lf than upon
Kepoochikawn, but the same fellow afterwards stripped and joined in the
ceremony.

I did not learn that the Indians worship any other god by a specific
name. They often refer, however, to the Keetchee-Maneeto, or Great
Master of Life; and to an evil spirit, or Maatche-Maneeto. They also
speak of Weettako, a kind of vampyre or devil, into which those who have
fed on human flesh are transformed.

Whilst at Carlton, I took an opportunity of asking a communicative old
Indian, of the Blackfoot nation, his opinion of a future state; he
replied, that they had heard from their fathers, that the souls of the
departed have to scramble with great labour up the sides of a steep
mountain, upon attaining the summit of which they are rewarded with the
prospect of an extensive plain, abounding in all sorts of game, and
interspersed here and there with new tents, pitched in agreeable{19}
situations. Whilst they are absorbed in the contemplation of this
delightful scene, they are descried by the inhabitants of the happy
land, who, clothed in new skin-dresses, approach and welcome with every
demonstration of kindness those Indians who have led good lives; but the
bad Indians, who have imbrued their hands in the blood of their
countrymen, are told to return from whence they came, and without more
ceremony precipitated down the steep sides of the mountain.

Women, who have been guilty of infanticide, never reach the mountain at
all, but are compelled to hover round the seats of their crimes, with
branches of trees tied to their legs. The melancholy sounds, which are
heard in the still summer evenings, and which the ignorance of the white
people considers as the screams of the goat-sucker, are really,
according to my informant, the moanings of these unhappy beings.

The Crees have somewhat similar notions, but as they inhabit a country
widely different from the mountainous lands of the Blackfoot Indians,
the difficulty of their journey lies in walking along a slender and
slippery tree, laid as a bridge across a rapid stream of stinking and
muddy water. The night owl is regarded by the Crees with the same dread
that it has been viewed by other nations. One small species, which is,
known to them by its melancholy nocturnal hootings, (for as it never
appears in the day, few even of the hunters have ever seen it,) is
particularly ominous. They call it the _cheepai-peethees_, or death
bird, and never fail to whistle when they hea