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necessities of life at the expense of other families, preserved their social
equality, and provided for those who were unfortunate, in so far as they
could be provided for under the harsh conditions of a wandering life.

Lacking definite chiefs, or a council, to maintain law and order and
to regulate the actions of the individual families, the Sekani had no
recourse but the blood-feud to check murder and other serious crimes.
Each band was small and its members closely related, so that feuds within
a band seem to have been much rarer than feuds with neighbouring bands
or with the Carrier and other tribes on their borders. The Sekani ascribed
most deaths to sorcery, and often sought vengeance on the supposed
murderer and his kindred, sometimes even on a totally innocent group.
Thus Harmon relates from Stuart lake that:

“A Sicauny has just arrived, who states, that a little this side of
McLeod’s Lake, where he was encamped with his family, an Indian of
the same tribe, rushed out of the wood, and fired upon them, and killed
his wife. Her corpse he immediately burned upon the spot; and then, with
his son and two daughters, he proceeded directly to this place... All the
savages, who have had a near relation killed, are never quiet until they
have revenged the death, either by killing the murderer, or some person
nearly related to him. This spirit of revenge has occasioned the death
of the old woman, above mentioned, and she, undoubtedly deserved to die;
for, the last summer, she persuaded her husband to go and kill the cousin
of the murderer, and that, merely because her own son had been drowned.” !

In another passage the same writer mentions that:

“Yesterday, five Sicaunies came here, from McLeod’s Lake, who form
a small war party. Their leader, or war chief, desired me to allow them
to go where they might think proper; upon which I enquired of them,
whither they wished to direct their course, and what their business was.
The speaker replied, that, when they left their lands, their intention was
to go and try to take a scalp or two from the Indians of Frazer’s Lake,
‘who,’ he added, ‘have done us no injury. But we have lost a relation;
and we must try to avenge his death, on some one.’ ’’?

A Fort MeLeod native related the following incident which occurred
in the time of his grandfather:

“The mother of a Yutuwichan Indian named Gwatcha had a grudge
against some Indians of the Tsekani band, and urged her son to shoot them.
Gwatcha shot and killed one man, after which his band moved away to fish
at Carp lake. A Tsekani man named Nasawaya decided to fish there
also and was advised before he left McLeod lake to shoot Gwatcha’s mother
if any one attacked him, because she was the cause of all the trouble
between the two bands. Nasawaya was leaping over a small creek just
outside the Yutuwichan camp when some one shot him in the elbow and

1 Harmon, D. W.: A Journal of Voyages and Travels; Andover, 1820, p. 229f.
rote Harmon: Op. cit., p. 203f., Cf. Morice, A. G.: History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, p. 133
(Toronto, 1904).