bonds of matrimony are so loose that marriage is mostly to be looked upon as a trial. Mgr. Turquetil estimates five births as the average for every married couple, but knows of a case where a woman

had

eighteen children.

This is certainly

very unusual,

howrever. Formerly one of twins was killed or at any rate so neglected that it soon died. I know too little about the Chipewryan to venture to say anything about their sexual morals, but have the impression that they are higher than those of both the Cree and the Eskimos. Of terms of relationship Mgr. Turquetil states that a man uses the same word for his own children and those of his younger brothers and sisters. In a similar way he designates with the same word his brotherin-law (or sister-in-law?), his grandchildren and the grandchildren of his younger brothers and sisters; this word is, all according to the sex, identical with the name for elder brother or sister. Furthermore, brother-in-law and sister-in-law have the same designation as uncle and aunt. As a rule children will call any old man grandfather. On the whole names.

the As

terms among

of

relationship the

Eskimos,

are

frequently

parents

for

used

instance

instead call

of

their

children to them by naming the relationship instead of using the name. The names are often descriptive and refer to some event or other at the birth of the child or some peculiarity about the child itself. As a consequence there is not always any sharp distinction between male and female names. A hoy may be named after an ani¬ mal, a certain locality or season, whilst girls are frequently named after a marten; the name is given by the parents or a near relation4). ') Ibidem 130. 2) Ibidem 129. On marriage cf. also Mackenzie, 1801, CXXIII. 8) Konig 1928—29, 122. On the other hand, genuine matriarchate is mentioned from the Kutchin, who, however, differ socially from the Chipewyan in being divided into three exogamous groups (Hardisty and Jones in Gihbs 1867, 315, 326). 4) Hearne 1795, 93 seq.

69 A peculiar custom, which the Chipewyan share with other Athapaskan tribes, is that the parents at the birth of a child renounce their own names and are thereafter described as So-and-So’s father or mother. When a man dies, his wife moves into the tent of one of her relat¬ ives, but often marries again. There does not seem to be any fixed social unit beyond the family. Mgr. Turquetil asserts that the community is looser still than among the Eskimos, which indicates that neither family nor camp, as among various Siberian peoples1), play any part as such.

Customary Law. Within the family there is a definitely recognised right of posses¬ sion. Without permission a husband cannot, for instance, dispose of his wife’s things. According to Mgr. Turquetil, children do not inherit after their father. If a man dies without having made any dispositions as to his property, his sister will, for instance, usually inherit his tent. This must not, however, no more than the bridegroom’s moving into the house of the bride’s parents, be interpreted as a survival of a former matriarchate, as originally everything was destroyed after a death (see p. 77). Seton writes from the Mackenzie region, that “each has his own recognised hunting ground, usually a given river valley, that is his exclusive and hereditary property;

another

hunter may follow a

wounded animal into it, but not begin a hunt there or set a trap upon it”2). Such definite family hunting grounds are well-known from the northern Algonkians and are also to be found on the North Pacific coast; but as far as I have been able to elicit information on the subject, their occurrence among the Chipewyan is extremely doubt¬ ful. The probable explanation of this is, that the collective hunts at the caribou crossing places are, or at any rate have been, of much greater importance than individual hunting. It may be, however, that there are also historical reasons. If two hunters fire at the same animal they share the spoils be¬ tween them. If they are hunting together and one of them has bad luck, the latter will nevertheless get something from his more for¬ tunate companion. Back asserts that when a man hunts with another man’s gun and ammunition the spoils fall to the owner ot the gun ). With regard to caribou caught in snares, it is the rule that everyone may take enough for his needs if only the head, skin and saddle are left to the hunter4). Of the northern Athapaskans Pike says (without 1)

Konig 1928—29, 708 seqq.

2) Seton 1912, 151. 8)

Back 1836, 94.

4)

Mackenzie 1801, CXXV.

70 Indicating any particular tribe) that “it is a point of etiquette that when two or more Indians are hunting in company, the dépouille and tongue belong to the man who did the killing, while, the rest of the meat is shared in common”1). The Yellow Knife have the custom that a herd of musk-oxen belongs to the one who discovers it, even if others kill the animals2), which recalls certain Eskimo customs when hear hunting. As to criminal law nothing much can he said except that vendetta seems to have been the rule in cases of the murder of relatives3), and that theft is expiated by handing hack the stolen property4).

Amusements. '1 he Chipewyan are, or were, great gamblers. The favourite game was a variant of the widely spread “hand game” 5), which in this tribe is called [udzi]. Two men sit facing each other. One holds his hands concealed under a blanket or a skin and has a stick in one of them. His opponent in the meantime sings and drums, but suddenly names the hand in which he thinks the other has the stick. The other must then hold out both hands and, if the guess has been correct, he has lost. Dice among the Chipewyan are not known to me. King, however, writes from Fort Resolution: “The natives form a sort of dice of the claws of a bear, cut flat at their large end, into which a small quantity of lead is introduced; lines are then traced thereon, and in playing, the manner in which they happen to alight on the barken dish or platter indicates the number of the counters the player is to receive from his adversary, those that remain in an erect position reckoning the most”6). Dice are otherwise mentioned from the Hare and on the whole are very widely distributed in North America7). Ihe women have a ring-and-pin game

[ekEt'sa'zuzi]

which in

form differs from that of the Eskimos, but corresponds to the type that is common among other boreal Indians. It consists of six pierced toejoints of a caribou drawn on a thong, at the other end of which is fastened a stick. The game is to catch the bones on the stick, the same number of points being counted as the number of bones caught, ex¬ cept that the uppermost bone but one, alone or together with the up') Pike 1892, 50. 2) Ibidem, 102. s) Cf. Back 1836, 162. 4) Ross in Gibbs 1867, 308. ) Cf. Hearne 1 /95, 335. On the distribution of this game in North America see Birket-Smith 1929, II 370 seqq. 6) King 1836, II 177. 7) Birket-Smith 1929, II 372 seqq.

71 permost one, counts seven, the uppermost alone ten, and the latter no less than thirty if it is caught by the side. Every player has up to three tries, after which the opponent takes her turn. Fig. 35 d shows a game of this description (II 1:62, CNM). The end of the uppermost bone is four-sided, with a hole underneath on each side. The cord is of unhaired, uncured skin, 45 cm long, and

Fig. 35. Toys: a, bull-roarer; b, buzz; e, hand-ball; d, ring-and-pin game.

ending in a fringed, triangular piece of skin with three rows of holes. At the opposite end of the cord there is a wooden stick, 19.5 cm long. Another common game is rounders. 4 he ball [dzoL] is made ot caribou skin, which is stuffed with moss. A specimen (H 1:64, CNM, fig. 35 c) is of smoke-cured skin and has a diameter of about 6 cm. The game, as I saw it played by four boys, proceeds as follows: They stood in positions as the letters below indicate: A C B D A and D were “in” and were equipped with bats in the form of ordi¬ nary sticks. B served the ball to A, who struck it and changed places

72 with D, while B tried to catch the ball and “hit” one of them. Then the ball was served to D, and thus the game continued until one of them was “hit”, after which B and C went in and took the bats. The Eskimos play rounders in almost the same way. “They have

.... another out door game, called Holl, which in

some measure resembles playing with quoits; only it is done with short clubs, sharp at one end”1). The various forms of Eskimo sport such as finger pulling, and rolling round outstretched thongs, are not known. They wrestle, the opponents holding each other by the back of the shirt neck — formerly by the hair (see p. 67) — and thrusting their heads against one another. In swimming they use the breast stroke. On one occas¬ ion I saw a boy skipping. Cat’s cradle is only little known, but it does exist (fig. 36). It also occurs among the Cree (for instance, fig. 36 b occurs the

among

same

them

name

as

under among

the Chipewyan), and among Fig. 36. Cat’s cradles: a, two bags with cari¬ bou blood; b, fishing net.

Of actual children’s

toys

the Eskimos cat’s cradle is very

mention

widely

may be

made

distributed2). of

the

top

[tsa'lfmlE] and the hull-roarer [detjEndEl ne]. The bull-roarer shown in fig. 35 a (H 1:65, CNM) consists of a thin slab of wood narrowing olf to the top; angular notches have been cut in the edges. Dimen¬ sions 38.5 and 4 cm. It is fastened to a thong of smoked skin, 1.08 m long, ending in a small cross-pin. A buzz [eklEna'nduE], consisting of a caribou astragalus and bound crosswise with babiche, to which two thongs of the same material are tied, 25 and 28 cm long, is shown on fig. 35b (H 1:69, CNM). Boys also play with a popgun formed out of a swan wing bone; through this they shoot pellets of chewed lichen. All these forms of toys are known to both Eskimos and several boreal Indians3). On the other hand the Eskimos’ wind wheel seems to be lacking among the Chipewyan4). Besides these, the boys of course play with small sledges, bows and ') Hearne 1795, 333. 2) Cf. Birket-Smith 1929, II 291, 375 seq. 8) Ibidem, II 120 seq., 205. 4) I have seen a wind wheel from the Naskapi.

73 arrows, and little girls with dolls, small carrying cradles, etc. The sling must also be regarded as a kind of toy. There are two slings in the collection (H 1:49 and 50, fig. 37). They consist of a piece of uncured caribou skin coining to a point at both ends, 15.5 by 2.5 and 23 by 5.5 cm respectively. To these are fastened cords, 59 and 62, 67 and 71 cm long; the longest cords end in a loop for the index finger. Regarding the original music of the Chipewyan, Mgr. Turquetil gives me the following in¬ formation: As a rule they are

less musical than the

Eskimos; and the women’s voices are more frequently contralto than soprano, but relatively pass.

small

in

com¬

The intervals corre¬

spond to ours — which is not the case with the Eski¬ mos — and they seem to be especially fond of long intervals. They often jump a

complete

octave.

The

time is very uniform, alter¬ nating

2U

and a:/4;

in

the

latter the last time has the stress

(usually a high no¬

te).

Both

major

nor

are used,

and

mi¬

the former

first having time stress like ours, whereas the latter has it on the last time. Very often a double theme runs through the melody, they first singing one, which is in minor, then the other, which is in major. No words are ever used, but a sound somewhat like [6]. Songs are used when holding shaman seances and gambling. At death they sing a half sobbing elegy. Simpson says that “their only attempts at singing are borrowed from the Crees”1), a statement which must presumably be accepted with caution. The following is a Chipewyan tune written down by Mgr. Turquetil: *) Simpson 1843, 165.

74

In former times the principal musical instrument was the drum [haifgoli],

which has

nowadays

quite

disappeared,

or nearly

so,

whereas it is still used by the Cree and other northern Algonkians. The drum was of the tambourine type and slightly smaller than the common Greenland drum1). In contrast to that of the Eskimos, but similar to other Indian drums, it had stretched cords at the back which served for holding it. The drum is always played with a double beat, which as far as I know only occurs among the Eskimos in the west. The second stroke being sharper than the first, it gives to the melody a strongly marked stress on the strong time of each measure. The rattle is another musical instrument, the shape being that of a small, flat drum with skin on both sides and a short handle. This type is widely distributed in the boreal woodlands; although the double tambourine seems to be post-Columbian as a drum, it is undoubtedly original in the form of a rattle as it is already mentioned in the begin¬ ning of the seventeenth century 2). Hearne, however, describes the rattle among the Chipewyan as being “made of a piece of dried buffalo skin, in shape exactly like an oil flask, into which they put a few shot or pebbles”3), which might indicate that the flat form, although in itself *) Ilearne 1795, 334. 2) For instance Le Jeune 1C35, 66 seq. s) Hearne 1795, 334.

75 old, has been introduced later among the Ghipewyan, and in that case presumably from the Cree who use exactly similar instruments (II 1:22, CNM). A Chipewyan rattle of the form used today (II 1:63, GNM, fig. 38) consists of a thin piece of wood, one end of which is bent over into a circle and covered with unhaired caribou skin. The edge is painted red. Length 16, breadth 7.5 cm. Whistles were once made of wood, of what shape is not known. In the National Museum at Ottawa (here is a whistle from the Slavey (VI B 47). Nowadays whistles of common European type are cut out of willow. The usual form of dance in our day is a kind of couple-dance: the man remains on the same spot while performing a sort of two step; in front of him, and with her face always towards him, the woman moves with

short

hopping

steps

in

very

small

circles in the direction of the sun. Mgr. Turquetil

has

described

to

me

another

kind of dance performed by only one at a time:

Without moving the feet the

dan¬

cer bends the knees and swings the body from

side to side,

with lowering of the

shoulders. Hearne maintains that the Chipewyan learned

their

dances

from the

Cree

and

Dogrib1). The dance first described above is in fact very like a dance referred to

Fig- 38. Rattle.

among the Cree2). The dance of the Slavey Indians is described as follows: “Qu’on se figure une foule de tout age et de tout sexe, depuis I’enfant jusqu’au vieillard, trottinant en cercle autour d'un grand feu, les uns d coté des autres, le corps voiité et leur couverture placée sur la tete ou drapée autour de corps. Ils sautent lourdement, en accompagnant leur mouvement rotatoire de convul¬ sions d’épileptiques. En méme temps, ils hurlent des ah! ah! des eh! eh! et des eyia! eyia-a! å fendre la tete aspirant violamment ces syllables, comme si la respiration leur manquait tout å coup. Dans ces mouvements, ils imitent les gestes et les allures de lours, qui joue un grand role dans leurs legendes" 6). ') Hearne 1795, 333. 2) Drage 1748, I 220. 3) Duchaussois 1922, 355. Cf. Pike 1892, 135 (Yellow Knife).

76

Phases of Life. Pregnant women must work hard and must never sit on

the

sledge. Delivery is usually easy. Before the event takes place, all fire¬ arms and ammunition must be taken out of the tent. According to Mgr. Turquetil, the mother lies on her stomach, slightly bent up, and another woman assists by drawing a caribou skin tightly about the lower part of the body. The navel string is tied up with sinew thread, but not until after being cut. A piece of the navel string was formerly worn round the neck as an amulet, sewn into a case set with porcupine quills and beads1). This is a widespread custom among the Indians in North America. What is done with the after birth is not known. Circumcision, which Petitot mentions from the Loucheux and Hare, is not practised by the Chipewyan. In former times childbirth took place in a separate tent, where no male with the exception of very young boys would venture to be, and there the woman gave birth to her child without assistance; she was thereafter unclean for four or five weeks and had to live alone, helped only by one or two other women 2). Petitot states that young girls at their first menstruation “se voilent la tete et les épaules d'un grand bonnet de paille”3). Menstruating women have their own sleeping blanket and cooking vessels. Nor must they cook for others or walk over others’ tracks. According to Mackenzie they must not even touch a man’s implements4). Hearne states that they must not pass through the usual tent door, but must sleep in a separate hut. They must not go on the ice of rivers or lakes or go near places where the heaver is hunted or fishing nets set. Nor must they eat the head of any animal and neither follow nor cross any track along which the head of caribou, moose, beaver, etc. has been brought5). For the most part the treatment of sickness seems to have been shamanistic: incantations, sucking the sick part to remove the “cause” in the form of a small stone, a fish bone, and so on6). The Chipewyan are not nearly so well acquainted with herbs as the Cree, and of actual medicaments I only know very few. A decoction of Ledum palustre is drunk in case of diarrhoea, and the seeds of a grass-like plant are mixed with tobacco and smoked as a remedy for headache. For snowblindness they chew tobacco and the juice is dropped into the eye. ') Mackenzie 1801, CXX1I. 2) Hearne 1795, 92 seq. 3) Pelitot 1876, XXXIV. This statement needs further corroboration. 4) Mackenzie 1801, CXXIII. 5) Hearne 1795, 313 seqq. 6) Cf. Petitot 1886, 434 seqq.

77 Sudatory baths, obtained by throwing water on heated stones, are also used for bad eyes. Bandages with dry and powdered pine needles are laid upon frost sores, and cuts are bandaged with the roots of a grass dried over the fire. Burnt and powdered willow bark is also strewn on wounds1). As far as possible the dead are now buried in the cemetery. There is for instance a small cemetery close to the mission at Churchill. It is said that otherwise a long pole is set up or laid beside the grave1). This custom is also observed by the Caribou Eskimos and the Cree. In former days it w as customary to lay the dead on the ground without burying them3).

Mackenzie, however,

states

that

the corpse

was

covered with wood4). Leaving the corpse on the ground occurs among several low tribes in North America, for instance among some Athapaskans5), whereas the northern Algonkians buried their dead in a sitting position6). Sometimes the aged and sick wyere abandoned before death occur¬ red and often at their own request '). Many fear to touch a corpse, as this makes them unclean, and, when there has been a death, the camp is left. When people from a camp in which a death has taken place meet others, they begin weep¬ ing. The period of mourning for a close relation formerly lasted a vear, and as a sign of mourning the hair wyas cnt off ). d he deceased s property wras destroyed. “On the death of a relative , says Simpson, “they destroy guns, blankets, kettles, everything, in short, they pos¬ sess, concluding the havoc by tearing their lodges to pieces”9). *) Mackenzie 1801, CXXV. 2) Cf. Petitot 1876, XXVI. s)

King 1836, II 47.

Hearne 1795, 341.

4) Mackenzie 1801, CXXVIII. 5) Birket-Smith 1929, II 379. 6) Robson 1752, 49. Drage 1749, II 52 seq. Hind 1863, I 170. 7) Hearne 1795, 202 seq. 8) Hearne 1795, 341. 9) Simpson 1843, 74. Cf. King 1836, II 87.

VIL Beliefs and Mythology. Astronomy, Time Reckoning, etc. Unfortunately it is only very little that I have been able to glean as to the astronomical knowledge of the tribe, which on the whole, however, seems to he only very small. Charles’s wain is called [jE’da'] and the Pleiades [jE’ndEla'zE] The quarters of the globe are so described that the word for east means "in the sun”, south “where the sun turns”, west “from its height” (i. e. where the sun sinks) and north “its no more being” (but implied: whence it will return). I have been given the following fourteen names of “months”, of which the first almost answers to December; but it is naturally im¬ possible to bring about any really close conformity with our division of the year x): [msa'tjo]

“when it blows stronger” (about December)

[nitsiltsa'tt>ElE]

“when it blows less strongly”

[nitsi'sa'tjo]

?

[benii.i'tfiEli]

?

[tREtsik!Ézlna'zale] “when the snow melts”

[beniE'tjE(5i]

“when the ducks moult”

[ni'r.aJtfcElE] [ni'UaJtfo] [beniSn ftjuli;]

“when the caribou lose the hair from their antlers”

[ginu-lza]

“when the frost arrives”

[benihÉde ]

?

[benidE'dale] [nisa't^ilE]

“when the caribou antlers are shed” ?

[benitsi'Ele]

“when the caribou are with calf”.

Tlie Chipewyan count on their lingers; the word for ten means literally “no more”. q Pelitot (1889, 87 sep.) writing about the Hare names fifteen “onths” and six¬ teen “seasons”. A number of fifteen shows that the “months” cannot have any astronomic basis, so that the distinction between “months” and “seasons” must be regarded as illusory. In bolli cases it seems to be a division according to the general appearance of I lie country, i. e. just as among the Chipewyan.

79 The Catholic missionaries have introduced the same phonetic writ¬ ing that with various amendments is also used hy the Cree, the Eski¬ mos in Baffin Land and west of Hudson Bay, and others.

Religion. The Chipewyan are now all Christians. The first missionary among the Etthen-eldeli was Father Grollier, O. M. I., who spent Ihe winter of 1853—54 among them, and an Anglican mission has since appeared at Churchill. The latter’s influence scarcely goes very deep, however. The missionary who worked there in 1912 did not even know so much of the language that he was able to name the hymn numbers, and the congregation’s knowledge of English is infinitesimal. Even the most simple conversation had to proceed by means of an inter¬ preter, which is scarcely an effective way of ministring to the soul. That Christianity has been adopted by the Indians at Churchill therefore means nothing else than that the mythology has received the addition of some new figures. Among them the devil plays no small part. One day a canoe came in to the post and the new arrivals related that they had distinctly seen the devil duck shooting on the other side of the river. The fundament of the original religion of the Chipewyan is that both man and animals have a soul. Man’s soul is called [dene-dajinEn], actually: man-lips-breath. Simply by the thought alone the soul can bring happiness or misfortune over another. At death the soul leaves the body. Mackenzie records that the soul must make the journey to the realm of the dead in a canoe of stone; if its conduct in life has not been irreproachable, the canoe sinks, and the wicked soul must there¬ after stand in w^ater up to the neck without ever reaching the island where the realm of the dead is1). The souls of the dead can, however, also appear as ghosts, which have power to harm and help the living. Both before and after the illfamed massacre of the Eskimos by the Chipewyan at Coppermine Biver the killers had to observe quite a number of precautions, of which Hearne has given a description 2): In preparation they painted their faces black and red (cf. page 57), and after the murders they were not to prepare food themselves and could only eat and smoke from their own pots and pipes respectively, and not until they had painted the lower part of their faces from nose and ears with ochre. The food had not to be made with water, and they had not to eat heads, in¬ testines or blood. Nor had they to kiss women and children. The *) Mackenzie 1801, CXIX. 2) Hearne 1795, 205 seq.

80 women made bracelets and brow bands of porcupine quills and moose hair sewn on leather. This taboo lasted from summer to winter of that year, when the men had to go away from the camp qnd in solitude burn the ornaments, pots and pipes used, after which a great feast was held at which they again enjoyed the things that had been for¬ bidden them. The boundary between man and animals is very indefinite. In the legends animals often appear as men, and most of the legends are just about animals and how they acquire their various qualities. In order not to offend the souls of game and thereby bring down their anger upon one, special regard must be paid to them1). A wounded caribou must be killed with a stone, but never with a stick unless it is sharpened and driven into its brain. Caribou meat and fish must never come into contact with each other. The tongue and fat of the first animal of the season caught in a snare must be bung up in a tree. Marrow bones of an animal killed on snowless ground — especially if it is killed with a lance — must be broken with a stone, not with a knife; it is the opposite in winter when the animal is shot with a gun. In summer the ankle joint of a caribou must not be cut with a knife. Dogs must never gna\v caribou heads or the bones of furred animals, and therefore they must be burned or placed in a tree out of reach of dogs. When a caribou has been killed, or even w7ounded, the muzzle must be cut off; for the muzzle is the seat of the soul, and by doing so the killed animal is prevented from telling the other animals of its fate. Of other taboo rules regarding game Hearne relates the follow¬ ing2): The first fish of its kind to be caught in a net must be fried whole over the fire, the flesh must be removed without breaking a joint and the bones burnt up. This applies also to the first fish taken on a new7 hook3). Women must not touch wolf or bear skins4). Wolves and wolverines are only killed with reluctance5).

As is

the case

among the Central Eskimos, dogs must neither be killed nor eaten8), in which they form a remarkable exception to both the Greenlanders and the Cree, who look upon dog flesh as a delicacy7). Among all animal souls, that of the black bear and the beaver occupy the highest place. Their sense is comparable with that of man. 1) “All hunting is hunting for souls”, say the Kutchin on the Lower Yukon (Chapman 1921, 304). This statement corresponds almost word for word to one made by an Iglulik shaman on the Fifth Thule Expedition. 2) Hearne 1795, 329. 8) Hearne 1795, 331. 4) Mackenzie 1801, CXX111. King 1836, II 168 seq. 5) Hearne 1795, 344. *) Mackenzie 1801, CXVIII. 7) Drage 1748, I 216. Birket-Smith 1924, 380.

81 If a man gets an opportunity of killing a bear, il is because the bear itself wishes it and summons the hunter; if il does not wish it, the hunter will never even catch sight of it. And for that reason he need not make any apology before he kills it as the northern Algonkians do. The ceremonious bear ritual that is so prominent both among the northern Algonkians and in Siberia, seems on the whole to be only very little developed among the Athapaskans1). The Yellow Knife believe that the musk-ox too has human power of reasoning2). Whether or not the same applies to the Chipewyan I cannot say with certainty. Numbers of spirits populate nature3).

[ejuna'J

and

[En'a-|)lini]

are feared in particular. The former make their presence known by whistling, and they are heard especially in summer in the forest. The latter, whose name really means “the wicked enemies” (especially the Cree), are bare-footed and armed with bow and arrow, but invisible. One often finds their trail, however. Pregnant women have nothing to fear from them, for if there are any near her the unborn child will warn her. The man-in-the-moon [sake-dene] was a man who fled to the moon so quickly that one of his leggings slipped down over his leg. This can still be seen by looking at the moon (cf. the legend p. 88 seq.). The ruler over all caribou is called [bedzi-azE], “the little caribou calf”4). He is the son of a woman and a caribou bull and therefore half man, half caribou. Formerly he lived among men; but, as they treated him badly, he fled to the caribou. When he is called upon by man he sends the caribou to the camps (cf. the legend p. 91). The aurora borealis is taken to be caribou. Hearne gives the rat¬ ionalistic but not improbable explanation that it is because they have seen caribou skin sparkle when stroked with the hand ). Lightning and thunder are caused by an enormous bird. When it blinks its eyes the lightning appears, and thunder is the crash of the beat of its tremendous wings. Some people, but not all, have special protective spirits. Ross says that the eastern Athapaskans must not kill, skin or eat the animals they have as protective spirits °); but there is no question ot any ac¬ tual totemism. In addition, in the struggle against the harmful powers man has tremendous support in omens. Warnings are taken from Cf. Hallowell 1926, 72 seq. 2) Pike 1892, 10-1. 3) Hearne 1795, 846 seq. 4) The same one whom Petitol (1886, 385) calls Bé-tsuné-Yénelchian, “Raisedby-his-grandmothet”. 6) Hearne 1795, 346. 6) Ross in Gibbs 1867, 307. K. Birket-Smith

82 dreams, from words spoken in the delirium of fever, or from people who are dying, and finally from unusual incidents of every possible kind. For instance, if a man catches an otter in a trap.that is really intended for a smaller animal, it means that he will have good luck in his hunting. Amulets for good hunting have been referred to in the foregoing. Ross states that the eastern Athapaskans hang trifles up in the trees as offerings to the spirits1). Whether or not they know sooth¬ saying by means of burnt scapulae (scapulimancy) I cannot say. Another manner in which the Chipewyan seek to avoid the dangers of life is by observing a number of taboo rules. Of these there are un¬ doubtedly a great number, but I know only few of them, these having been recorded in the foregoing. They have to do with hunting (p. 80), food (p. 32 seq.), war (p. 79 seq.) end various phases of life (p. 76 seq.). On special occasions the Chipewyan resort to magic formulae. There is power in the spoken word, and even an evil desire can bring about misfortune. Mgr. Turquetil told of a white traveller who in thoughtless jest drew a picture of an Indian hanging in a tree, the consequence being that the one in question fled terror-stricken. Actual cases of thanatomania are recorded about them as from the Loucheux and the Eskimos 2). The medicine man is able to put himself into communion with the spirit world. He has special helping spirits in the form of beasts and birds of prey3). During his incantations he remains alone and in darkness in a small tent, where he summons the spirits while singing and beating his drum. The tent is dome-shaped or consists merely of four poles tied together and covered over with skins4). The other inhabitants of the camp stand round the tent singing too, until the medicine man with a shout announces that the spirits have arrived, whereupon those around go away. At times the medicine man will spend days in the medicine tent, exercising and fasting5). Belief in witchraft is, or at any rate was, very widespread. The Chipewyan used to ascribe most deaths to the witchraft of either the Cree or the Eskimos6).

Legends. Legends are often told, and at any rate the more significant among them are believed to recount events that have actually occurred. Mgr. Turquetil estimates that seventy-five per cent, of them are about fi 2) s) 4) 6) •

Ross in Gibbs 1867, 307. Hearne 1795, 221. Ibidem, 192. Richardson 1851, I 392. Hearne 1795, 191. Franklin 1823, 158. Hearne 1795, 338.

83 animals and give an explanation of peculiarities of their appearance and character. The first of the legends below was written down in French by Mgr. Turquetil at Reindeer Lake and kindly communicated to me for publi¬ cation. The others I have taken down myself at Churchill simultane¬ ously with their being translated by the H. B. C.s old interpreter, George Oman, from the Indian narrative. The Flood1). It was in the days long ago. Man did not yet exist. The animals alone were there. Little by little, almost imperceptibly, the water flooded the earth. It rose and rose, and death threatened every living thing. “Let us save ourselves on the highest mountains”, cried some; “we will surely perish in the water”. But the others, the most of them, disbelieved and would listen to nothing. In the meantine the water was steadily rising. It reached the tops of the highest mountains. All living things were just about to perish, when a rather big island floated up to the surface of the water, al¬ though no one knows how or why. It floated there as if to take the unhappy ones. A male and a female of all kinds of animals and birds and everything that moves on the earth took refuge on it and waited for the water to fall. Salvation came from the pintail duck. It dived down in order to find the earth again. The loon, the black plother and other divers did the same, but soon returned. They had found nothing. The pintail did not come back, however. They waited long, and it did not reappear. At last it came. It had almost lost its strength and was almost out of breath. It was ready to collapse; for it had been diving a long time, because the water was so exceedingly deep. It had reached the bottom, for its feet were thick with soil. When the pintail had recovered its breath it dived again. It was gone a shorter time than at first, and once attain it had soil on its feet. It dived for the third time, and with it the loon, the teal and all the other divers. Soon it seemed as if the boating island were becoming firmer, and then land appeared all about them. The pintail had raised the earth under the water, and the animals were saved. One day there were some words between the hear and the squirrel. The squirrel said that the rocks must he at the bottom of the water, whereas the birch floated on the top; hut the bear, who knew that man in the future would use the birch for his canoes, maintained that the q (’f Petitot 1886, 373 seqq., 379 seqq. Lowie 1912, 187. Lofthouse 1913—15, 43 seq. 6*

84 birch should be at the bottom of the water and the rocks floating at the top. This is why they quarreled. As time went on the squirrel found many supporters, and the hear exclaimed angrily: “Very well! If you will contradict me, I will turn everything into night, and there will be nq day any more.” The squirrel: “Stupid! You will be the first to suffer. How will you find your food?” The bear: “I will grope my way forward and feel everything and in that way find food." The squirrel: “I expect you will tear your hands in the under¬ growth.” The bear: “Never mind, I can snitf; I have a good nose.” The squirrel: “Yes, if you want to rub the skin of it.” The bear: “I’ll roll along the ground, and my nose will be able to feel it.” The squirrel: “Splendid. That’s the proper way to tear your belly on all the tree stumps.” The squirrel was applauded. The bear grew silent, and the rocks slid into the sea and sank to the bottom. Beside himself with rage the bear cried: “As soon as I get to the end of the lake you’ll find out whom you have to deal with.” It began to run, selecting the clearings and the woodless patches. The squirrel, too, leaped away, but it reached the dense forest and, by springing from tree to tree, got there first and. sitting up there, began to scold the unhappy bear,

who shouted,

swore and was as noisy as an evil spirit as it ran along. Many days passed after the bear had disappeared. The earth was no longer warm. A thick fog, which turned to snow, covered the whole land, and the snow piled itself up unceasingly. The animals gathered together (the bear alone was missing) and lighted a great fire to warm themselves at. The squirrel lay near the fire, hut so close to it that it almost roasted. “Do be careful, you are burning yourself,” they all cried. It lay motionless as if it were dead. It was just about to take fire, and its back was already scorched (since then the squirrel’s back has a scorched colour). It was pushed away from the fire. Soon after¬ wards it awoke of its own accord and said: “My friends, I have seen the bear in a dream. It is the bear that has stolen the warmth and is hiding it. I know where it is. Let us go.” They departed. The squirrel with the scorched back went at the head. They wandered far, very far towards the west. By and by they left this land and came to another. At last they came to a splendid place that was most suitable for hiding in summer to hunt the caribou in canoes. It was here the bear had sought refuge. They agreed between themselves what to do. “You, lynx, must call the caribou and order

85 them to come at once. And you, little mouse, who know so well how to make your way into everything without anybody discovering it, go down to the shore of the lake and gnaw the bear’s paddle through just where the blade begins, so that it will break at the least strain.” And that is what took place. The lynx summoned the caribou and the mouse gnawed the bear’s paddle. Soon the caribou came. They swam over the lake, which w as quite full of them. The bear scented them at once, went straight down to his canoe, shot it into the water, seized the paddle and rowTed towards the game. The paddle did not break. “O, you shabby little mouse, you have not done as you wrere told. The paddle has not broken.” The wretched mouse was so afraid of dying that its eyes almost sprang out of its head (and that is why its small prominent eyes have always looked so frightened since then). Meantime the bear w7as still paddling and getting near to the game. Now it paddled with all its strength. Crack! The paddle broke across the middle, the canoe overturned, and there went Bruin headlong into the water. In the meantime they had all wanted to see where the bear lived. And there they saw what was like a strange ball made of something or other, the like of which had never been seen. Whatever was it? The bear cubs betrayed the secret. "It is the he-” They dared not say the whole word; but the others understood that it was the heat when they greedily ate of the ashes that fell from the ball. They at once seized it; they let it pass from hand to hand and made their way off immediately, for the bear was already getting near to the shore. Thus each one carried the warmth in turn. The last two to carry it were the roach, which carried it a very long way, and at last it gave it to its cousin the pike. But the pike has very sharp teeth and in the end it made a hole in it. The bear, which was observing all the things that happened on this journey, at once shouted: “From now7 till the end of time there shall be heat and cold alternately.” And that is why since then there has been winter and summer, and it is strange that the bear makes his lair and lies dormant all the winter without moving or taking food or drink; and even if there is much snow, when it makes up its mind to come out, the warmth and spring come quickly. The pike had torn the ball with the heat. As soon as the air became w7arm, all the snow that had collected melted away to water. This caused a new flood. This time, however, all the earth was not covered, and yet so much water was not at all pleasant. But then a great bird, ’tulkkuzhi, whom nobody knows nowadays, drank up all the water that covered the earth, and it drank so much that not a drop was left. What were they to do now? Must they all die of thirst? ’Tulkkuzhi lay there, full of water, as motionless as a corpse. They

86 stood round it, they begged it, they caressed it, they wanted to open its belly but dared not. What if they couldn’t manage it? A person of that size, think of it! “Listen here, lynx! Nothing can resist your claws; go and tear its belly. It is for you just as much as for us.” And so the lynx came nearer. Its paws were like velvet: it parted the feathers and patted the bird. “O, what soft hands my little cousin the lynx has”, cooed ’tulkkuzhi delightedly. It had scarcely spoken when the water flowed out in streams. With its long, sharp claws the lynx had opened its belly. This time the water did not cover the world, but formed rivers and lakes as they are now. And since there has been no flood. Recorded by Mgr. Turquetil.

The Flood1) (another version). In olden days there was once a winter with so much snow that no one could go hunting, and no one knew what was wrong with the weather. The animals lived in a tent of caribou skins. They looked for the warm weather, but all in vain. “Well, then, we will lie down and sleep,” they said, and lay down, “we will try to dream about the warm weather.” The squirrel lay beside the fire: but it did not notice the heat, and they used to push it away from the fire. That is why the squirrel is so scorched on its back. At last it awoke and said: “There, 1 was dreaming of the warm weather. Let us go there where the summer is.” And so they went away, and came to a place where a great hole led up to the sky. They crept through it and came to the land of the sky, and up there it was summer. There lived the black bear, and it was he who had taken the summer away from the earth. It had bags with all kinds of weather in them: rain, snow, fog, and cold. They went up to the bear and, when it had gone somewhere else, its cubs disclosed to the other animals what was in the bags. In the meantime the bear had gone hunting. The mouse stole unnoticed up to the bear: they had told it to gnaw the bear’s paddle through. Then they said to the lynx: “You have a big paw, swim over to the bear.” The lynx swam away and when it had got half way over, the bear began to pursue it in his canoe. The lynx turned about: but the bear’s paddle broke and made him overturn with the canoe. Then the animals took the warm weather and started to go home. The warm weather lay in a hag and was terribly heavy, so they had to take turns to carry it. The bear had succeeded in getting ashore and followed them. When they came near to the place where the hole in the sky was, the hole closed up. But there was a pike that put its nose ‘) Cf. the toregoing legend and the literature cited there and, as regards the last episode, Lowie 1912, 185.

87 into the crack and opened it again (that is why the pike has a flat nose). When the animals got down to earth again everything was still snow and winter; but rain soon started to fall, the snow melted and the rocks appeared in sight. At last only one great rock stood up above the water, and to it all the animals tied. Only four stayed away — the jay, the raven, the hare and the caribou. Still, the rock was much too small for all the animals to be on it and some had to go out into the water. The pintail duck dived down and did not come hack for a long time; but when it did come up again it had a lump ot soil with it. In that way it gradually brought all the earth with rivers and lakes into the light of day. But there were no caribou! Then they saw the raven flying, and thought to themselves: “Wherever it comes from, the other animals must be there too.” And they said to the little owl: "You have big eyes. Take notice of where the raven flies, then we will follow after it. They did so and came to where the caribou lived. The raven lived outside. When the animals arrived they were very hungry and wanted something to eat; but the raven drove them away. The lynx tried his luck, but the raven struck him over the nose, and that is why the lynx has a short nose. The arctic fox was almost dead with hunger and was the last of all the animals to arrive at the place. They told him that there was food there, but it just ran about here and there. When it came to the door, however, it made a hole in it, and when the caribou inside saw the light they all came out. 1 he others commanded the owl to sit up in a tree and observe how the caribou scattered ovei the land. But before they had reached all over it the hare came leap¬ ing along and stopped the caribou, so that they did not get any further. Told by [bezeda]. The Sun and the White-Fronted Goose1). A man went out hunting and came across a trail. When he saw it he thought: “Some animal or other, either a caribou or a bear, must have been walking here.” And he took off his belt and made a snare of it to catch the animal. Then he went back home and lay down to sleep. In the morning when he awoke the dawn was breaking; but real daylight seemed as if it would not come as it usually did.

I wonder

what is the matter”, he thought, “the daylight won’t come”. He went out to inspect his snare, and in fact came near to the place; but he could not get quite up to it, for it was the sun that was caught in the snare. It rose as high as the snare would let it, but then q Cf. Petitot 188G, 411 seq. Lowie 1912, 184.

88 sank again. That was why it would not become daylight. All the birds gathered at the spot; but none could get right up to the snare. At last the white-fronted goose succeeded in cutting it, and at once the sun rose into the air. But the beak of the goose had been scorched by the heat, and that is why it has got the name of [da-t!E], “burnt beak”. Told by [bezeda]

The Raven and the Caribou1). Before the flood, caribou were easy to hunt with the how and arrow, but after it the arrows could not pierce them: it was just as if they were nothing but hone. The hunters had to aim at their heads and hit a vein to make them bleed to death. Then the raven said: “We cannot kill the caribou because they are only bone,” and while all the others were asleep it stayed up and made magic all through the night. It was the raven that gave the caribou their present form with flesh on their bones, through which the arrows could go. After that they were once again easy to hunt. This is what we know about the raven. Told by [tjiki]. The Man in the Moon2). In olden times the heaver was a human being. He lived together with his wife and his mother-in-law. But once when he was away the old woman killed her daughter because she wanted to marry him herself. When he found it out he killed his mother-in-law. Then he went to the place where his wife had been killed and lay down on top of her (copulated?). In that way he brought her to life again, and they had children. Later on they went on a journey, and then the wife said to her husband: “When you come to a little lake, mark it with a sign.” They journeyed on and marked all the lakes they passed; but how far they travelled we do not know. Once the man came to a lake, but thought it too small to mark. So he went on and came to a place where he wished to camp. Then he went hunting; but when he came back there was no tent, and therefore he had to go on to the place that he had thought too little ') Cf. Petitot 1886, 379 seqq. *) Cf. Petilot 1886, 347 seq. Lowie 1912, 184. Lofthouse 1913—15. 44 seq.

89 to mark. When his wife came there she was I timed into a heaver, and the same thing happened to their children. He was also turned into a heaver, though how it was done we do not know; but he left the camp and became a man again. He continued his journey, and when winter came he made snowshoes for himself. When he came home the tent was empty; hut the frames of the snowshoes were furnished with netting. He certainly had a suspicion of how it had happened and therefore closed up all the openings in the tent and went on his way. Later on he came back stealthily to see who had knotted the net to the snowshoes; he had left a little opening in the tent, and this he now quickly closed up. There was a ptarmigan in the tent! But when he entered, the ptar¬ migan had turned into a young, beautiful woman. So they lived there as man and wife. The man hunted beaver and the woman melted the beaver fat. One day the man said: “Don’t make marks in the fat with your fingers.” His wife, however, thought to her¬ self: “Anyway, 1 will see if the fat is frozen” and pushed her finger down into it. When the man came home and was taking his leggings off, and already had pushed the right one down, he caught sight of the marks in the fat. At that he became so. embittered that he went away without giving himself time to draw up his leggings again, and said as he went: “To-morrow you can look for me in the moon.” At the same time he called his dog. That night and the next one passed; but the following night he reached the moon, and his dog is with him. Told by [tIelekwe''dajazE].

The Raven and the Blackbird1). In the beginning, the birds had no names. Then the others said that the raven should be called [da-tpk], black beak, but it was not satisfied with this. The others, however, dragged it to a place where a fire had been lighted, and there they rubbed it all over with soot and then dived down into the water. The raven succeeded in getting hold of the blackbird, however, twisted its neck and rubbed it all over with soot in order that another bird should be like him. All the others now came up out of the water and the raven took some chalk (?) and threw it at them, naming their names as he did so. Since that time the birds have had their names. Told by [tjiki]. *) Cf. Petitot 1886, 349 seqq. Lowie 1912, 184 seq.

90 The Arctic Fox. The arctic fox was originally a human being who lived with his mother. Sometimes, however, he went away and lived with the other foxes. But every time he returned to his mother. At last he stayed away altogether and continued to he a fox. Told by [tjelekwe'dajazE]. The Ermine and the Musk-Ox. Once a musk-ox was seen. But when one came near to it, it was seen that it was an ermine which had killed the musk-ox and was carrying it home. Told by [bezeda]. The Woodpecker and the Jay. The woodpecker and the jay spoke to each other. They each had a sister, and now they married each other’s sister. But the hen jay died because she could not pick at the trees. Told by [bezeda]. The Man and the Otter. There was once a man who fell through a hole in the ice of a river and was carried down in the current. At last he caught hold of a pole and remained hanging by it. Then the otter came paddling his canoe under the ice, took the man on board and took him to an opening where he could come up. But when he was in safety on the ice the otter paddled on, and the man went home. Told by [bezeda]. How the Caribou came back to Man. Once upon a time the men found the thunderbird’s egg. They were out hunting caribou, but there were no animals. They searched for them, but still they found none. However, there was a man whose name was [EdEguE], “the worm in the antler”. He met an antler (?) who was also called [EdEguE] (?) and asked it: “Where are all your friends?” The other answered:

“They are not far from here. Go

to the place where the caribou usually shed their antlers; that is the land of the caribou, and all my friends are there.” So they wandered on together and came to the place where all the caribou were. It was a long, low promontory, and while going from

91 there they again found the thunderbird’s eggs; but they did not touch them. However, there was a woman who tied a thong to one of the cari¬ bou, thinking that when the animals returned from their wanderings she would know

that this

one

belonged

to her.

So

the

wandered from the promontory out into the water, and

caribou [EdEguE]

tried to get them to turn back, but in vain; but the caribou that had got the thong tied to it prevented the other animals from turning back. Then thought [EdEguE]: “1 will go and get the thunderbird’s egg and throw it out into the water on the other side of the caribou. Then they will surely make for the shore.” He went back for the egg; and while he was on his way it began to thunder. From the promontory he threw it as far out as he could, so that it fell down on the far side of the caribou. And so, when it began to thunder on the far side of the caribou, they all began to make for the shore, where [EdEguE] stood. When they came there he removed the thong and threw it away, but thereafter rubbed the muzzles, ears and legs of the animals with mud to frighten them. That is why the caribou are so shy now. He also took a caribou calf with him, hut released it near to his tent. Close to the tent was a crossing place, and there he let the caribou calf and its mother swim over in safety. Later on a big flock of caribou came to swim over; but when the women in the tent saw it they thought: “We will kill some of them,” and went down to the crossing place. But the caribou ran away, and in that manner they came back to man; [EdEguE] said: “When you hear the thunder, it is a sign that there are still caribou round about; but when you do not hear it thunder, there are no animals.” Told by [bezeda].

bedzi-azE *). Once a little child was heard crying. The young women began to look for it, but could not find anything. Still they could hear it crying, until the owl, who was also searching, followed the sound and came to a heap of caribou dung, and there she saw the child’s head sticking up. She took the child home with her and brought it up; but later on it went away. This was [bedzi-azE], But while he still lived among people he said that so long as people talked about him there would always be plenty of caribou. Told by [tJelekwe'dajazE]. ‘) Cf. Petitot 188G, 385 seqq. Lowie 1912, 182 seqq. Goddard 1912, 50 seqq.

92 The Two Brothers who visited the Land of the Giants'). Once upon a lime there were two brothers who were out hunting in their canoe. They caught sight of two goslings, which they took into the canoe to take home with them. They lay down to sleep in the canoe. This was in the daytime. When the younger one woke up the goslings had become old in the meantime. He wakened his brother, and as they did not know where they were, they went ashore and climbed a hill to look round. While they were standing on the hill they heard someone talking below. A voice said: “Go out, my boy, and see who is standing up there on our house.” And a giant child came out of the hill. But his mother thought to herself: “I had better see for myself what can he the matter.” Then they saw that two men were standing on the hill. They took them in with them. The giant himself was out hunting. While sitting in the house the giant woman said: “I don’t know that sort of being. But when your father comes, he will know, for he knows all the kinds of people in the world.” In the evening they heard someone breathing deeply outside the house as if after a long journey. Then the giant came in with a fish in his bag, and his wife said to him: “Two men have come whom I do not know.” The husband answered: “How can it be that you do not know them? I thought I had told you that in the north there are small people.” Later on the giant told his wife about his fishing. “There were two fish,” he said, “hut 1 have only brought one of them with me.” The wife took the eye out of the fish and gave the brothers the eye-fat, after which they lay down to rest. The next morning the giant said to the two brothers: “Let us go and fetch the fish 1 left behind.” They set out; but as the brothers walked too slowly, the giant put one in each of the thumbs of his mittens. So they came to the river where the fish lay. It still had the arrow in it, and it reached right up to the clouds. The two brothers again sat in the mittens when the giant returned home with the fish. How long they lived with the giant is not known; but finally one day he said: “This is not your country. Your country lies far away to the north. It is best that you go there now.” Then he gave them two arrows and fish-eye fat as provisions for their journey, saying: “Don’t eat all the fat at once, and when you shoot the arrows, you don’t need to search for them.” Every time they ate of the fat and woke up the next morning, there was always just as much left, and when they had shot with the arrows, they did not search for them; but in the evening when they s) Cf. Pelitot 1886, 352 seqq. Lowie 1912, 189 seqq. Goddard 1912, 46 seqq. Loflhouse 1913—15, 45 seqq.

93 came to the place where they intended to spend the night, both arrows were already there. One day they caught sight of a wood-partridge and shot an arrow at it. They left the arrow, but the younger brother said: “That arrow is not very high (in the tree). We could easily get it.” The elder one answered, however: “We were told not to worry about fetching the arrows.” This did not content the younger one, however, and when the elder one went on, he began to weep. Then the elder brother turned back and climbed up into the tree to get the arrow; but every time he stretched out his arm for it, the arrow moved away. At last he wanted to climb down again; but instead of coming down he got higher and higher up. So he tried to jump down, but he could not do it either, for every time he jumped, a branch got in his way. At last he was high up in the tree. When the younger brother saw the other right up there without being able to get down, he began to weep, and the elder brother, who heard it, wept too. But now he was so high up that he could not see the ground, and suddenly it was no longer a man who was weeping down there, but a wolf that was howling. Then the younger brother spoke, and again it was with his human voice. He said: “If you meet wolf tracks in the snow, and one track is smaller than the others, you will know that I am still alive.” Then thought the elder: “I see; then my brother w7ants to live without me.” And after that he never heard anything about him. He w7ept, until he fell asleep up in the tree, and when he aw7oke again, he was dowm on the ground. “I was far up in the tree,” he thought, “and now I don't know7 in what direction my country lies. But if I see ptarmigan tracks, 1 know that I am somewhere in my own country.” He wandered aw7ay and in time found the tracks of a ptarmigan, and a little later he came across

the

trail

of

a

hare.

“This

is

my

country,”

he

thought.

Some time later he came to human tracks, which he followed until he reached a deserted camp, where a lot of moose hair and bones lay about. When he went on he came to a big tent of moose skins. There sat an old woman alone in the tent, but there were tw7o sleeping places besides. The man went inside, and after a silence of some time the old woman said: “My two daughters laugh so terribly at all they see.” Then she blackened the man’s face with soot

in

order

that the

daughters might have something to laugh at when they came home. Some time later the daughters came. One lifted the tent flap and peeped in, but turned round and burst out laughing. The other did just the same. So they kept on for a long time, but at last nothing more was heard, because they had gone away.

94 Then the old woman took water and washed the man’s face, and not till then did she give him anything to eat and speak with him. Shortly afterwards the two girls were heard coming back. Again they lifted the tent flap; but when they saw that the man now looked quite different, they laughed no more but went into the tent, and they liked him so much that they wanted him for a husband. One of the girls wras called The Ermine [dElklalE] and the other The Mouse [dlunE], The man wished to marry the prettiest of the two girls, and when he returned from hunting he sat down by her side. It was The Ermine. And at night he lay with her. But the old woman and the other girl grew angry at this. When they awoke in the morning, the man could scarcely get up, and lay down again to sleep. When it became light, they lighted a fire in the tent and the man again tried to stand up, but could not. Indeed, he sank down into the earth. This amused both the old woman and The Mouse. At last, how’ever, the three woman went away and left the man behind. Then the old woman and The Mouse wept, but The Ermine was pleased. A little later wolves came to the tent. “There’s a smell of man here,” they said. When they came into the tent they saw the man lying buried in the ground. The wolf that saw him sent the others out for a moose rib to dig the man up with. They returned with the rib and tried to dig the man out, but the rib broke in tw7o. So they brought another, and with that they succeeded in getting the man up out of the ground. Then the wolf gave him two arrows and said: “When you find a moose track, shoot in the direction the moose has taken; but if you find two tracks, shoot an arrow7 in each direction.” The man started out and the other wolves sent one of their com¬ rades after him to say that he did not need to take any tump-line with him. He found two moose tracks and shot his arrows. When he followed one of the tracks he found the moose, killed. He skinned it and cut it up, and then went along the other track, where he also found a killed moose, which he skinned and cut up. Then he followed the trail of his wife and the other twTo women, and when he reached their camp, he went into the tent and sat down by his wife’s side. But she would have nothing to do with him, and that night he lay with her sister. Next morning he and the two sisters went out to bring the moose meat home. He told them where the meat was, “but you don’t need to take any tump-line with you, for it is there already.” When they came to the place, however, there was no other line than the one he had made out of the guts of the moose. So they tied up the meat with it and made a trace to drag the meat over the snow7; but it broke. She

95 (i. e. his wife?) mended it and tried again; but still it broke. At last she became angry and scolded. Then the man heard a wolf howl at the place where the meat of one of the moose lay. He went there and discovered that the wolf had killed his wife and eaten her. Then he went to the other moose. There was The Mouse. He tore her coat open and all the mice jumped out of her, whereupon he took a thong and tied her dress up again. Then she dragged the moose meat home for him, and she became his real wife. Tliis is the end of this story.

Told by

Wiki]. The Two Giants that were Figthing1). There was once a giant who was standing fishing in a lake. Another giant wished to fight him and sent word to him about it. Both got up. The fisherman was knocked to the ground, and as he fell he filled up the whole lake, and both the caribou and all the other animals passed over him.

Told by [tjelekwe-'dajazE].

The Stolen Sisters2). The bear lived at one place and a man at another. This man had two sisters. One day, while he was out hunting, the Cree carried the sisters away. The man set to work to look for them, and while he went along — it was at the time when the animals could speak — he told the animals whom he was looking for. The jay, the hare, the loon, the ptarmigan and the porcupine all told him where his sisters were, and the goose and all the other birds did the same. At last he came to the bear, and there he married a she-bear and lived a long time. But at length he again started out to wander and came in the end to the place where the sisters were. They were both married to the man who had carried them otf. So the man thought to himself: “Now I can’t simply take them away with me,” and didn’t know what to do. Finally he thought:

"l

will go hunting with my brother-in-law,” and that is what they did. They discovered a moose and the Cree pursued it. Then the brother thought: “Now the time has come,” went back to the sisters and fled with them. For three days and nights they tied without stopping, and only x) Cf. Petitot 1886, 423 seq. Lowie 1912, 188 seq. 2) Cf. Petitot 1886, 398 seqq. Lowie 1912, 193 seq. Lofthouse 1913—15, 47 seq.

96 on the fourth day did they camp. This place was quite dry; but when they wanted to continue their journey next morning they were quite surrounded by water. They knew that this was because of the Cree’s magic, and as they could not go in any direction, they lay down to sleep again. When they awakened the place was just as dry as when they first came there, and so they went on and at last reached home. But people did not know them. And so there was an old man whose head was as white as snow, and who supported himself by means of two staves. He looked long at the three and at length said: “Surely this must be the two sisters that were once searched for.” “Yes, it is the two sisters that were carried off”, they answered. And after that they lived at the place. Told by [bezeda]. The Metal Woman1). A Chipewyan woman was once carried off by an Eskimo, who went away north with her and married her. They had two children. But one night she made up her mind to escape, and started out with her youngest child. She came to the sea, and there she sat down and began to weep. But a wolf came up to her and licked up the tears as they fell from her eyes, and then went a little way out into the water. It was not very deep, and the wolf kept on stopping and looking back at her. So the woman rose and waded out after it, and when night came, she stuck two staves down into the bed of the sea; these she held on to and leaned her head against, and thus she slept. At length they reached land again, and then she discovered that something was following them through the sea, and, when it came nearer, she saw that they were caribou. She crawled up on to a stone to let them pass, hut killed two of them with her stick. Then she wanted to make a fire and cook some blood soup for her child. But when she was about to cache the meat a little way off and left the child alone, she heard a wolf howl when she came behind a hill. It was the child, which had been turned into a wolf. Then she wandered on, and at night her way was quite lighted up before her, as if with a burning fire. When at last she found the place there was metal (copper) everywhere. That was what gave off the light. She marked the place and went on and at last arrived home, where she told about the metal. “We will go and get some of it,” said the people. Every time they fetched metal from there they laid all kinds of meat on the ground, and when they came the next time it had been ')

Cf. Hearne 1795, 175 seq. Petitot 1886, 412 seqq. Goddard 1912, 52 seq.

turned into metal. The woman never married again. Two or three times she guided people to the place, but the last time all the men lay with her. But when they wanted to go back again and have her wilh them on the sledge, they could not raise her from the ground. So they travelled without her, and when they came again next summer the woman was still alive. They spoke no word to her, hut went back again. The next time they came she had entirely disappeared into the ground and only her hair was to be seen, and at the same time all the metal was gone. After that they never came to the place again. Told by [bezeda]. When the Cree Indians attacked the Chipewyan1). There was a Chipewyan chief called Crow-head [datpEpi], because he wore a dress of crow skins and had blankets of crow skins. lie and those of his camp used to set caribou snares. While they were away some Cree Indians came to the camp, where there wrere none left but the children and an old woman who was boiling fat out of hones. “We won’t kill you”, they said, “but don’t say anything to the men”. The old woman agreed, and the hostile Indians ate the fat she had boiled out, after which they went away and hid themselves in order to attack the camp when darkness came. But the old woman went away to inform the men of her nation what had happened, and came to where they had set the snares. She said: “A band of Cree came to me at the tent and said: If you want to live, tell no one that we have been here”. They ceased skinning the caribou; hut CrowT-head thought: “They can’t do anything to me”. Among them was another chief whose name was [hoja'ne]. Crow-head said: “Go on skinning the caribou and then pitch a big tent; but let only one path lead to it”. They did so and pitched the tent on a hill that was very slippery, and at the same time set their snares there. In the meantime the two chiefs dug holes in the snow where they hid themselves while the others slept in the tent. When it became dark the Cree Indians came scouting. But when they tried to ascend the steep hill their snowshoes became entangled in

the

snares,

and gradually they all fell down.

Crow-head and

[hoja'ne] then came out and broke their arms and legs by beating them with antlers

(hatchets?)

so that they could not move, after

which they went away and left them to die. Told by [bezeda] p Crow-head appears in several legends in Petilot, Lowie and Goddard. By crow is really meant the raven (Corvus corax). K. Birket Smith

98

Another War with the Cree'). There was a chief whose name was Crow-head [datpÉpi]. Another was called

[hoja'ne]

and a third

[ho'SinTlEsi].

These three were

all-wise, and nothing could kill them. If they had not lived,

the

Chipewyan would all have perished by now. The Cree already had firearms, whilst the Chipewyan still had only bows and arrows. The arrow heads were merely of stone, of caribou hone, or the jaw bone of a pike. And so the Cree used to kill the Chipewyan, who lied out towards the sea. It was thus that they met the Eskimos; but they were not so warlike as the Cree. Therefore the Chipewyan retired to the west and southwest and then met other Indians who had the chiefs [nasiju] and [tRatsaot!inE], They lived by the lakes here in this region round Churchill River. There were wars with them, too, and when the Chipewyan went still further south they again fell in with the Cree. These Cree killed so many Chipewyan that the survivors had to make themselves new bows and arrows, and when that was done, they looked for the trail of the Cree — it occurred in winter — but by that time the Cree had gone away. They set off after them and came to the places where they had camped. But as there were so many enemies, they thought:

We are only few, and there are many Cree”.

And so they did not know what to do. Nevertheless they made up their minds to continue the pursuit. The next time they caught up with them the Cree divided into two bands, each of which went its own way. They did not know they were being followed, and so the Chipewyan followed one of the bands. They could hear the Cree talking together and making camp. So they halted too and hid themselves in the snow to wait. In the meantime they sent out scouts to see if the Cree had fallen asleep. At dawn, just as daylight was beginning to break, they set out and came to the Cree camp. Only then did the Cree discover them and they began to fire with their guns in from the tents. But when they had fired their last shot and could not see to load again in the dark, some of them came out, and then the Chipewyan began to shoot at them with bow and arrows, and they killed many of them. And the last of the Cree came out too, and then the Chipewyan became afraid and fled; but one of them had been killed. I he Cree Indians who escaped told what had happened to their tribesmen, and then they became afraid and said: “We did not think ’) Cf- the beginning of this legend with the chapter on the wanderings of the Chipewyan p. 12 seqq.

the Chipewyan had any weapons worth speaking about.” So the Cree left this part. That is why there are no more of them about here now, and the Chipewyan went back to the north. There they once more met [nasiju] and his people and stayed there a long time. When they went on, [nasiju] set out after them to fight them and kill them too. When the other Chipewyan heard this they pursued [nasiju], who tied out to an island in a lake; he had no firearms, and when he saw his enemies coming he began to shoot at them with arrows. But he could not prevent them from landing on the island, and so the Chipe¬ wyan killed [nasiju] and all his people. Told by [bezedå].

The First Time the Chipewyan met White Men. The Cree once took a Chipewyan prisoner and used him like a dog to drag the sledge. They never took him right up to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fort, however, but left him some way from it and later on came to fetch him again. Once when they had done so, how¬ ever, there was a heavy snowstorm, and he followed behind them to the fort and went in. The manager noticed him; it was the first time he had seen a Chipe¬ wyan. He asked the Cree if it was one of their countrymen, and they answered yes; but the Chipewyan Indian said that it was untrue, he was a Chipewyan. So the manager would not pay the others, but took the Chipewyan Indian into the house with him, and he then told him that his tribe did not know white men and firearms, and that another Chipewyan was living among the Crees as a prisoner. The manager would not pay the Cree for their furs when he heard this, but said to them: “You say that there are some bad men who kill you; now here is one, and he is not bad. Another one lives among you, too. Do him no harm, but bring him here to me, and then I will pay for your goods.” So they brought the other to the fort. Still the manager did not pay them, but let them go. Then he told the two Chipewyan that he would go north with them. They set off with a load of trade goods and came to some Chipewyan, and the manager told them about the fur trade and told them not to make war. And after that they did not fight either. The Eskimos had heard nothing about this, however, and once they killed a lot of Chipewyan. The Indians became very angry and said: “As we had no firearms they killed many of us,” and so they went

100 northwards along the coast. There they came to three dilFerent camps of Eskimos. The people in the first two were not those who had killed the Indians, but this was the case with the last one.. And so they killed them all, because among those the Eskimos had killed was a newly married man’s wife who was with child. Told by [bezeda]

VIII. Cultural Position. Chipewyan and Eskimo Culture. In Part 2 of my work on the Caribou Eskimos I have outlined the development of the culture in the circumpolar region in the manner that, in continuation of the works of Steensby and Hatt1), I imagine it has taken place. According to that view, the oldest one is a culture that has prin¬ cipally been associated with rivers and lakes, where the people were able to fish on the ice in winter. It is possible that it has some connec¬ tion with late or epi-palæolithic culture in Europe. This “ice-hunting culture” has since developed in two different directions. By the arctic coast there has been an adaptation to the ice of the sea whereby the culture of the Eskimos has arisen, and this has since then folleowed very much its own course, partly as a consequence of outside influen¬ ces in Alaska, partly owing to independent development2). In the interior, however, adaptation to the snow of the woodlands has been the principal direction. By this means the snowshoe has made its appearance, and with it a mode of living that is no longer dependent upon ice-fishing in winter. This “snowshoe culture” we find, for in¬ stance, among the Chipewyan and the other boreal tribes in North America, and it is continued in a further developed form among the Beindeer Nomads of the Old World. According to my hypothesis the Caribou Eskimos on the Barren Grounds — the nearest neighbours on the north of the Chipewyan — are still at a stage that in many respects corresponds to the earliest Eskimo culture, prior to adaptation to the sea, or, in other words, in many respects may be looked upon as a direct offshoot of the ancient ice-hunting culture. Therefore a comparison between Chipewyan and Eskimo culture will have its natural starting point there, although I will, as in my previous works, restrict myself to a treatment of the material side of the culture. h Steensby 1905. Ejusdem 1917. Hatt 1914. Ejusdem 1916 a and b. Cf. also Birket-Smith 1918 and Ejusdem 1930. J) Birket-Smith 1929, part 2. Mathiassen 1927, part 2.

102 Among the Caribou Eskimos, however, there are elements that are obviously the result of Indian influence in comparatively recent times, and therefore must in advance he precluded from a pomparison of this kind if we would seek to account for what new elements the snowshoe culture has been responsible for. These are: the pipe of the monitor form, the conical tent, the snowshoe, smoking and frying of meat, tongued bags, women’s hair sticks (?), ear ornaments of several strings of beads, painting of skin with ochre, the wooden whistle, the double curve, disc, triangle and zigzag ornaments, and the custom of erecting a pole at graves (?). It will be seen that some of these elements do not seem to be original among the Chipewyan either (conical tent, pipe, double curve ornaments, etc.), or do not occur among them at all (women’s hair sticks, tongued bags). Thus it wTould seem that both among the Caribou Eskimos and the Chipewyan the elements outlined here as being common to them both may be traced back to the Cree1). An element that must also be left out of the comparison is needleand-thread tattooing, which among both peoples probably signifies an Asiatic and, as far as the Chipewyan are concerned, very late element2). In addition, there are some common elements which must be left out of consideration because they either seem to be of European origin among the Chipewyan (dog traction and harness, whip, hooded coat, and perhaps snow goggles and ice-sledge), or they have been so trans¬ formed among the one or both peoples that the original type can no longer be established (arrow heads, fish hooks, sewing needles). If we now make a comparison of the culture of the Chipewyan with that of the Caribou Eskimos after eliminating these doubtful elements on both sides, we nevertheless find a large number of con¬ formities. Identical or practically identical elements common to both peoples

are the

following:

the

sling,

lance,

stiletto,

snare,

hare

decoy (?), caribou fences, hunting swimming caribou, Mediterranean arrow release, ice pick, ice scoop, fish weirs, skin

toboggan, dog

socks (?), skin boat (which it is true has undergone a special develop¬ ment among the Eskimos), double paddle, tump line, firestone, wooden bowl, spoon, ladle (?), bag of split birds’ feet, the two-skin cut of the coat, tippet, unsewn cap, leggings, moccasin style of footwear, sandals (?), belt, brow band, embroidery with caribou hair, necklace and bracelet, prick tattooing, comb, wedge, crooked whittling knife, hand drill, steaming of wood, skin preparing with water, babiche, sinew thread, use of running stitch and overcasting in sewing, hand game, x) Birket-Smith 1929, II 32 seqq. *) Ibidem, II 185 seq.

103 dice (?), hand ball, skipping, cat’s cradle, buzz, top, bull-roarer, pop¬ gun, leaving of corpses on the ground. The position of the cloak is doubtful. It is certainly a very ancient element in the history of mankind; but among the Eskimos it has if anything a central distribution and therefore among them may possibly — as I have previously said ') — be due lo Indian influence. Yet it is not entirely precluded that, like the moccasins, which also occur here and there among the Central Eskimos, it may have been preserved as a very old element which has disappeared in the peripheral parts of the Eskimo region. Altogether this makes forty-eight certain and six uncertain, com¬ mon elements, or, in other words, more than half (about 54 per cent.) of the elements that form the material culture of the Chipewyan, and many of them, as for instance the hunting methods, types ot dress, etc., are of fundamental importance. If we proceed to ask how this state of affairs is to be explained, we can at once set aside the possibility that it is due to direct contact between the Chipewyan and Caribou Eskimos. These tribes have only been neigbours for about two hundred years, and apart from the altera¬ tions due to growing contact with the whites, the Chipewyan culture described by Hearne in the middle of the eighteenth century is exactly what it is now. The case is quite different from that at the lower Yukon where a real assimilation of Athapaskan and Eskimo culture has taken place. Moreover, with two trifling exceptions, the elements named above are all common-Eskimo, and most of them are also widely spread among the boreal Indians2). Therefore they must presumably be taken to be evidence of an ancient, common culture-foundation among Eskimos and Chipewyan. This is also true of the cases where the particular elements in the latter tribe are at a somewhat more ad¬ vanced stage of development than the one prevailing among the Cari¬ bou Eskimos: setting of snares on an elastic, bent stick and in con¬ nection with the caribou fences, the more organized hunting of swim¬ ming caribou, the use of a platform at fish weirs, use of porcupine quills in a manner similar to caribou hair in embroidery. As regards these elements it is also true that to some extent they are conditioned by geographical circumstances (access to suitable wTood, and so on), so that they could only with difficulty be imagined as being used among the Eskimos. On the other hand, how far developments really are produced by environment among the Indians is another question. This old, basic culture common to Eskimos and Chipewyan must, *) Ibidem, II 185. 2) Cf. Ibidem, II tables.

104 of course, be the very “ice-hunting culture” mentioned before. On the other hand the Chipewyan are typical of the “snowshoe stage”. These facts are not contradictory and may be accounted far in two ways. One alternative, that does not appear very plausible to me, however, is the possibility that the Chipewyan in some remote past have intruded into the area of the ice-hunting culture and consequently adopted some of its elements into their own snowshoe complex. Still, the other alter¬ native, outlined already at the beginning of this chapter, seems much more likely to me, viz. that the ice-hunting and snowshoe cidtures are not radically different, the latter being nothing but a further development of the former due to an adaptation to the snow of the forest, just as the typical Eskimo culture is an ice-hunting culture adapted to the sea. This would account for the existence of so many “ice-hunting” elements in the snowshoe complex, as in this case they would only have to he considered as survivals of an earlier age. That on the whole we have here to do with survivals of an ancient culture stratum is additionally confirmed by the fact that some of the elements mentioned only lead a very insignificant existence among the Chipe¬ wyan (Mediterranean arrow release, skin boat, double paddle). There are yet several culture elements that are common to Chipe¬ wyan and Caribou Eskimos in so far as the idea is so to say the same, whereas its carrying out is different. Of these “substitutional” elements I may mention: the simple how, the secondary arrow release, three-feathered arrows, dead-fall of beams, the tent, toboggan of wood, bark canoe and single paddle, bark utensils, cut of the mitten, the special form of one-handed scrapers, drum, and the ring-and-pin game. In all they total fourteen elements, or little more than 14 per cent, of the entire total. In these cases there can scarcely be any question of genetic connection with the elements of the Caribou Eskimos. They are new types, belonging to another culture stratum, which have intruded and displaced the corresponding ancient forms. It may be, however, that the bow forms an exception, in which case it is possibly the backed bow of the Eskimos that is the latest1). Now with these new forms are associated some elements which signify something entirely new to the Chipewyan, and to which there is nothing corresponding in the culture of the Caribou Eskimos. These are: caribou decoy, snowshoes and snowshoe hunting, barbed spear, net for both birds and fish, single-bladed fish spear (?), fish club, pointed hatchet, shield, pemmican making, coiled basketry, bags of sewn leg skin, plaited bags, feathers used for ornament, body painting, copper technique, beaver-tooth knife, tanning with brains'and liver, smoke-curing of skins, skin weaving (?), quoits and rattle. The whole *) Ibidem, II 215 seq.

105 of this series of elements, in all about 25 per cent, of the total, signifies something quite new, an increase of the culture inventory compared with that of the Caribou Eskimos. Even if to these we add the afore¬ mentioned elements that must be regarded as substitutional for the corresponding elements among the Caribou Eskimos, the total number

of new types thus nevertheless becomes lower (barely 40 per cent.) than the number of parallels (about 54 per cent.). Now that we have examined what elements the Chipewyan have that are lacking among the Caribou Eskimos, it would be natural to consider the matter from the other side. What do the Caribou Eski¬ mos

possess

that

the

Chipewyan lack?

Ibis

question

cannot

be

answered directly if full justice is to be done to it, and there are two reasons: The Chipewyan are much more decultured than their Eskimo neighbours and therefore have undoubtedly lost relatively much more of their original culture. And furthermore, the Caribou Eskimos have been much more thoroughly studied than the Chipewyan, so that there is a much greater possibility of overlooked elements among tbe latter than among the former. As a consequence, there are many elements that we do not know from the Chipewyan, although 1 would not venture to attach much weights to this circumstance. This applies for instance to water bottles of skin, meat sticks, quivers, drip ring for double paddles, and various forms of trinkets, needle skin, whetstone, cutting board, and various playthings. Of the elements that actually are of improbable occurrence among the Chipewyan, some are fairly certain to be more or less geographi¬ cally conditioned. The fact that the Caribou Eskimos use special marrow extractors, trout needles and snowbeaters may possibly be explained by the Chipewyan having such easy access to wood that they can always make temporary implements and do not, like the Eski¬ mos, need to keep them for repeated use. In a similar manner the snowshoe makes a special snow shovel unnecessary. Some of the culture elements of the Caribou Eskimos are further¬ more so closely associated with other components of their culture that they are precluded when the latter do not exist: ice window, sleeping platform, entrance passage and platform rugs (dependent upon the snow hut), fish decoy (upon leister fishing from the ice), ice shoeing (upon the runner sledge), moss spade (upon the lamp), thimble holder (upon the thimble). Among the other elements that the Caribou Eskimos possess and the Chipewyan do not, there are some which have immigrated from the west, presumably fairly recently, and therefore cannot come into consideration in a comparison in which the object is to go back to the original conditions. This is true of the swivel, thimble, bow

drill, and the closely related tire drill1). The mask, certain evidence of which among the Caribou Eskimos has not been procured, must also be left out of consideration. Thus

there remain a number of elements which really might

well be expected to occur among the Chipewyan; that they neverthe¬ less do not occur must he the result of special circumstances. Of these the following are the most important: barbed harpoon, bird dart and throwing hoard, leister, gorge, fish snare, box trap, hunting in dis¬ guise, “peephole fishing” from the ice, dog traction, pack bags for dogs, combination suit, hose, back scratcher, sucking tube, snow gog¬ gles (?), lamp, ulo, arrow straightener, and soapstone technique. These elements are evidently very old and characteristic of the ice-hunting culture 2). Some of them, such as the harpoon and “peephole fishing”, are directly connected with ice hunting; the lamp is so connected in¬ directly owing to the more permanent mode of living of the ice-hunt¬ ing culture, and other elements such as the throwing board, gorge, hunting in disguise, combination suit, sucking tube, arrow straight¬ ener, etc. have in themselves a very ancient stamp about them and a correspondingly wide distribution in the circumpolar region or in North America as a whole. Without any doubt Eskimo dog traction is pre-Columbian, even if in olden times it does not seem to have been very prominent among the western tribes3). It is possible, however, that Eskimo dog traction is connected with the Indian dog-travois, so that the disappearance of the dog as a draught animal in the boreal region is a secondary feature; in this case it is possibly due to religious ideas4). If we consider collectively the elements which the Caribou Eskimos have above those possessed by the Chipewyan, they must be charac¬ terised as elements which have been more or less eradicated from the boreal region by the snowshoe culture, without the latter having been capable of yielding any direct substitute for them such as we find in the case of the substitutional elements. On theoretical grounds I have looked upon the Caribou Eskimos as representing the earliest form of culture within the Eskimo culture, almost at the proto-Eskimo stage. But it is not identical with the

earliest

culture

brought

to

light

by

archaeological

research,

furthest west the culture that, as far as we know at present, lies deepest is represented by the so-called “Bering Sea Culture”, which, however, is so far so little known that it is ot no value as a comparat') Birket-Smilh 1929, II 123 seq. 2) Ibidem II 208 seq. s) Birket-Smith 1929, II 71 seqq. Matbiassen 1930, 84 seqq. 4) Franklin 1828, 303-

107 ive material. In the Central regions the Thule Culture is the earliest form established archæologically. If now we compare the Chipewyan culture with this latter one — which however to my mind is at a later stage of development than

that of the Caribou Eskimos — we

find only four elements peculiar to the Thule Culture that also occur among the Chipewyan, viz. the two-handed scraper, coiled basketry, the fish club and the fishing net1). On the other hand, the

1 hule

Culture possesses a large number of forms that do not occur among the Chipewyan. This of course is first and foremost true of everything that is especially associated with the sea and the hunting of aquatic mammals,

but

also much else that

present in the interior:

in

themselves might well be

bola, composite fish hook, winged needle

case, pottery, adze, the comparatively richly developed ornamentation, urine tanning, and so on. Even taking all due regard to the various geographical conditions to which the Eskimos ol the dhule Culture and the Chipewyan have had to adapt themselves, there is thus a much greater jump between their culture forms than between those of the Caribou Eskimos and the Chipewyan. In this I read an additional confirmation of my hypothesis that the Caribou Eskimos are closer to the comparatively undifferentiated arctic common culture (ice-hunt¬ ing culture) than the Thule Culture is. If nevertheless the Chipewyan with regard to some elements con¬ form to the Thule Culture, it is quite consistent with the fact, pointed out many years ago by Boas, that in Alaska, whence the 1 hide Culture obviously came, a strong Indian influence can be traced, so that these conformities may be regarded as secondary. It is apparently this In¬ dian influence that is the cause of several elements among the Chipe¬ wyan appearing

again as especially western elements

among the

Eskimos. Of these I may name the toboggan and the three radial feathers on arrow's, both of which extend as tar eastwards as South¬ ampton Island; caribou fences with suspended snares, single-bladed paddles,

bark

utensils, beaver-tooth knife,

feather ornaments, the

treatment of skins with brains, which occur in North Alaska and m many cases at the Mackenzie Delta too; and finally quoits, which perhaps has its counterpart among the Bering Strait and

Pacific

Eskimos. Disregarding in advance those elements which were named at the o The fish club and coiled basketry have not been archæologically established in the Thule Culture, but from their distribution must be placed under it. During his excavations in the Central Eskimo region Mathiassen did not find the two-handed scraper and therefore did not include it among the elements of the Ihule Culture, t myself believed that it was a rather recent Central Eskimo type (Car. Esk., I

.17).

Now, however, Mathiassen’s investigations at Inugsuk, West Greenland, have shown convincingly that it belongs to the Thule culture.

108 beginning of this chapter as being uncertain, as well as those that are the result of European influence, the result of this investigation may finally he summarised in the following sentences: 1.

More than half of the culture elements of the Chipewyan (about

2.

To these may be added a number of elements (about 14 per cent.)

54 per cent.) are common to the Caribou Eskimos. which in origin are, it is true, fundamentally different from those of the Caribou Eskimos, but to which the latter have elements which correspond. 3.

Only about 25 per cent, of the elements signify anything quite new and quite absent among the Caribou Eskimos. These in their turn have a number of elements that are strange to the Chipewyan.

4.

A few Chipewyan elements point towards the Thule Culture and especially towards the culture of the Alaska Eskimos; this, however is rather due to a strong Indian influence in the Western Eskimo regions than to original kinship. And if the other Western Eskimo elements are also taken into consideration, the difference between Western Eskimos and Chipewyan, despite these particular simi¬ larities, is nevertheless relatively much greater than between the latter and the Caribou Eskimos.

Position of the Chipewyan within the Boreal Wood¬ land Culture. Unfortunately, the culture of the boreal Indians is as yet too little known to permit of the making of any deeper investigation into the position of the Chipewyan within it. We must therefore in all essen¬ tials be content here with mere suggestions instead of the answers that only a detailed analysis can give. In the descriptive chapters attention has already been drawn to a number of elements which the Chipewyan seem to owe to their in¬ tercourse with the Cree. These are: the conical tent, the carrying cradle, making of pemmican, pipe (?), double-curve ornament, whistle, and the erecting of grave poles. In order to get down to the original culture of the Chipewyan these elements must eliminated.

therefore first

be

There thus remains a culture that, in certain respects, is a very simple one, characterised in its main outlines by a wandering life; dependence upon the caribou, which is hunted from the canoe, with the aid of fences and on snowshoes; fishing with weirs, nets and hooks; the use of the toboggan and the birch bark canoe; dress of the twoskin cut and moccasins; extensive use of bone and sparse use of cold-hammered copper for implements; simple social order bearing

109 the stamp of a deeply rooted individualism, without class distinction, clan system or family hunting grounds; widespread shamanism, hut only slightly developed ritualism. A comparison with the culture of other Athapaskan tribes is com¬ bined with great difficulties; for quite apart from the fact that the majority of them are only insufficiently known, we have here to deal with a widely scattered stock with very varying forms of culture. We meet with Athapaskan tribes by the Pacific coast from Washington to Central California, on the plains we meet with the Sarsi and the Kiowa Apache, and in the southwest the real Apache and the Navaho. From a culture point of view all these tribes are either inseparable from their neighbours or at any rate have absorbed a very great deal of their culture1). It is the general opinion, however, that this is due to a number of radical acculturation processes, which have taken place after the intrusion of the tribes in question, and that on the whole the migrations have been in the direction from north to south, so that it is among the boreal tribes, the Dene group proper, that we may expect to find the culture that is most closely related to the original Athapaskan culture. Even if we restrict ourselves to these, however, we come across important dissimilarities. In Alaska the Kaiyuhkhotana on the Lower Yukon have been almost totally Eskimoized except for the language. Eurther south the Tahltan have well nigh become a North Pacific tribe, whilst the Carrier and Chilkotin incline both towards the north¬ west coast and towards the inner plateaux, but have not much in common with the culture of the Mackenzie region. As to the Carrier, Jenness has, however, recently shown how an originally simple social system like that east of the Rocky Mountains may have been changed under the influence of the higher coast culture2). It is therefore in the Mackenzie basin proper, between the mountains on the west and the Hudson Bay on the east, that we must look for the most typical Dene culture3), and, disregarding the aforementioned instances of Cree in¬ fluence, the Chipewyan must be said on the whole to be characteristic of this group. Furthermore this culture, in so far as it rests absolutely on a know¬ ledge of the snowshoe, is typical of the whole of the boreal woodlands in North America. Indeed, Krause has gone so far as to describe the whole of this northern hunter culture as “Dene culture”4), which, however, is no quite happy term inasmuch as some of its elements rather belong to Algonkian than Athapaskan tribes, of which more A Kroeber 1925, 121 seq. Goddard 1907. ) Jenness 1929, 22 seqq. ’) Cf. Wissler 1922, 233 seq. 4) Krause 1926.

110 below. I therefore prefer the more neutral name of snowshoe culture, which I have used previously1). Besides the snowshoe itself, to the snowshoe corpplex ini North America

Hatt places the moccasin

(as outer footwear,

not

as

a

stocking), the carrying cradle, the conical tent and the two-handed scraper2), and Hallowed adds to these the hear ceremonial, the drum as a pronouncedly shaman implement, scapulimancy, the earth-diver motif in the folklore, family hunting grounds, and bloody animal offerings3). To these we may presumably also add bags of leg-skin, the beaver-tooth knife,

tanning with brains, and smoke-curing of

skins, skin weaving, etc. These features are all typical of the northern Algonkian culture as we find it among the Cree, the northern Ojibwa and the Naskapi-Montagnais. In Siberia, too, they are to be found in a more or less pronounced form. Among the northern Athapaskans the essential features occur, but certain of them, first and foremost the conical tent, carrying cradle4), family hunting grounds, and the bear ceremonial, seem to be lacking. On the other hand we meet among the northern Athapaskans certain features that are missing among their Algonkian neighbours: occasional eating of raw meat, embroidery with porcupine quills, netted bags, coiled basketry, etc.5). These differences between east and west within the boreal region in North America may indicate that the snowshoe culture is no entirely homogeneous complex, hut that its elements have spread from the Old World in several successive waves. It must be a matter for the future to delve deeper into this pro¬ blem. It may only be added that, according to the views I hold at present, essential elements of the snowshoe culture — and especially the snowshoe itself — have been distributed in North America by the wanderings of the Athapaskans. This is argued by the manner in which Eskimos and Algonkians, possibly the Tsimshian and the Salish too, have emigrated in various directions from the regions round the great boreal lakes west and southwest of Hudson Bay, possibly having just been driven out by the Athapaskans who first learned to know the snowshoe in the Yukon region and thereby acquired a military superiority that had previously been unknown6). Nothing definite can be said on this question as yet, however, no more than on the connection between the Athapaskan stock and the snowshoe complex as a whole. To do this we require a much more thorough knowledge of these tribes than we have at the present time. ‘) Birket-Smith 1918. Ejusdem 1929, II. 2) Halt 1914. Ejusdem 1916 a and b. s) Hallo well 1926, 158. 4) This occurs, however, on the Yukon. Cf- Woldt 1884, 197 fig. 6) Speck 1926, 297 seq. 6) Birket-Smith 1918, 219. Ejusdem 1930. Cf. Speck 1926. 310.

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Woldt, A. (ed): Capitain Jacobsen’s Reise an der Nordwestkiiste Amerikas. Leip¬ zig 1884. Young, E. R.: By Canoe and Dog-Train among the Cree and London s. a.

Salteaux Indians

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. General impression, 7. Phonetic writing, 10. I. HABITATION. Migration and Settling, 12. Geography of the Country, 16. II. FOOD. Caribou Hunting, 19. Hunting other Animals, 23. Fishing, 26. Gathering, 29. Annual Cycle, 29. Preparation of Food, 31. III. COMMUNICATION. Relations with other Tribes, 34. Sign Language, Greetings, etc., 36. Snowshoes, 36. Sledges, 38. Canoes, 41. Carrying Appliances, 43. IV. DWELLINGS AND CLOTHING. The Tent, 45. Furniture, 47. Clothing, 50. Toilet, 56. V. HANDICRAFTS. Men’s Work, 59. Women’s Work, 60. Ornamentation, 64. VI. SOCIETY. Social Organisation, 66. Customary Law, 69. Amusements, 70. Phases of Life, 76. VII. BELIEFS AND MYTHOLOGY. Astronomy, Time Reckoning, etc., 78. Religion, 79. Legends, 82. (The Flood, 83. The Flood (another version), 86. The Sun and the White-Fronted Goose, 87. The Raven and the Caribou. 88. The Man in the Moon, 88. The Raven and the Blackbird, 89. The Arctic Fox, 90. The Ermine and the Musk-Ox, 90. The Woodpecker and the Jay, 90. The Man and the Otter, 90. How the Caribou came back to Man, 90. Bedzi-azE, 91. The Two Brothers who visited the Land of the Giants, 92. The Two Giants that were Fighting, 95. The Stolen Sisters, 95. The Metal Woman, 96. When the Cree Indians attacked the Chipewyan, 97. Another War with the Cree, 98. The First Time the Chipewyan met While Men, 99.) VIII. CULTURAL POSITION. Chipewyan and Eskimo Culture, 101. Position of the Chipewyan within the Boreal Woodland Culture, 108. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page

. 1 Middle-aged

Chipewyan

2 Chipewyan boy 3 Mission

at

.

7

.

8

Churchill

.

4 Scenery near mouth of Churchill

River

9

. 17

5 Caribou dagger and decoy . 20 6 Caribou snare . 21 7 Fish spear and caribou lance 8 Ice

scoop

9 Fish club and racket 10 Fish

hook

11 Drying 12 Rack

. 23

. 25 . 27

. 28

rack

for

. 29

smoking fish

13 Snowshoes

. 30

. 37

14 Snowshoe

netting

15 Toboggan

. 39

16 Dog

harness

17 Carrying

. 38

. 41

cradle

18 Chipewyan

needle

. 43

tents

. 46

19 Women sewing under temporary shelter 20 Athapaskan bark vessel 21 Deerskin

bags

. 47

. 48

.-. 49

22 Man’s deerskin coat . 50 23 Woman’s deerskin coat 24 Chipewyan girl

. 51

. 52

25 Deerskin coat of small girl 26 Deerskin mittens

. 53

. 54

27 Moccasins

.

28 Moccasins

. 55

29 Moccasins 30 Crooked

55

. 56 knives

31 Hand drills 32 One-handed

. 90

. 61 scrapers . 02

33 Two-handed scraper

. 02

34 Chief of Churchill band

. 07

35 Toys

. 71

36 Cat’s

cradles

37 Sling

. 72

. 73

38 Rattle . 76

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