funeral pyre of her husband till the flames reached her own body.
When the fire had died down she collected the ashes of her dead
and placed them in a basket, which she was obliged to carry with
her during three years of servitude in the family of her husband.
At the end of that time a feast was held, when she was released
from thraldom and permitted to remarry if she desired.

Poor and degraded as the people of the northern forests may have
been, they had their good traits. The Kutchins of the Yukon and
Lower Mackenzie regions, though they killed their female
children, were exceedingly hospitable and kept guests for months.
Each head of a family took his turn in feasting the whole band.
On such occasions etiquette required the host to fast until the
guests had departed. At such feasts an interesting wrestling game
was played. First the smallest boys began to wrestle. The victors
wrestled with those next in strength and so on until finally the
strongest and freshest man in the band remained the final victor.
Then the girls and women went through the same progressive
contest. It is hard to determine whether the people of the
northern pine forest were more or less competent than their
Eskimo neighbors. It perhaps makes little difference, for it is
doubtful whether even a race with brilliant natural endowments
could rise far in the scale of civilization under conditions so
highly adverse.

The Eskimos of the northern coasts and the people of the pine
forests were not the only aborigines whose development was
greatly retarded because they could not practice agriculture. All
the people of the Pacific coast from Alaska to Lower California
were in similar circumstances. Nevertheless those living along