CANADIAN HISTORY READERS

paint your face black lest that mountain
might see you and send a downpour of rain
on you, etc.

Worst of all, because of the disastrous
effects of that belief, those Indians were
convinced of the existence in the woods of a
fabulous bear-like monster, seeing which
was portentous of a fast approaching death.
And such was the influence of imagination
on those poor benighted people that Father .
Morice knew of two Sekanais who withered
away and did really die because they were
persuaded they had met one of those dread-
ful beings. The demise of two others during
his pastorate at Stuart Lake is more easy to
account for: having wounded a grizzly, the
enraged brute turned upon them and de-
voured them.

It was while at Stuart Lake that Father
Morice also began the study of anthropology
—that is, in 1886, and his first contribution
to that science was written in 1888 and pub-
lished in Toronto the year after. Soon our
missionary was recognized as occupying a
first place among the missionaries of the
Pacific Coast. Bishop Durieu regarded
Father Morice as the missionary who best

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