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CANADIAN LANDSCAPES/ PAYSAGES CANADIENS
webs as “personalities”. At the mouth of a lake or river, where, in his opinion,
it would be easy to catch fish by stretching two or more nets side by side, in
effect cutting off the fish’s path, the Natives place them further apart, for fear
that the nets will become angry with each other if they are too close, and then
none of them will catch any fish (Hearne 217). The animism described by Tylor
(174-178) is clearly evident here, with jealousy and anger being attributed to
impersonal objects.
But what exactly does a hunt look like for the Denesuline? The first step is
to designate an area that will essentially be the end of the chasing line, a clear¬
ing, where they place sticks in the shape of a crescent, covered with moss and
talismans. With the help of these sticks, they can guide the animals of prey,
mostly the deer to run in one particular direction. The women and children
drive the animals into this area, and the men settle down with their sharp
weapons at a safe distance so that the mosses placed on the sticks will not give
away their scent. Hearne reported that the success of this hunting method
varied greatly, depending on the game population and the success of the shots
(213-214).
Basically, the Denesuline hunting style does not differ much from the trap¬
ping techniques found in other indigenous peoples. However, it is interesting
to note that although they replaced their bows with firearms in their daily
lives, in Hearne’s time the primary weapons for hunting were still bows and
arrows, and they only used modern weapons for hunting when they had failed
to kill the game with a bow and were in dire need of food (Hearne 213). Grad¬
ually, the Denesuline slowly lost their traditional hunting tools, and the use of
firearms became a commonplace. Interestingly, however, medicines were not
adopted by the Denesuline from the Europeans as they believed that nature
co uld provide the same healing for them, albeit over a longer period of time
(Hearne 223).
CONCLUSION
Samuel Hearne’s work — A Journey to the Northern Ocean — captured not only
his explorations, but also the everyday life, customs and rituals of the Dene¬
suline nation. In these records we read how the Denesuline people were affected
by, and adapted to, their environment and climate.
In Denesuline mythology, natural phenomena appear in the stories, but
unlike in the case of the neighbouring indigenous peoples, they associated
these with their present, worldy lives rather than the afterlife. The influence
of the environment on their burial customs seems evident. The permafrost
prevents them from burying the dead, which is also quite a significant feature
of their taboo system. The prohibitions on their eating habits and their hunt¬
ing activities also demonstrate how their religion infiltrates and affects the
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