

OF THE POLAR SEA. 89 



of notice, for they have an insipid farinaceous tastei and are seldom 

 gathered. The Crees extract some beautiful colours from several of 

 their native vegetables. They dye their porcupine quills a beautiful 

 scarlet, with the roots of two species of bed-straw, (galium tinc- 

 torium, and boreale) which they indiscriminately term saicoyan. The 

 roots, after being carefully washed, are boiled gently in a clean 

 copper kettle, and a quantity of the juice of the moose berry, straw- 

 berry, cranberry, or arctic raspberry, is added together with a few 

 red tufts of pistils of the larch. The porcupine quills are plunged 

 into the liquor before it becomes quite cold, and are soon tinged of 

 a beautiful scarlet. The process sometimes fails, and produces only 

 a dirty brown, a circumstance which ought probably to be ascribed 

 to the use of an undue quantity of acid. They dye black with an 

 ink made of elder bark, and a little bog-iron-ore, dried and pounded, 

 and they have various modes of producing yellow. The deepest 

 colour is obtained from the dried root of a plant, which from their 

 description appears to be the cow-bane (cicuta virosa.) An inferior 

 colour is obtained from the bruise^ buds of the Dutch myrtle, and 

 they have discovered methods of dyeing with various lichens. 



The quadrupeds that are hunted for food in this part of the 

 country, are the moose and the rein-deer, the former termed by the 

 Crees, mongsoa or moosoa, the latter attekh. The buffalo or bison, 

 ( moostoosh , ) the red-deer or American-stag, (wawaskeeshoo,) and 

 the apistatchtekoos, a species of antelope, animals that frequent the 



ains above the forks of the Saskatchawan, are not found in the 



ighbourhood of Cumberland House. 



Of fur-bearing animals, various kinds of foxes (makkeesheicue,) 

 are found in the district, distinguished by the traders under the 

 names of black, silver, cross, red, and blue foxes. The two former 

 are considered by the Indians to be the same kind, varying acci- 

 dentally in the colour of the pelt: ( The black foxes are very rare 





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and fetch a high price. The cross and red foxes differ from each 



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