OE EED INDIANS OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 



135 



was called. " It was about teu or twelve feet square, and substantially built of timber, 

 nearly in the fashion of the English fishing houses, only that the studs were something 

 apart, from which it was evident that they alone could not in that state form the shell as 

 in the English buildings, where they are closely joined together. But within this and 

 parallel to it, there was another frame of slighter v^'orkmanship, a sort of lattice work, 

 rising to the roof From the hair which adhered lo the studs, the interval appeared to 

 have been filled with deer skins, than which there could have been nothing better calcu- 

 lated for keeping out the cold. This was the construction of only three sides, the fourth 

 being raised by trees well squared and placed horizontally one upon another, having their 

 seams caulked with moss. The difference was probably owing to a deficiency of skins, 

 and the rather so as this inferior side of the dwelling bore a southeast aspect, which re- 

 quired less shelter than any other. The lodgments of the rafters on the beams and the 

 necessary joints were as neatly executed as in the houses commonly inhabited by our 

 fishers. The roof was a low pyramid, encompassed at the distance of three feet from its 

 vertex by a hoop tied to the rafters with thongs. Here the covering had terminated, and 

 the space above the hoop had been left open as in the wigwams for a passage to the smoke, 

 the fire place having been in the centre." 



Fig. 1. Red Indian store house, as drawn by Shanandithit. 



Such a form of residence is very unusual among the wandering Indian tribes of 

 Northern America. The birch or skin-covered tent, so easily erected and so easily re- 

 moved, is so admirably adapted for a nomad people that it is rare to find them adopting 

 this more permanent form of dwelling. Whether the Beothiks had it originally or imitated 

 the whites in its construction, it indicates progress toward a more settled condition of life. 

 Besides these they had large store-houses said to have been from thirty to fifty feet long and 

 nearly as wide. (Fig. ].) In these they laid up their fcupplies for the winter. Besides 

 the venison which we have mentioned, Mr. G-eorge Cartwright says that they found in 

 them seal's flesh, birds and fish, and a kind of sausage, " consisting of the flesh and fat of 

 seals, eggs and a variety of other rich matter stuffed into the entrails of seals. For want 

 of salt and spices the composition had the haut gout to perfection." Shanandithit, a native 

 woman to be noticed hereafter, made a sketch of the inside of one of these, representing it 

 as hung round with " different kinds of animal food," dried salmon, dried meat, lobsters' 

 tails dried, pieces of seal's fat on the skin, bladders filled with oil, etc. It is also said 

 " that they had an ingenious way of keeping venison fresh." They first cut it into thin 

 strips, and after having taken out the veins and sinews and washed away the blood, 

 they packed it in alternate layers of meat and melted tallow in a casing of birch bark, 

 which they bound up tightly, thus forming an hermetically sealed mass.' 



' This seems to be simply the pemmican of the West. 



