110 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. chap, xxvii. 



brethren taking part in the services of the church with 

 a lively interest. The Pere goes on to say that tliese 

 Nasquapees believed that the spirits of particular animals 

 would become hostile to them if they gave the bones to 

 the dogs. At certain feasts they sacrificed the flesh of 

 animals killed in the chase by burning it to cinders, and 

 in times of scarcity sang and danced to the sound of the 

 tambourine until they fell down with weakness, in order to 

 obtain a glimpse in tlieir dreams of the places where the 

 wild beasts congregate. When anyone is sick, they sing until 

 they are overcome by sleep, in the hope of seeing in their 

 dreams the enemy who has cast a spell over the invalid, 

 or that they may discover the herbs which are capable of 

 effecting a cure. 



The description given by Pere Durocher of the super- 

 stitious Nasquapees of 1853, when they first came to the 

 coast at tlie Ilets de Jeremie, forcibly reminds one of 

 the Montagnais superstitions (described in Chapter XXI.) 

 which prevailed among that wide-spread people when 

 the Jesuits first visited the valley of the St. Lawrence, 

 and studied the manners, customs, and superstitions of its 

 savage inhabitants. 



The Nasquapees are the most easterly division of the 

 great Cree nation, whose hunting-grounds from time 

 immemorial have extended from the Eocky Mountains to 

 the Atlantic coast of Labrador, a region extending from 

 the 51st to the 120th degree of longitude, a distance 

 exceeding 2,500 miles, with a mean breadth of about 600 

 miles, and equal to seven times the area of France, or about 

 1,500,000 square miles. It must have required a very long 

 time to people this vast waste with tribes speaking dialects 



