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rightly, looks upon this and similar customs among other nations as explaining the importance they attach to adoption. Among some of the wild Eskimo, for instance, if a son is adopted into a family, and is older than the sons of his adopted father, he will inherit the whole property, just as if he had been related by descent. Mothers-in-law, again, are looked upon with infinitely more respect than these estimable ladies are usually regarded in more civilised quarters. Among some tribes it is not etiquette for a mother-in-law to speak to her son, and if she has to communicate with him she must turn her back to him and address him through a third person. Among the Sioux-I believe-but certainly among some of the other plain tribes, it is

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AT NIGHT, IN THE CREE INDIAN COUNTRY (AFTER MILTON AND CHEADLE).

not proper for a mother-in-law and son-in-law to converse immediately with each other, or to mention each other by name-an admirable custom on the whole.

The Sioux, like most other Indians, regard a portrait as something living and supernatural, and believe that if any person had the portrait of another in his possession, he has the original of the portrait in his power. They are learning better now, but until lately they regarded a book or printed paper in a similar superstitious light; it was a powerful medicine, probably used by white men for sore eyes.

The Assiniboines are another branch of the Sioux nation, who chiefly reside within the British territory. The Rocky Mountain and Thickwood "Stoneys," are, again, detached branches of the Assiniboines. At one time the plain Stoneys (or Assiniboines) were a powerful

tribe, and the terror of the neighbouring tribes. Small-pox, however, during the last fifty years, almost exterminated them; but the remnant still bear the tribal reputation of being the greatest rogues and horse-thieves of the northern prairies. The Thickwood or Rocky Mountain Stoneys, though a branch of the Assiniboines, are now, owing to change of the conditions of life, greatly modified, and in many respects very different from their kindred of the prairies. They are, in fact, not plain but forest tribes, and only number a few hundred souls. They live in the most precarious manner, and are often in a very wretched and destitute condition; yet they bear the reputation of being a quiet, respectable people, and hospitable to an extent which their poverty-stricken tents can ill afford. Captain Palliser (whose experience of these people I have, in the want of personal knowledge, drawn on) states that there is no begging or crowding amongst them for the purpose of forcing a ruinous trade on the hard-up traveller, which is too often a source of great annoyance upon entering an Indian camp. If accidentally, anything is left about, there is no fear of its being pilfered-unless, indeed, there is a possibility of its being eaten, when it is certain to become a prey to the all-voracious dogs, whose digestion is of the most cosmopolitan character.

The Crees-divided, like the former tribe, into the Thickwood and Plain Crees-also entirely inhabit the British possessions. The Thickwood or Swampy Crees inhabit the country from Hudson's Bay to Lake Winnipeg, and get their name from hunting, during the winter, moose and reindeer in the morasses covering the country, while in the summer they live on the lakes and rivers. They use at least to the east of Lake Winnipeg-no horses for transport, but travel by canoes in summer on the lakes or on the rivers, which wind like silver threads through the dark woodland (p. 220), and in winter with dogs, or on snow-shoes. The deer they catch in traps of the nature of the Eskimo fox-trap (p. 16), and in addition trap, mink, marten, fishers, and other fur-bearing animals; in fact, they are the great trappers of the country to the east of the Rocky Mountains. In their dress they are simple, and seem to have none of the noisy, gaudy, superstitious "medicine-work" to which the plain Indians are so partial. As a rule they are hardworking and docile, except in the vicinity of settlements, where the facilities for obtaining spirits have demoralised them sadly.

The Prairie Crees, though speaking the same language as those of the woods, and not differing in appearance from them, yet differ greatly in disposition and mode of life. They rove about the prairies from buffalo hunting-ground to buffalo hunting-ground, in camps of from 200 to 400 tents, each containing at least one family, though often several-the average number of people in a tent being six. Their sole occupation is following about and hunting the herds of buffalo. The Cree language is spoken by many different tribes, and is even understood among Kootainies to the west of the Rocky Mountains. At one time the Crees were a very powerful nation, and they have a tradition that formerly they extended over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. Even at the present day they number about 12,000 souls, but owing to small-pox and other diseases they are annually on the decrease.

the

Under the name of the Slave Indians the traders and Crees know a large family of Indians who roam over the great prairies along the South Saskatchewan and Red Deer Rivers in the summer, and in the winter retire to the north-west, where they tent along the edge of the woods between Rocky Mountain House and and Bow Fort. They also speak the Blackfoot language. But, curiously enough, in this group is included the Surcees, a branch of the great Chippeway

family, who inhabit the Athabasca district far to the north of the Saskatchewan, "having broken away from their own relatives and changed their habits of life from that of wood to that of prairie Indians."

Unlike the soft, flowing Blackfoot language, which they speedily learn, their language is harsh and guttural, and is rarely learned by their neighbours. In habits the Surcees agree with the Blackfeet, but bear marks of being a degraded, feeble race; goître, so rare among other Indians, is almost universal amongst them. Though sometimes joining camps with the Blackfeet, more commonly they live apart by themselves, especially while on their summer hunting expeditions.

The Blackfeet tribe (so called from their dark-coloured mocassins) comprehends the Blood and Peagan Indians, and extends on either side of the Anglo-American frontier. Though trading chiefly with the Americans, as they share in the subsidies granted by the Indian Department of the United States Government, yet they prefer articles of British manufacture. They are always on the move, and encamp wherever there is buffalo to hunt or grass and water for their troops of horses. They are the Bedouins of the plains, and live entirely on buffalo; they will even-marked contrast to the Digger and Goships-go hungry for a long time rather than eat ducks, rabbits, and any kind of small game. They care little for flour, sugar, or coffee, declaring that these things make them ill. Like the Sioux and Crees, they use the travaille, but their wigwams are large, it being no uncommon thing to see forty or fifty buffalo-hides sewn together so as to form one tent-cover, and tents composed of twenty or thirty robes are very common. A tent requires thirteen poles. These are made of light wood, and are carried by being trailed behind the horse, The tents are conical, with triangular lappets at the apex, for the purpose of directing the smoke as it escapes (p. 217).

The Blackfeet are fond of dress and gay trappings, and their chief men have robes of ermine and other furs, besides medicine-dresses adorned with eagle feathers. The women, who are often comely, dress neatly in tunics of dressed buck-skin and leggings of cloth or deer-skin, ornamented with beads and porcupine quills,

Medicine dances and ceremonies-with all the paraphernalia of dresses, rattles, and shrill whistles—are in vogue amongst them, and in these rites the Blackfeet seem to join with more sincerity than the Crees. They are also of a wilder and more treacherous nature, but, unlike many of the more southern prairie tribes, have a certain code of honour, to which they adhere very rigidly. Like most prairie Indians, they are constantly at war, the Crees and Assiniboines (or Crow Indians) being their chief foes, horse-stealing on both sides (in which accomplishment they are very proficient) being the chief cause of their wars. In common with the Crees they dry buffalo meat to make pemmican for sale to the fur companies. This pemmican-so largely used by the travelling parties of fur traders-is simply the dried and pounded flesh of the buffalo mixed with its melted tallow, and poured into bags made of the hide of the same animal. Sometimes it is mixed with a little flour or fruit, and though a coarse, it is far from a nauseous or unhealthy article of diet. It is, moreover, about the best and most condensed travelling food known. They are excessively fond of spirits, and this, added to the spread of various diseases amongst them, is going far to decimate them. Small-pox, however, they have never suffered much from, but of late an obscure disease-apparently a form of typhoid fever-has made its appearance amongst them, committing great ravages.

Probably their comparative exemption from small-pox is owing to their wandering life ontheir breezy prairies; but they are not altogether exempt from it. It was first introduced amongst them in the year 1828. At that time they numbered about 2,500 families. But in a weak moment they stole a blanket from the American Fur Company's steamboat on the Yellowstone, which had belonged to a man who had died of small-pox on the passage up the Missouri. The result I tell in the graphic words of Mr. Farnham. "The infected article being carried to their encampment from the left-hand fork of the Missouri, spread the dreadful infection among the whole tribe. They were amazed at the appearance of the disease. The red blotch, the bile,

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"THE RIVERS WHICH WIND LIKE SILVER THREADS THROUGH THE DARK WOODLAND."-(See p. 218.)

congestion of the lungs, liver, and brain were all new to their medicine-men; and the rotten corpse falling in pieces while they burned it struck horror into every heart. In their frenzy and ignorance they increased the number of their sweat-ovens upon the banks of the stream; and whether the burning fever or the want of nervous action prevailed, whether frantic with pain or tottering in death, they were placed in them, sweated profusely, and plunged into the snowy water of the river. The mortality which followed this treatment was a parallel to the plague in London. They endeavoured for a time to bury the dead, but they were soon more numerous than the living. The evil-minded medicine-men of all ages had come in a body from the land of spirits, had entered into them, and were working the annihilation of the Black

feet race. The Great Spirit had also placed the floods of his displeasure between himself and them. He had cast a mist over the eyes of their conjurors, that they might not know the remedial incantation. Their hunts were ended; their bows were broken; the fire in the great pipe was extinguished for ever; their graves called for them, and the call was now answered by a thousand dying groans. Mad with superstition and fear, brother forsook sister, father his son, and mother her sucking child, and fled to the elevated dales among the western heights, where the influences of the climate, operating upon the already well-spent energies of the disease, restored the remainder of the tribe again to health. Of the 2,500 families existing at

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THE BENCHES OF THE FRASER RIVER, NEAR LILLOET, BRITISH COLUMBIA (AFTER MILTON AND CHEADLE).

the time the pestilence commenced, only 800 survived its ravages." To this day among the fragments of lodges on the banks of the Yellowstone lie the mouldering bones of some of that 7,000 or 8,000 smitten Blackfeet.

Though friendly towards the British, the Blackfeet have long been very ruthless enemies of the Americans, and their name figures, not very meritoriously, in all the stories of trapping dangers which, at one time more than now, formed the staple traditions and history of the far West. In a report politely sent me by the United States Commissioners of Indian affairs, one of the agents, after summing up their character, in righteous indignation at their conduct, remarks: "They are the most impudent and insulting Indians I have ever met. The whole

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