REINDEER. 51 



on Lake Huron, and to some of the Crees in the 

 Hudson's Bay Company's territory. The well-fed 

 Sauteurs of the river Winipeg, who are inde- 

 pendent of the traders, repel the missionaries ; 

 and the same is the case with the bison-hunters 

 on the prairies. 



Throughout the whole eastern wooded and barren 

 country, down to the 42nd parallel of latitude, the 

 reindeer was, three centuries ago, the most abun- 

 dant of the deer kind, and, being the most easily 

 approached, furnished the staple provision for the 

 Eskimo, 'Tinne, and Eythinyuwuk. On the wide 

 prairies of the Missouri and Saskatchewan, the 

 populous Sioux, Stone-Indians, or Assini-poytuk, 

 and other Dakota tribes, fed on the countless herds 

 of bison which pasture there. Next to the rein- 

 deer in importance in the eastern districts, is the 

 species of Coregonus, named " white-fish," to which 

 the Chippeways and Nithe-wuk have given the 

 figurative appellation of " reindeer of the waters," 

 Adikumaig or Atih-hameg .* On referring to Stra- 

 chey's account of Virginia, I do not find this word, 

 nor the name of the reindeer, in his vocabulary of 

 of the Delaware tongue ; the white-fish indeed not 

 being an inhabitant of the southern waters. The 



* Adikumaig, from adik, a " reindeer," and guma, a gene- 

 ric word for "water" in composition, and the animate plural ig. 

 (Schoolcraft.) Aihik or atik, "a reindeer," in Cree, 



