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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 clearing, 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 trapping 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). Gradually, 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 Denesuline 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 hunting activities also demonstrate how their religion infiltrates and affects the ¢ 112 ¢
