Young men, and hoped that they would send him a pleasant and plentiful
season. His oration was concluded by an invocation to all the animals in
the land and, a signal being given to the slave at the door, he invited
them severally by their names to come and partake of the feast.
The Cree chief having by this very general invitation displayed his
unbounded hospitality next ordered one of the young men to distribute a
mess to each of the guests. This was done in new dishes of birch bark,
and the utmost diligence was displayed in emptying them, it being
considered extremely improper in a man to leave any part of that which is
placed before him on such occasions. It is not inconsistent with good
manners however but rather considered as a piece of politeness that a
guest who has been too liberally supplied should hand the surplus to his
neighbour. When the viands had disappeared each filled his calumet and
began to smoke with great assiduity, and in the course of the evening
several songs were sung to the responsive sounds of the drum and
seeseequay, their usual accompaniments.
The Cree drum is double-headed but, possessing very little depth, it
strongly resembles a tambourine in shape. Its want of depth is
compensated however by its diameter which frequently exceeds three feet.
It is covered with moose-skin parchment, painted with rude figures of men
and beasts having various fantastic additions, and is beat with a stick.
The seeseequay is merely a rattle formed by enclosing a few grains of
shot in a piece of dried hide. These two instruments are used in all
their religious ceremonies except those which take place in a
sweating-house.
A Cree places great reliance on his drum and I cannot adduce a stronger
instance than that of the poor man who is mentioned in a preceding page
as having lost his only child by famine, almost within sight of the fort.
Notwithstanding his exhausted state he travelled with an enormous drum
tied to his back.
Many of the Crees make vows to abstain from particular kinds of food
either for a specific time or for the remainder of their life, esteeming
such abstinence to be a certain means of acquiring some supernatural
powers, or at least of entailing upon themselves a succession of good
fortune.
One of the wives of the Carlton hunter, of whom we have already spoken as
the worshipper of Kepoochikawn, made a determination not to eat of the
flesh of the Wawaskeesh or American stag; but during our abode at that
place she was induced to feed heartily upon it, through the intentional
deceit of her husband who told her that it was buffalo meat.
