er, they had great influence in the councils of the tribe. Among
the Hurons, on the other hand, women were treated with contempt or
brutal indifference. The Huron woman, worn out with arduous toil,
rapidly lost the brightness of her youth. At an age when the women of a
higher culture are still at the height of their charm and
attractiveness the woman of the Hurons had degenerated into a
shrivelled hag, horrible to the eye and often despicable in character.
The inborn gentleness of womanhood had been driven from her breast by
ill-treatment. Not even the cruelest of the warriors surpassed the
unhallowed fiendishness of the withered squaw in preparing the torments
of the stake and in shrieking her toothless exultation beside the
torture fire.

Where women are on such a footing as this it is always ill with the
community at large. The Hurons were among the most despicable of the
Indians in their manners. They were hideous gluttons, gorging
themselves when occasion offered with the rapacity of vultures.
Gambling and theft flourished among them. Except, indeed, for the
tradition of courage in fight and of endurance under pain we can find
scarcely anything in them to admire.

North and west from the Algonquins and Huron-Iroquois were the family
of tribes belonging to the Athapascan stock. The general names of
Chipewyan and Tinne are also applied to the same great branch of the
Indian race. In a variety of groups and tribes, the Athapascans spread
out from the Arctic to Mexico. Their name has since become connected
with the geography of Canada alone, but in reality a number of the
tribes of the plains, like the well-known Apaches, as well as the Hupas
of California and the Navahos, belong to the Athapascans. In Canada,
the Athapascans roamed over the country that lay between Hudson Bay and
the Rocky Mountains. They were found in the basin of the Mackenzie
river towards the Arctic sea, and along the valley of the Fraser to the
valley of the Chilcotin. Their language was broken into a great number
of dialects which differed so widely that only the kindred groups could
understand one another's speech. But the same general resemblance ran
through the various branches of the Athapascans. They were a tall,
strong race, great in endurance, during their prime, though they had
little of the peculiar stamina that makes for long life and vigorous
old age. Their descendants of to-day still show the same facial
characteristics--the low fo