it to the shades of the departed and entreat them not to injure the living. During their ceremonious repasts, in their excursions, and even at a great distance from their tombs, they send to the dead puffs of tobacco-smoke and burn little pieces of meat as a sacrifice in their memory.
The religious worship of the Assiniboins embraces a great variety of practices too lengthy to recount - they all bear the same characteristics. I will add, however, one remark able point. Each savage who considers himself a chief or warrior, possesses what he calls his Wah-kon, in which he
appears to place all his confidence. This consists of a stuffed bird, a weasel's skin, or some little bone or the tooth of an animal; sometimes it is a little stone, or a fantastical figure, represented by little beads or by a coarsely painted picture. These charms or talismans accompany them on all their expeditions, for war or hunting-they never lay them aside. In every difficulty or peril they invoke the protection and assistance of their Wah-kon, as though these idols could really preserve them from all misfortunes. If any accident befalls an idol or charm, if it is broken or lost, it is enough to arrest the most intrepid chief or warrior in his expedition, and make him abandon the most important enterprise in which he may be engaged. It is true that they have a conviction that all assistance should come from the Great Spirit; but as they can neither see nor touch him, they invoke him
through their favorite tutelary idols. If it happen (though the case is very rare) that an individual should profess not to believe in any kind of Wah-kon, he is regarded among the Indians very much as an infidel or an atheist would be
in a Catholic country. They point at him and avoid him. In regard to the future state, they believe that the souls of the dead migrate toward the south, where the climate is mild, the game abundant and the rivers well stocked with fish. Their hell is the reverse of this picture; its unfortunate in, mates dwell in perpetual snow and ice, and in the complete deprivation of all things. There are, however, many among them who think death is the cessation of life and action, and