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Tous les autres exemplaires orlglnaux sont fllmte en commenpant par la premlAre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernlAre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparattra sur la dernlAre Image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbola -*> signifle "A SUIVRE", le symbols V signifle "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc.. peuvent Atre filmAs A des taux de rAduction diff Arents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul cllchA, 11 est filmA A partir de I'angle supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcesssire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent le mAthode. rata D •elure, A 3 nx 1 2 3 I 4, • 6 10 REPORT — 18S8. Teligions ideas, particularly the dance Tlok'oala (= soniotliinnr unexpected coming from above), wliieh, in course of time, has partly been adopted by all their neighbours. There are a wpoat number of spirits of this dance, each of which has his own class of shamans, the duties and preroc^atives of whom vary according to the character of their genii.. The Kwakintl bur^ their dead in boxes, which are placed in small honses or on trees. Posts, carved according to the crest of the deceased, are f)laced in front of the graves. Food is burnt for the dead on the beach. Their mourning ceremonies are very complicated and rigorous. The Coast Salish worship the sun. They i)ray to him and are nob allowed to take their morning meal until the day is well advanced. The wanderer, called Kumsno'otl by the Comox, Qiils by the Cowitchin and Lkungen, and Qais by the Skqomish, is also worshipped. They believe that he lives in heaven and loves the good, but punishes the bad. The art of shamanism wa.i bestowed by him upon the first man, who brought it down from heaven. The Kutonaqa are also sun- worshippers, even more decidedly so than any of the other tribes. They pray to the sun. They offer him a smoke from their pipe before smoking themselves, and sacrifice their eldest children in order to secure prosperity to tlioir families. They believe that the souls of the deceased go towards the east, and will return in <'ourse of time with the sun. Occasionally they have great festivals, duinng which they expect the return of the dead. They have also the custom of cutting off the first joints of the fingers as a sacrifice to the sun. They piei'ce their breasts and arms with sharp needles and cut off pieces of flesh, which they ofiVr to the sun. It is doubtful whether they practise the sun-dance of their eastern neighbours. The dead are buried, their heads fticing the east. It is of interest that the positions of the body after death are considered to bo prophetic of future events. The mourners cut their hair and bury it with the deceased. Warriois are buried among trees which are peeleil and painted red. Each shaman has his own genius, generally a bird or another animal, which he acquires by fasting in the woods or on the mountains. The shamans are able to speak with the souls of absent or deceased persons, and are skilful jugglers. llcport on the Sarcee Indians, by the liev. E. F. Wilson. The Sarcee Indians belong to the great Athabascan or Tinneh stock, to which the Chipevvyans, Beavers, Hares, and others in the North. West and, it is said, the Navajoes, in New Mexico, also belong. They Avero formerly a powerful nation, but are now reduced to a few hundreds. Their reserve, which consists of a fine tract of prairie land, about a liundred square miles in extent, adjoins that of the IJIackfeet, in Alberta, a little south of the Canadian Pacific Railway line, and seventy or eighty miles east of the Rocky Mountains. Although friendly and formerly confederate with the Blackfect, they bear no aflinity to that peo|)le ; they belong to a distinct stock and speak an altogether different language. They are divided into two bands — the Blood Sarcees and the Real Savcees. During my visit, which lasted seven days, I liad several interviews with their chief, 'Bull's Head,' a tall, powerful man, about sixty years of age ; and it was from him and one or two of his leading men that I ;, ON THE NORTU-WESTEUN TRIBES OF CANADA. 11 / .' i\ gathered most of my information. I found, howevor, tliat the Sarceos were not so ready to converse, or to tell either about their lem^nage or their history, as were the Blackfeet, whom I visited last summer. Tea and tobacco seemed to be with them the chief desiderata, and except with gifts of this kind it seemed almost impossible to gain anything from them. And after all, even when plied with these commodities, the infor- mation they gave was very meagre, and often far from satisfactory. From what little I saw of these people I should be inclined to say that they are of a lower order and inferior in mental capacity to the Blackfeet ; I judge this chiefly by the style in which they told their stories and traditions, such as they were, and by their having no elaborated theories as to certain phenomena in nature, about which many other of the Indian tribes have always so much to say. Chief • Bull's Head,' in reply to my questions as to their early history, made a great show of oratory, both by voice and gesture, but much of what he said was very childish and confused, and seemed to be scarcely worth the trouble of putting down. These people call the Blackfeet ' Katce,' the Crees ' Nishinna,' the Sioux * Kaispa,' and themselves ' Sotenna.' The Indians of their own stock, as I understand, they call ' Tinnatte.' These two last names seem certainly to connect them with the great * Tinneh' or Athabascan nation. Sarcee (or rather Sarxi) is the name by which they are called by the Blackfeet. Whence these People Came. * Formerly,' said * Bull's Head,' * the Sarcee territory extended from the Rocky Mountains to the Big River (either the Saskatchewan or the Peace River). Our delight was to make corrals for the buffaloes, and to drive them over the cut bank and let them fall. Those were glorious days, when we could mount our swift-footed horses, and ride like the wind after the flying herd ; but now the buffalo is gone we hang our heads, we are poor. And then, too, we used to fight those liars, the Crees : we engaged in many a bloody battle, and their bullets pierced our teepees. Thirty battles have I seen. When I was a child the Sarcees were in number like the grass ; the Blackfeet and Bloods and Peigans were as nothing in comparison. Battles with the Crees and disease brought in among us by the white man have reduced us to our present pitiable state.' Another Indian told us how the Sarcees were at one time one people with the Chipewyans, and gave us the myth which accounts for their reparation. * Formerly,' he said, * we lived in the north country. We were many thousands in number. We were travelling south. It \ .s winter, and we had to cross a big lake on the ice. There was an elk's horn sticking out of the ice. A squaw went and struck the horn with an axe. The elk raised himself from the ice and shook his head. The people were all frightened and ran away. Those that ran toward the north became the Chipewyans, and we who ran toward the south are the " Sotenna " or " Sarcees." ' * The Chipewyans,' said * Bull's Head,' 'speak our language. It is twenty years since I saw a Chipewyan. We call them " Tcohtin." They live np north, beyond the Big River' (probably the Peace River). 12 REroKT — 1888. Tni:iu TitADiTiONS, Bkliefs, &,c. ' There was a time,' said ' Bull's Head,' ' \vli*^ii tli(>ro were no lakes. The lakes and rivers were occasioned by the bursting of the belly of tlie buflalo. It was when the belly of the buflalo burst that the people divided ; some went to the north and some to the south. For years and years 1 have been told that the Creaor made all people, and I believe it. I have heard my mother and other old people speak of the days when there were no guns and no horses, when our people had only arrows, and had to hunt the buffalo on foot; that must have been a very long time ago.' The Sarcees have a tradition similar to that of the Blackfeet about men and women being first made separately, and then being brought together through the action of the mythical being ' Napiw.' They have also a tradition of the flood, which accords in its main features with that of the Ojibways, Crees, and other Canadian tribes. They say that when the world was flooded there were only one man and one woman left, and these two saved themselves on a, raft, on which they also collected animals and birds of all sorts. The man sent a beaver down to dive and it brought up a little mud from the bottom, and this the man moulded in his hands to form a new world. At first the world was so small that a little bird could walk round it, but it kept getting bigger and bigger. ' First,' said the narrator, * our father took up his abode on it, then there were men, then women, then animals, then birds. Our father then created the rivers, the mountains, the trees, and all the things as we now see them.' When the story was finished I told the narrator that the Ojibway tradition was very much the same as theirs, only that they said it was a mush-rat that brought up the earth and not a beaver. Upon this five or six of the men who were squatting around inside the teepee smoking cried, ' Yes, yes ! The man has told you lies ; it was a musk-rat, it was a musk-rat ! ' Tt seems dubious whether the Sarcees are sun- worshippers ; but, like the Blackfeet, they call the sun ' our father,' and the earth * our mother.' They also engage each summer in the ' sun-dance.' They depend also for guidance in their actions on signs in the sky and on dreams. They think they know when there is going to be a fight by the appearance of the moon. One of their number, named 'Many Swans,' says he is going to have a good crop this year, for he dreamed that a white woman came down from above and asked to see his garden, and he showed his garden to the woman, and it was all green. ' Bull's Head ' had no theory to give as to the cause of thunder ; he knew that Indians of other tribes said it was a big bird flapping its wings, but his people did not say so ; they did not know what it was ; neither had they anything to say about an ec ipse. V /. Manner of Living. The Sarcee Indians are at present all pagans ; they appear to have no liking for the white people, and the white people seem to have little liking for them, and would gladly deprive them of their lands and drive them away farther into the wilderness were they permitted to do so. But the paternal Government, as represented by the Indian Department, N Ox\ THE NOKTU-WESTERN TRIBES OF CANADA. 13 .-./ take=i fare Mint, ihoy are not imposed upon. Tliore is an fiulian Aj^^on') statioiuul on tlieii- reserve, who twice a week doles out to tliem the Government rations, eonsisting of excellent fresh beef and good flour*, and there is also ': farm instructor, who has charge of th(^ farming stock and implements, and does what he can to induce these warriors and huu^iers to farm. They have also residing among them a missionary of the Chnroh of Kngland, who visits them in tlieir teepees, and does his best to collect their little blanketed children to school, giving two Government bis!:!aits to each scholar as a reward for attendance. But the people are evidently averse to all these things, which are being done for their good. Their only idea of the white man seems to be that of a trespassing individual, who has more in his possession than he knows what to do with, and may therefce fairly be preyed upon. The dress of these people consists, as with other wild Indians, of a breech-clout, a pair of blanket leggings, beaded moccasins, and a blanket thrown loosely, but gracefully, over one or both shoulders. They wear their long black hair in plaits, hanging vertically, one plait on each side of the face, and one or more at the back. Some of them knot their hair on the top of the head ; and some, I noticed, wore a coloured handkerchief folded and tied round the temples. This, I believe, is one distinguishing mark of the Navajo Indians in New Mexico. Very often the leggings and moccasins are dispensed with, and the man appears to have nothing on except his grey, white, or coloured blanket. The women wear au ordinary woman's dress of rough make and material, and short in the skirt, next to the skin, leggings and moccasins, and a blanket round the shoulders. Ornaments are worn by both sexes, but chiefly by the men. They consist of brooches and earrings made of steel, necklaces and brace- lets made of bright coloured beads, bones, claws, teeth, and brass wire, and finger-rings, also of brass wire, coiled ten or twelve times, and cover- ing the lower joint of the finger. Every finger of each hand is sometimes covered with these rings. Both men and women paint the upper part of the face with ochre or vermilion. The people live in ' teepees,' conical- shaped lodges, made of poles covered with tent cotton, in the summer, and in low log huts, plastered over with mud, in winter. They depend for their subsistence almost entirely on the rations supplied by Government. They keep numbers of ponies, but seem to make little use of them beyond riding about. They keep no cattle or animals of any kind beyond their ponies and dogs. The latter are savage, and are said to I9 descendants of the wolf and the coyote, with which animals they still of^en breed. They seem to have no manufactures ; they make no canoes, baskets, &c., but they know how to prepare the hides and skins of the animals they kill, and they make their own clothing, saddles, bows and arrows, and moccasins. Some of the women do very excellent bead- work. Bridles they do not use ; a rope or thong fasteijed to the pony's lower jaw takes the place of a bridle ; their whips are a short stout stick, studded with brass nails, and provided with two leathern thongs as lashes at one end, and a loop for the wrist at the other. Their bows are of cherry wood, strung with a leathern thong, and their arrows of the Saskatoon willow, winged with feailiers, and pointed with scrap-iron, filed to a sharp point. The shaft of the arrow has four shallow grooves down its entire length. 14 RErOKT— 1888. Gamhlino. The Siiroees, like most other wild InJians, are inveterate gamblers. They will f^amblc everytliing away — ponies, teepees, blankets, leggings, nioecasins — till they have nothing left but their breech-clout. In my report of the Blackfeet last year I mentioned the use of a little hoop or wheel for gambling purposes. I find that the Sarceoa also use this, and two of them showed me how they play the game. A little piece of board, if procurable, or two or three flattened sticks, laid one on the other, are ])ut for a target, at a distance of eighteen or twenty feet from the starting- ])()int, and the two players then take their places beside each other ; one has the little wheel in his left hand, an arrow in his right ; the other one has only an arrow. The play is to roll the wheel and to deliver the two arrows simultaneously, all aiming at the mark which has been set up. If the wheel falls over on one of the arrows, it counts so many points, according to the number of beads on the wire spoke of vhe wheel that touch the arrow. Nothing is counted unless the little wheel falls on one of the arrows. The articles for which they play are valued at so many I)oints each. A blanketis worth, perhaps, ten points, a pony fifty, and so on. Another method by which these people gamble is as follows : Two men squat side by side on the ground, with a blanket over their knees, and they have some small article, such as two or three brass beads tied together, which they pass from one to another under the blanket ; and the other side, which also consists of two persons, has to guess in which hand the article is to be found — very much like our children's * hunt the whistle.' The Sarcees use also the English playing cards, but it is a game of their own that they play with them. Whoever gets the most cards is the winner. Matrimony. The Sarcees are polygamous, the men having two, three, or four wives. The time of moving camp is generally looked upon as a pro- pitious time for love-making. The camp is in the form of a ring, with the horses picketed in the centre. Early in the morning the young men drive the horses to a swamp or slough to water them. They are thinking, perhaps, of some young squaw whom they wish to approach, but they are ashamed to sneak to her. Then, as soon as all is ready for the move, the chief gives the word, and the callers summon the people to start on the march. The chief goes first and leads the way. Now is the oppor- tunity for the bashful young swains ; they drop behind the rest and manage to ride alongside the young women of their choice, and to get a few words into their ears. If the young woman approves the ofier, she follows her white sister's example by referring the young man to her parents. If the parents consent, mutual presents are exchanged, such as horses, blankets, &g. ; the girl is dressed in her best, and her face painted, and the young man takes her away. A husband can divorce himself from his wife at any time if he pleases, but he has to restore the presents that he received with her, or their equivalent. Girls are often betrothed at ten years of age and married at fourteen. A betrothed girl may not look in a man's face until after her marriage. A man may not meet his mother-in-law ; if he chance to touch her accidentally he must give her a present. At a feast among the Blackfeet at which I was present an impatient mother-in-law was standing without and sending messages to the son-in-law within to make haste and leave before all 'he good things ON THE NORTH-WESTERN TRIBES OF CANADA. 15 • were done, so that alio might come in and jj^et her share ; hut lie sent word back that he was in no hnrry. Parents do not often punish their children, but sotnelimcg, in a fit of ill-temper, will beat tliem cruelly. They are more cruel to their wives than to their children. While I was making these notes a Sarcee woman came into the lodge with her noso cut ofT; her husband had done it as a punishment for hor keeping company with another man. Medicine. The Sarcees are not considered to be much versed in the use of medi- cinal roots and herbs; they are much more ready to take the white man's medicine than are their neighbours, the Blackfeet. Among themselves they depend chiefly on magic and witchcraft for recovery irom sickness. There are 8.bout a dozen so-called ' medicine- men ' in the camp, but most of them are loomen. Chief among them is an old squaw named ' Good Lodge.' They are always highly paid for their services, whether the patient recovers or not. A medicine-man when called in to see a sick person will first make a stone red-hot in the fire, then touch the stone with his finger, and with the same finger press various parts of the patient's body, to ascertain the locality and character of the sickness. Then he will suck the place vigorously and keep spitting the disease (so he pretends) from his mouth. This is accompanied by drum beating and shaking a rattle. The Sarcoes do not ble^d or cup, but they blister (often quite efficaciously) by applying the end of a piece of burning touchwood to the affected part. They also use the vapour- bath. To do this a little bower, about three feet high, is made of pliable green sticks, covered over closely with blankets. Several stones are hea'jcd red and placed in a small hole in the ground inside the bower ; and over these the patient sits in a state of nadity and keeps putting water on the stones, which is supplied to him by an attendant from without. When thorouglily steamed, and almost boiled, he rushes out, and plunges into cold water. This treatment sometimes effects a cure, but more often induces bad results and death. The vapour-bath, as above described, is used very extensively by Indians of many different tribes ; some, however, omit the plunge into cold water. Burial Customs. I had a good opportunity to investigate the burial customs of these people. Riding across the prairie with a young P]nglishman who had spent several years in the neighbourhood, we came upon a ' blnff,' or small copse, of fir and poplar trees, covering some two or three acres of ground. We suspected it was a burial-ground, and, dismouting from our horses, entered it. No sooner had we done so than we found our- selves in the midst of the dead — the bodies wound up in blankets and tent-cloth, like mummies, and deposited on scaffolds from six to eight feet from the ground. Four or five of tbese bodies could be seen from one point, and others became visible as we pushed our way through the tangled underbrush. A little baby's body, wrapped up in cL>tb, was jammed into the forked branch of a fir tree about five-and-a-half feet from the ground. The earth was black and boggy and the stench nauseous. Here and there lay the bleached bones and tangled manes of ponies that had been shot when their warrior owners died— the idea being that the equine spirits would accompany the decejised persons to the other world, 16 UEPOUT — 1888. and make tbemsolvos useful tliere. Beside eaeli bt)dy lay a bundle of oartbly goods — blankets, loggings, saddles, Ac., also cups, tin pots, kettles, and evin-ytbing tbat the spirit of the departed could be su|)pose(l to want. Pursuing our explorations we came upon a 'death teepee.' 1 had heard of these, and had often desired to see one. It was just an ordinary teepee, or Indian lodge, made of poles leaning from the edge of a circle, fifteen feet or so in diameter, to a point at the top, and covered with common tent cloth. IMie stench was disgusting, and the ground like a cesspool ; but I wanted to see all, so we effected an entrance and examined the contents. The old warrior, whoever he may have been, was wrapped up in rotting, sodden blankets, sitting with his back against an orditu\ry Indian back-rest. We could not see his face, as the blanket covered it, but the top of his scalp was visible and a great bunch of slimy, filthy looking eagle feathers adorned his head ; just behind him hung his leathern (piiver, ornamented with a leathern fringe, two feet in huigth and full of arrows ; also his beaded tobacco pouch ; and by his side were a tin basin, a fire-blackened tin pot with a cover, and a large bundle of blankets, clothing, and other effects. I made a hasty sketch of the dismal scene and then retired. "We were glad to mount our horses once more and to breathe again the fresh air of the prairie. Physical Development. The Sarcees do not strike me as so fine or tall a race as the Blackfeet, althougli one whose measure I here give was of about the same height as the Blackfoot Indian, ' Boy Chief,' whom I measured last year. They have rema»'kably small h^nds and feet. I traced on paper the hand of a Sarcoe Indian named -d above Water.' Following is the Uu*. . rement of an adult Sarcee, about thirty years of age, named ' Many Shields.' 1. Height from ground to vertex' » meatus autlitorius chin umbilicus fork knee-cap joint . elbow (bent) tip of finger (lianging vertically) 2. S. 6. 7. 8. 11. 12. 13. Height — sitting on the ground Circumference of chest at armpits . „ „ mamniie „ al haunches .... 2(5. Span — outstretched arms .... 27. „ tlnimb to middle finger Length of thumb ...... „ foot Head — greatest circumference (over glabella) „ arc, root of nose to inion . ,, meatus auditorius, over head „ over glabella to meatus auditorius length of face, root of nose to chin . 17. 18. 28. 29. 80. 81. 82. 33. 41. ft. 5 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 2 3 2 2 5 1 1 1 1 III. H 8 H 4 91 Hi 2| 11 i 1 Hair, eyes, and skin the same as those of the Blackfoot Indian * Boy lef (see Report of 1887). Chief ' In the measuromonts of the P.lackfoot ' Boy Chief,' given in the Report of last year, the ' heiglit from 4 ft. 84 in., as printed. i:round to vertex' should hu\e been 6 ft. 8^' in., instead of ON THE NOUTII-WESTEBN TRIBES OF CANADA. 17 Two or three young Indianu triod the strength of their eyesight. They cuuld couut the prescribed dots at a diutuucc of 28 feet. Language. I cannot give as full a report of the Sarcee language as I did of the Blacki'oot, for the reason that no one, so far as I could learn, outside the Sarcee tribe has any knowledge of it. The missionary in charge had only arrived a few weeks before, and though he knew the Blackfoot, and through that medium could make himself understood by a few of the people, he knew nothing whatever of Sarcee. We were told that it was an exceedingly difficult language to acquire, and full of gutturals; others said that it had no vowels in it; others that it was like a hen cackling. Under these circumstances it was vain to expert to make out the gram- matical rules of the language, but I thought I would do what I could to collect a small vocabulary of words. A few of the people understood Blackfoot, and some few others Cree, and through the medium of these two languages I was able to collect the following Sarcee words and short sentences : — VoCABUriART. Pronounce a and d as the first and second a in larva, e as in they, i as in pique, I as in pick, o as in note, u as in rule, ai as in aisle, ati us ou in bough, // guttural as in icli (German), i tosilraa eighteen clashdedjimitan he is dead trasitsd nineteen klikuanmitan this teige twenty ak'adde that tetegela twenty-one akadde egligimitan all kftnniltilla twenty-two „ ekamitaii many nikla twenty-three „ etraiikimitafi who is it ? matag:anita ? twenty-four „ edijimitafi " far off kussil thirty trafite near wiltoii forty pisde here t;\tig6 fifty kositat^ there . niu^