84 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 30, 1928

their heterogeneous neighbors, without scarcely giving them
anything in return (because they had nothing to give), and 4th,
as to the various other questions raised by Mr. McLeod, I leave
it to the reader to judge for himself.

200 AUSTIN STREET,
WINNIPEG, MANITOBA

POSTCRIPT

The foregoing was written on the receipt of the July-September
number of the AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST for last year. Since
that time, for several reasons one of which was to make doubly sure
what to me did not allow of a particle of a doubt, I have revisited
my former Indians and (not, I confess, without some little hesita-
tion savoring of shame) I asked them whether the Sékanais did not
formerly cremate their dead. The answer was a look evidently
meant as an expostulation at my attempt to draw them into the
discussion of a point too well known to be inquired about.

“What,” they said, ‘after your long years of research among us

* when we were young, do you not know yet that the Sékanais never
burned their dead, but hid them up in the branches of trees or on
scaffolds, when they did not pull down on their remains the shelter
in which they had breathed their last? Surely, our old men who
now sleep in yonder graveyard must have told you that.”

“But was not Koeztce a Sékaanis village?” I innocently insisted
though quite sure of the contrary.

“A Sékanais village indeed!” they exclaimed with a scornful
grimace, which I wish Mr. McLeod could have witnessed, ‘‘where
did you ever see a Sékanais village? The Sékanais are like the
beasts of the forest: they do not have a single house, let alone a
village, and are always on the move. Yet, in former times, there

. occasionally were a few of them at that place, because this was to

them like an outlet, a landing point whither they would repair
from their eastern hunting grounds to trade their pelts, and es-
pecially their dressed skin, with us. A few did, in course of time,
settle there and intermarried with our women; but, of course,
Keeztce is and has ever been a Carrier village.’