Click on the “play” button to hear the diary episode read aloud, and click on the green tab 1 to learn more about a word or phrase.
Find Du Vernet on a map.
Hearing a sound of incantation we went into a house. It was being used as a medicine tent 2 : A man and his wife who had lost their son two weeks ago were propitiating the evil spirit 3 that the rest of their family might be left alone. These two were sitting in one corner on the cedar twig matting which went round the house.
![](https://storynations.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/0545_ahya_ms_16r-1-300x110.jpg)
In the middle was an altar-like pile of clothing and bead work 4 , surmounted by thin tin dishes, like a sacrifice to pacify the deity 5 . (The sacrifice being afterwards divided among the medicine men 6 .) The three medicine men sat in a row: one was swaying forward, repeating a meaningless refrain 7 – an incantation 8 . The other two, Chief Cut-leg 9 and another, with a pipe in his mouth, would interject “A-yah”:
(inflection ah——Ya-ah——Ya).
In front of the man repeating the words of the incantation was a tin rattle partly filled with shot and a pan of broth. In the middle of the floor near the door were two kettles of broth, made out of a dog which had been killed. This is called “the Dog feast 10 .” Beside this was the tom-tom 11 , a wooden cask with a tight leather head. Chief Cut-leg got his crutches and hobbled out muttering something which Mr. Johnston 12 took to mean that our presence was not desired there, but we stayed on for a little while.
![](https://storynations.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/0440_beadwork.jpg)
It was most interesting but very sad, this propitiation offered in ignorance 13 to a higher power. Even though it was all such a fraud 14 , the 3 medicine men getting the spoils, I stood with uncovered head and a feeling of reverence, as it was a degraded and ignorant cognition of a Superior Being in whose hands lay their destiny 15 .
Monday evening Rev. Mr. Gover 16 came. I spoke very plainly to him, since, as a teacher of the Indian School, a professed follower of Christianity and a clergyman, he had not appeared at either of the services, even the Holy Communion 17 . He has evidently mistaken his calling. A wasted life 18 . 6 years since he resigned his parish in England.
[July 18th, 1898]