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arerage debt allowed each hunter is little over one hundred beavers, 

 one can see that after purchasing the necessaries for the ensuing year 

 but little remains for luxuries in the shape of red handkerchiefs, etc. 



On the arrival of a new lot of Indians the women already at the 

 post went to the water's edge to greet the new comers, which they did 

 by embracing and kissing, and then indulging in a good cry all round ; 

 their emotions being thus appeased they soon became merry and 

 talkative. Twenty six families belong to this post, about 150 persons 

 in all. They speak a dialect of the Algonquin or Cree language, being 

 a tribe of that great family which inhabits the country from the Rocky 

 Mountains to the Atlantic. As a rule they are not of great stature, 

 though some of the men are fine stalwart fellows, six feet tall. 



Form long contact with the Hudson Bay Co. and missionaries 

 they are all pretty well civilized, everybody being ablo to read and 

 write in a kind of syllabic shorthand, invented to fit the language by 

 the English missionaries to the west. An Indian's writing materials 

 consist of a piece of birch bark and a burnt stick, while a forked stick 

 placed in a prominent position on a portage or at the forks of a river 

 serves as a post-office. 



They are all perfectly honest, and would not touch provisions left 

 in the woods even to save themselves from starvation. 



Although all are nominally Christians, they still cling to many of 

 their old beliefs and superstitions ; anyone who claims to be a conjuror 

 or medicine man is held in great respect and dread by the rest of the com- 

 munity. The conjurors claim to be able to commune in spirit with 

 other conjurors, and also by the aid of spirits to foretell the future, and 

 learn what is happening at the moment to persons at a distance. By 

 the aid of charms and spells they are believed to bring sickness, and 

 even death to anyone who may offend them. They also pretend that 

 the spirits would supply them in times of hardship and famine with 

 deer's meat, fish, and a little flour, but no tobacco or whiskey. 



Allegorical animals are dreaded and propitiated by these Indians, 

 the greatest among these is the big muskrat who travels under the 

 snow, there is also a big beaver, and a big dog, who does not walk on 

 the ground but upon the trees. In Mistassini is a large trout, so long 

 that he cannot turn round, who cftujs ps all the storms on that lake by 



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