170 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

game and manoetvre around it until it is exhausted, when they stealthily
approach and stab it in the heart or loins!.

According to an old trader, George Keith, after whom one of the immense
bays of Great Bear Lake is named, the most successful months for the chase
are, in the latitude of that inland sea, those of April, August and the beginning
of September; the first on account of the quantity of snow on the ground,
which enables the native to fatigue the game by pursuit, and because the
last is the month during which, the horse-fly being most prevalent, droves
of reindeer are forced to take shelter in the lakes, that they may avoid the
attacks of those insects?.

East of the Rocky Mountains, the task of the hunter is somewhat less
arduous, owing to the greater gregariousness of the object of his chase. When
he lies in wait for the passage of the reindeer or he is in pursuit of the same,
he can usually manage to lay down many heads. Then the most indiscriminate
slaughter takes place, as the Dénés advance in bands who spear or shoot
hundreds merely for their tongues, leaving their carcasses to rot where they
have fallen. Even calves are killed for no other reason than to gratify the
northlander’s lust for destruction.

This is one of his defects, and it is common to all the tribes. Even
when wallowing in abundance, the Déné cannot see any game without at once
becoming possessed of an uncontrollable desire to lay it low. Most authors
have noticed this foible of his, from Hearne®, to Dall‘, and Whitney®. The
Chippewayans are especially famed for their prowess in the field’, and even
of the less sturdy Hares Petitot says that one of their men will occasionally
kill forty Barren Ground cariboo per day?.

Impounding.

It goes without saying that such success can generally be achieved only
at the time of the periodical migration of the reindeer, when its herds arc
immensely large. If less numerous, the northern Dénés have recourse to a
contrivance which often yields as satisfactory results. I mean pounds, or very

"“T was told by one of my interpreters who had often traded among them [the middle
Yukon Loucheux], and was well acquainted with their habits and customs, that these Ayans
(and in fact several tribes below them on the river) do not hesitate to jump on the animals
back in the lake or river, leaving the canoe to look after itself, and dispatch the brute with a
hand knife, cutting its throat or stabbing it in the neck” (Fred. Schwatka, “Along Alaska’s
Great River”, p. 232).

*In Masson’s Les Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-OQuest, vol. Il, pp. 117—18.
Quebec, 1890. Keith wrote in 1812.

* Op. cit., pp. 117—18.

“ “Travels on the Yukon”, p. 135.

* Op. cit., p. 183.

* J. McLean’s “Twenty-five Years’ Service in the H. B. Territories”, vol. Ip: 227.

* Exploration de la Région du Grand Lac des Ours, p. 133.