Page 66 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

chiefs. Tnere, too, the initiation ceremony takes place, when the
young warriors who have endured the testing period without
flinching are duly admitted to their place at the council. Then
they disperse again, and the little groups of buckskin-clad, moc-

casined hunters make their way back through the endless forests
to their own hunting grounds.
But now it is winter. The snow piles thick on the pines and

spruces and lies heavily on the ground between. Only with
snowshoes or skis is it possible to get around at all, and even so

the hunters prefer to keep to their trodden trails, which make
the round of their trap lines. It is the season for pelt hunting, to
replace the fur garments worn out the winter before and to re­

plenish the trade stocks depleted in the autumn marts. The peo­
ple are now in their winter quarters, round tent-shaped huts of

sod lined with birchbark, and they will not move until the spring.
But here, where the sun sheds a little light and warmth in the
middle of the day, there is more work going on than among the

THIS PICTURE OF A HUNTER PURSUING AN ELK IS CARVED ON THE
ROCKS OF ZALAVROUGA IN NORTHWEST RUSSIA. ALTHOUGH OF UN­
CERTAIN DATE, IT IS OF IMPORTANCE AS SHOWING THE EARLY USE OF
SKI (WHICH ARE ALSO ATTESTED FROM BOG FINDS IN FINLAND ). THE
HUNTER IS APPARENTLY ARMED WITH BOW AND ARROW.