Tattooing is almost universal among them. The women are in general content with having one or two lines drawn from the corners of the mouth towards

the angles of the lower jaw, but some of the men have their bodies covered with lines and figures. It seems to be considered by most rather as a proof of

WATCHING FOR CREES.

courage than an ornament, as the operation is both painful and tedious. The lines on the face are formed by dexterously running an awl under the cuticle, and then drawing a cord, dipped in charcoal and water, through the canal thus formed. The punctures on the body are made by needles of various sizes, set in a frame. A number of hawk-bells attached to this frame serve, by their noise, to cover the groans of the sufferer, and probably for the same reason the process is accompanied with singing. An indelible stain is produced by rubbing a lit tle finely-powdered willow-charcoal into the puncture. A half-breed, whose arm was amputated by Sir John Richardson, declared that tatooing was not only the more painful operation of the two, but rendered infinitely more difficult to bear by its tediousness, having lasted, in his case, three days.

The Crees are also fond of painting their faces with vermilion and charcoal. In general the dress of the male consists of a blanket thrown over the shoulders, a leathern shirt or jacket, and a piece of cloth tied round the middle. The women have in addition a long petticoat, and both sexes wear a kind of wide hose, which, reaching from the ankle to the middle of the thigh, are suspended by strings to the girdle. These hose, or "Indian stockings," are commonly ornamented with beads or ribands, and from their convenience have been universally adopted by the white residents, as an essential part of their winter-clothing. Their shoes, or rather soft boots (for they tie round the ankle), are made of dressed moose-skins; and during the winter they wrap several pieces of blanket round their feet. They are fond of European articles of dress, such as great-coats, shawls, and calicoes, which, however showy they may be at first, are soon reduced to a very filthy condition by their custom of greasing the face and hair with soft fat or marrow. This practice they say preserves the skin soft, and protects it from cold in the winter and the mosquitoes in summer; but it renders their presence disagreeable to Europeans who may chance to be seated near them in a close tent and near a hot fire.

The Cree women are not in general treated harshly by their husbands: a great part of the labor, however, falls to the lot of the wife. She makes the hut, cooks, dresses the skins, and for the most part carries the heaviest load; but when she is unable to perform her task, the husband does not consider it beneath his dignity to assist her.

The Crees are extremely indulgent to their children. The father never chastises them; and the mother, though more hasty in her temper, seldom bestows a blow on a troublesome child.

The cradle in use among them is well adapted to their mode of life, and is one of their neatest articles of furniture, being generally ornamented with beads and bits of scarlet cloth, but it bears a very strong resemblance in its form to a mummy-case. The infant is placed in this bag, having its lower extremities wrapped up in soft sphagnum, or bog-moss, and may be hung up in the tent or to the branch of a tree, without the least danger of tumbling out; or, in a journey may be suspended on the mother's back by a band which crosses the forehead so as to leave her hands free. The sphagnum forms a soft elastic bed, which absorbs moisture very readily, and affords such a protection from the winter cold that its place would be ill supplied by any other material.

The ordinary wigwams, skin tents, or "lodges" of the Tinné and Crees are exactly alike in form, being extended on poles set up in a conical manner; but as a general rule the tents of the latter are more commodious and more frequently supplied with a fresh lining of the spray of the balsam-fir. They also occasionally erect a larger dwelling of lattice-work, covered with birch-bark, in which forty men or more can assemble for feasting, debating, or performing some of their religious ceremonies. The entire nation of the Eythinyuwuk cultivate oratory more than their northern neighbors, who express themselves more simply and far less fluently.

Vapor baths are in common use with the Crees, and form one of the chief remedies of their medicine-men. The operator shuts himself up with his patient in the small sweating-house-in which red-hot stones besprinkled with water, and having a few leaves of a species of prunus strewed around them, produce a damp atmosphere of a stifling heat-and shampoos him, singing all the time a kind of hymn. As long as the medicine-man can hold out, so long must the patient endure the intense heat of the bath, and then, if the invalid be able to move, they both plunge into the river. If the patient does not recover, he is at least more speedily released from his sufferings by this powerful remedy.

The Crees are a vain, fickle, improvident, indolent, and ludicrously boastful race. They are also great gamblers, but, instead of cards or dice, they play with the stones of a species of prunus. The difficulty lies in guessing the number of stones which are tossed out of a small wooden dish, and the hunters will spend whole nights at this destructive sport, staking their most valuable

articles. They have, however, a much more manly amusement, termed the "cross," although they do not engage even in it without depositing considerable stakes. An extensive meadow is chosen for this sport, and the articles staked are tied to a post, or deposited in the custody of two old men. The combatants being stripped and painted, and each provided with a kind of racket, in shape resembling the letter P, with a handle about two feet long, and a head loosely wrought with net-work, so as to form a shallow bag, range themselves on different sides. A ball being now tossed up in the middle, each party endeavors to drive it to their respective goals, and much dexterity and agility is displayed in the contest. When a nimble runner gets the ball in his cross, he sets off towards the goal with the utmost speed, and is followed by the rest, who endeavor to jostle him and shake it out, but, if hard pressed, he discharges it with a jerk, to be forwarded by his own party or bandied back by their opponents until the victory is decided by its passing the goal.

Neither the Esquimaux nor the Tinné have any visible objects of worship, but the Crees carry with them small wooden figures rudely carved, or merely the tops of a few willow-bushes tied together, as the representatives of a malicious, or at least capricious being, called Kepoochikann. Their most common petition to this being is for plenty of food, but as they do not trust entirely to his favor, they endeavor at the same time to propitiate the animal, an imaginary representative of the whole race of larger quadrupeds that are objects of the chase.

Though often referring to the Kitche-manito, the "Great Spirit," or "Master of Life," they do not believe that he cares for his creatures, and consequently never think of praying to him. They have no legend about the creation, but they speak of a deluge caused by an attempt of the fish to drown Woesack-ootchacht, a kind of demi-god, with whom they had quarrelled. Having constructed a raft, this being embarked with his family and all kinds of birds and beasts. After the flood had continued for some time, he ordered several waterfowl to dive to the bottom. They were all drowned; but a musk-rat, dispatched on the same errand, returned with a mouthful of mud, out of which Woesackootchacht, imitating the mode in which the rats construct their houses, formed a new earth. First a small conical hill of mud appeared above the water; byand-by, its base gradually spreading out, it became an extensive bank, which the rays of the sun at length hardened into firm land. Notwithstanding the power that Woesack-ootchacht here displayed, his person is held in very little reverence by the Indians, who do not think it worth while to make any effort to avert his wrath.

Like the Tinné, the Crees also have a Tartarus and an Elysium. The souls of the departed are obliged to scramble with great labor up the sides of a steep mountain, upon attaining the summit of which they are rewarded with the prospect of an extensive plain abounding in all sorts of game, and interpersed here and there with new tents pitched in pleasant situations. While they are absorbed in the contemplation of this delightful scene, they are descried by the inhabitants of the happy land, who, clothed in new skin dresses, approach and welcome, with every demonstration of kindness, those Indians who have led

good lives, but the bad Indians are told to return from whence they came, and without more ceremony are hurled down the precipice.

As yet Christianity has made but little progress among the Indians of British North America, its benefits being hitherto confined to the Ojibbeways of Lake Huron, and to a small number of the Crees of the Hudson's Bay territory. The well-fed Sauteurs of the Winipeg are as disinclined to be converted as the buffalo-hunters of the prairies.