hunt the buffalo, or die; the salmon or fish-eating Indian must spear the salmon, or die; a nation of hunters must hunt, or become beggars on the bounty of the Government or their neighbours—either of which milch cows will soon run dry; at any rate, that is not civilisation. Yet an Indian will work, and work well; but not at agriculture. Both pride and that laziness innate to the human race prevent him. The Indian is indolent to an unheard-of extent. He will commence erecting a log cabin one year, get the walls up in a second, and not roof it over before a third season. The whole task would have been easily finished by an energetic man in three or four weeks.

Next to the irrepressible "nigger on the fence," to use an American colloquial phrase, the Indian question has been the cause of more controversy and political experiments than probably any other within the range of the great Republic. There is, perhaps, not an Indian tribe in the United States with which the Government has not repeatedly been at war, or made endless treaties of "eternal peace and amity," only, however, to be broken over and over again. The Indians are decreasing year by year; civilisation will not sit easily on them, and even when they make a start at agriculture, long experience has taught them that they may be removed, time after time, further into the wildest regions, as their "reservation" (mockery as the term is) may be required by the advancing tide of immigration. In one of the last chapters of the present work I shall have occasion to discuss the subject of the decay of barbarous races, and to inquire what is the real (not the sentimental) cause of it. But in the meantime the Indian of history, of song, and of story, will soon be but a being of the past-to be immortalised, perhaps, in the pages of Fenimore Cooper, when all other trace of him shall be forgotten.

THE Dominion of Canada now stretches right across the American continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but the greater part of the Indians inhabiting it are included in that region which until recently was known as the Hudson's Bay Territory. These Indians may be conveniently divided, according to Mr. A. C. Anderson, into (1) the Cree or Knistineau, including the Sauteux or Ojebway, the Algonkin, and other subdivisions; (2) the Chippewayan, embracing the Takully* or Carrière, of British Columbia, &c.; and (3) the Sacliss, or Shewbapmuch. The Crees stretch from Labrador up the St. Lawrence as far as Montreal, through the Ottawa country, and along Lake Superior north-westward to Lake Winnepeg and Manitoba; hence west towards the head of the Saskatchewan as far as Fort Edmonton; then north to the Athabasca river, bending afterwards to the east and continuing along the line of the Mississippi or English shores to Fort Churchill of Hudson's Bay. Northward of the Cree line, almost to

Literally people who navigate deep waters, from tah-cully, deep.

lassification differs slightly from the usually accepted book one, but the difference is more in name

y.

the Frozen Ocean, and from Churchill westward nearly to the Pacific, lies the broad band roamed over by the Chippewayans. Crossing the Rocky Mountains to the heads of the northern branches of the Columbia, and the southern tributaries of Fraser River, we find the Sacliss, or Shewhapmuch race, whose limit may be defined by the Rocky Mountains eastward, on the west the line of Fraser River from below Alexandria to Kequeloose, near the Falls, eighty-five miles above Langley, in about latitude 49° 50'; northward by the Carrière offset of the Chippewayans, and south by the Sahaptins, or Nez Percés, of Oregon.

From the "falls" of Fraser River nearly to the sea-coast the banks of the river are inhabited by branches of another tribe, called Haitlin, or Teets.* Taking these as forming the southern range, Mr. Anderson remarks, that a fringe of tribes borders the continent, hence round by Behring Strait to the banks of the St. Lawrence. The breadth of this fringe varies with the nature of the country which it divides; bounded generally on the larger streams by the extent of unobstructed canal navigation, elsewhere probably by the limit of the coast range of mountains, whence the smaller streams originate. For example, upon the Columbia River, the limit is the vicinity of the Cascades, about 120 miles from the sea; upon Fraser River, the falls, or first rapids, about 110 miles from the sea. Nature, it would hence appear, herself places a barrier which alike checks the further extension of the nations on the lower part of these rivers seaward, and prevents invasion of the coast tribes beyond the limits easily accessible with the canoes, in which, from habit or necessity, all their excursions, whether of peace or war, are performed. The Eskimo are the solitary exception to this general rule. Frequenting the islands and coast from the vicinity of Cook's Inlet to the southern point of Labrador, they do not penetrate Hudson's Bay beyond a very limited distance from either point of the Straits. The Chippewayans succeed them for a short space on the Churchill shore, the Swamp Crees occupy the rest of the circuit."+

In former chapters we have, in greater or less detail-in accordance with the plan of this book-described the habits, &c., of most of the tribes comprised under the three heads mentioned. Let us, merely as a type of the Indians of the British territory east of the Rocky Mountains, describe in somewhat greater detail the extensive tribe of the Ojebways.

OJEBWAYS.‡

This tribe, or "nation" as it is often called, is found scattered in small bodies from the river St. Lawrence, along the southern shores of Lakes Ontario, Erie, St. Clair, Huron, both sides of Lake Superior, and so on, to what was once the Hudson Bay territory and the headwaters of the Mississippi. A few are also intermingled with the Ottowas and others on the

Called by their neighbours "Sa-chinco," or strangers." The Teets, again, call the others "T'sawmeena" ("up river;" hence the name of the village of that name on the Cowichan River, in Vancouver Island), and so throughout. The term "Atnah," given by Sir Alexander Mackenzie to the Shewhapmuch, and now extensively adopted into our maps and other publications, is not used by themselves, but their neighbours, the Takully, and means "stranger-tribe." Tribes west of them, the Takully call "Atnah-yoo."

+ Anderson, New York Hist. Magazine, vol. vii., p. 74.

The late Rev. Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby), an Ojebway chief, whose account of his own tribe is one of our chief authorities for the statements which follow, informs us that the word Ojebway is only a corruption of Chippeway (or Chippewa, as it is sometimes spelled). In this respect he differs from Mr. Anderson, who makes the Chippeways a separate people from the Ojebways.

south shore of Lake Huron and in the vicinity of Lake Michigan. Within their limits, as given above, are found other tribes of Indians, such as the six nations, the Ottowas, Delawares (the Canadian branch), &c. They probably entered America from Asia by way of Behring Strait,

but were intercepted from the coast by the southward extension of the Eskimo. The Sarsees and Klatskanai are two isolated tribes of Chippeways, the former inhabiting the plains of Upper Saskatchewan, the second at one time living south of the Columbia, east of the Killemocks of the coast, and both speaking a dialect of Chippeway, though, it must be confessed, among the Klatskanai the Chippewayan words were few.*

It may be mentioned that the Kootanais of the west of the Rocky Mountains are also an isolated tribe, their language having no connection with that of any of their neighbours. This manly race is getting, year by year, decimated by the Blackfeet, whom they fall in with in their visits to the buffalo grounds east of the Rocky Mountains.

Of their own origin, like all the Indian race, the Ojebways know nothing. They believe that the Great Spirit (Keehe-munedoo, or Kezhamunedoo) originally placed all the tribes just where they are; in fact, they believe in the plurality of the origin of the human race, and that all the people speaking different languages were separate creations: they know nothing of Mr. Max Müller. The northern Chippeways, near the Coppermine River, have a tradition that they came from a country inhabited by very wicked people, and had traversed a great lake, shallow, but full of islands, where they suffered great misery. It was always winter, and the ice and snow were never away. At the Coppermine River, where they first landed, the ground was covered with copper, over which earth to the depth of five or six feet has since accumulated. In those halcyon days their ancestors lived until their feet were worn out with

walking and their throats with eating. The Ojebway tradition of the creation of the world is peculiar, and as it is substantially the same through most of the north-eastern tribes, we may quote it. The story, however, is too long to be given in full:-" Before the general deluge which once covered the earth, there lived two enormous creatures, each possessed of vast power. One was an animal with a great horn in its head; the other was a huge toad. The latter had the whole management of the waters, keeping them secure in its own body, and emitting only a certain quantity for the watering of the earth. Between these two creatures there arose a quarrel, which terminated in a fight. The toad in vain tried to swallow its antagonist, but the latter rushed upon it, and with his horn pierced a hole in its side, out of which water gushed in floods, and soon overflowed the face of the earth. At this time Nan-ah-boz-hoo* was living on the earth, and observing the water rushing higher and higher, he fled to the loftiest mountain for refuge. By aid of the musk-rat (p. 240) he got up a little earth, out of which the world was gradually made. The Coppermine

Sometimes spelt "Anina boojo," under which pronunciation he is known among the Hudson's Bay Indians (p. 119). He is supposed to have been a great man endued with the spirit of the gods, but what the name meanз has now been lost.

River Chippeways have a tradition somewhat different. This Nanahbozhoo now sits at the North Pole, overlooking all the transactions and affairs of the people he had placed on the earth. The northern tribes say that he always sleeps during the winter; but previous to his falling asleep fills his great pipe, and smokes for several days, and that it is the smoke coming from the mouth and pipe of Nanahbozhoo which produces that short spell of bright weather just before the commencement of winter which is known as the " Indian summer."

They always believe that the souls of the dead go to a good country near the setting of the sun, and it is just possible that this belief may have arisen from a faint remembrance of their having come originally (as their traditions say) from that direction. Few, if any, of the civilised Indians believe in their Jewish origin (see page 2), though it is curious that in their drunken brawls the Muncey tribe used frequently to reproach the Iroquois in an "epithet of derision identical with that of circumcision, for having practised it in old times."

They are revengeful, indolent, and stoical under the eye of strangers or of their enemies. The stories of this are almost endless. Here is one as a specimen. "War-cloud," a Chippeway "brave," in a foray on the Sioux villages in Minnesota had his leg broken by a bullet. He told his companions to leave him, and he would show the Sioux dogs how a Chippeway could die. At his own request he was seated on a log with his back leaning against a tree. He then commenced painting his face and singing his death-song. As his enemies approached, brandishing their scalping-knives and yelling demoniacally, he chanted his song the louder, otherwise showing not a sign that he was conscious of their presence. Rushing upon him they tore his scalp from his head. They then commenced shooting arrows at him—through his cheeks, ears, arms, neck, &c., always avoiding a vital part, until he was absolutely pinned to the tree. They then flourished his bloody scalp before him, but still the warrior sang his deathsong, and sat unmoved in every muscle under the terrible torture he was enduring. At last, out of all patience, one of them rushed upon him and buried his tomahawk in the warrior's brain, as the last strain of his song was still upon his lips. He had taught them how a Chippeway could die; his comrades very soon taught them how a Chippeway could be avenged.

They are hospitable but reserved to strangers. Among themselves they are, however, great gossips. They are not averse to a full meal at any time, but at the same time believe that if a man can fast long enough, there is almost nothing which will not be vouchsafed to him. They have traditions of men who fasted so long that they became immortal-no doubt, after they had starved to death. There are tales also of pahgaks (or flying skeletons), being the corporeal remnants of those spare-living folks who had nearly solved the problem of living on nothing, though, unfortunately for the benefit of posterity, they died just before they had accomplished it. The robin (obeche) was an Indian female who had fasted a long time, but just before she was turned into a bird she painted her breast red and sang for joy as she flew away. Now she said, "I will return in the spring to my people and tell them what is to happen during the year; if peace and plenty, then I will sing 'che-che-che' in merry laughter; but if war or trouble, then 'lih-nwoh-che-go,' I prophesy evil things." It is probably owing to their accustoming themselves to fast from early youth, that the Indian has the power of doing without food for such long periods.

The young people are taught by the old men the virtues of hospitality and silence in