or
others. As luckily there were two in company who had not shed blood,
they were employed always as cooks till we joined the women. This
circumstance was exceedingly favourable on my side; for had there been
no persons of the above description in company, that task, I was told,
would have fallen on me; which would have been no less fatiguing and
troublesome, than humiliating and vexatious.

"When the victuals were cooked, all the murderers took a kind of red
earth, or ochre, and painted all the space between the nose and chin,
as well as the greater part of their cheeks, almost to the ears,
before they would taste a bit, and would not drink out of any other
dish, or smoke out of any other pipe, but their own; and none of the
others seemed willing to drink or smoke out of theirs."

He goes on to relate that they practised the custom of painting the
mouth and part of the cheeks before each meal, and drinking and
smoking out of their own utensils, till the winter began to set in,
and during the whole of that time they would never kiss any of their
wives or children. They refrained also from eating many parts of the
deer and other animals, particularly the head, entrails, and blood;
and during their "uncleanness" their food was never cooked in water,
but dried in the sun, eaten quite raw, or broiled. When the time
arrived that was to put an end to these ceremonies, the men, without a
female being present, made a fire at some distance from the tents,
into which they threw all their ornaments, pipe stems, and dishes,
which were soon consumed to ashes; after which a feast was prepared,
consisting of such articles as they had long been prohibited from
eating, and when all was over each man was at liberty to eat, drink,
and smoke as he pleased, "and also to kiss his wives and children at
discretion, which they seemed to do with more raptures than I had ever
known them to do it either before or since".

On the 11th of January, as some of Hearne's companions were hunting,
they saw the track of a strange snowshoe, which they followed, and at
a considerable distance came to a little hut, where they discovered a
young woman sitting alone. As they found that she understood their
language, they brought her with them to the tents. On examination she
proved to be one of the Western Dog-rib Indians, who had been taken
prisoner by the Athapaska Indians in the summer of 1770. From these,
in the following summer, she had escaped, with t