2 THE LABRADOR TENINSULA. chat. xxi. 



THE SEDENTARY INDIAN TRIBES OF THE 

 ST. LAWRENCE VALLEY. 



A* EETEOSPECT of 327 years carries us far back 

 in the history of the savage races who once 

 peopled the valley of the St. Lawrence, many of whose 

 descendants still occupy the borders of their ancient 

 hunting-grounds, and preserve the superstitions and tra- 

 ditions of their ancestors, although they have adopted 

 nomadic habits. 



The history of the sedentary tribes who lived in 

 villages on the banks of the great river is still wrapped 

 in great obscurity, but, with the progress of settle- 

 ment, fresh discoveries of aboriginal antiquities made 

 from time to time cast a glimmering hght on the life 

 of these mysterious races, who have left remains of 

 their villages, burying-places, and battle-fields, in the wide 

 valley of the St. Lawrence from Lake Ontario to the 

 sea. 



On October 3, 1535, when Francis I., the very Christian 

 king, was on the throne of France, and Henry VIIL, the 

 defender of the faith, was flourishing in England, Jacques 

 Cartier, a mariner from St. Malo, visited tlie Indian 

 village of Hochelaga, situated near the spot where the 

 city of Montreal now stands, and there found a race of 

 Indians, of wliom now not even the name is known with 

 certainty, cultivating the soil and living in a semi-civihsed 

 state. The road to this ancient village was through large 

 fields of Indian corn.* Its outline was circular, and it 



* Boswortli's HnvltcJoffn Depict a. 



