Carriers of New Caledonia, all speak dialects of the same original tongue. Next to them succeed the Crees, speaking another distinct language, and occupying another great section of the continent, extending from Lesser Slave Lake through the woody country on the north side of the Saskatchewan River, by Lake Winipeg to York Factory, and from thence round the shores of Hudson and James bays. South of the fiftieth parallel, the circles of affinity contract, but are still easily traced. The Carriers of New Caledonia, like the people of Hindostan, used till lately to burn their dead; a ceremony in which the widow of the deceased, though not sacrificed as in the latter country, was compelled to continue beating with her hands upon the breast of the corpse while it slowly consumed on the funeral pile, in which cruel duty she was often severely scorched.[1]
My old banner-man informed me that whales were, in some seasons, seen without the point,
- ↑ Instead of being burnt, the New Caledonian widow (till the custom was abolished by the Company) was obliged to serve, as a slave, the relatives of her deceased husband for a term of one, two, or three years, during which she wore round her neck a small bag containing part of the bones or ashes of her former husband: at the end of the allotted term a feast was made, and she was declared at liberty to cast off her weeds and wed again.
