The old sacred tribal laws, which are better
than a religion because they are practically adapted to northern life,
have among them been allowed to lapse. Travellers they are none, nor do
their trappers get far from the Company's pork-barrels. So they inbreed
ignobly for lack of outside favour, and are dying from the face of the
land through dire diseases, just as their reputations have already died
from men's respect.
The great unwritten law of the forest is that, save as provision during
legitimate travel, one may not hunt in his neighbour's district. Each
trapper has assigned him, or gets by inheritance or purchase, certain
territorial power. In his land he alone may trap. He knows the
beaver-dams, how many animals each harbours, how large a catch each
will stand without diminution of the supply. So the fur is made to
last. In the southern district this division is tacitly agreed upon. It
is not etiquette to poach. What would happen to a poacher no one knows,
simply because the necessity for finding out has not arisen.
Tawabinisay controls from Batchawanung to Agawa. There old Waboos takes
charge. And so on. But in the Far North the control is more often
disputed, and there the blood-law still holds. An illegal trapper baits
his snares with his life. If discovered, he is summarily shot. So is
the game preserved.
The Woods Indian never kills waste-fully. The mere presence of game
does not breed in him a lust to slaughter something.
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