52 CREES. 



Chippeways have a legend, which relates that the 

 white-fish sprung first into existence at the outlet of 

 Lake Superior, being produced from the scattered 

 brains of a woman, whose head, for some very 

 guilty conduct, was doomed to wander through the 

 country, but, coming in its travels to the falls of 

 St. Mary, was there dashed in pieces. A crane, by 

 virtue of that inherent power so frequently attri- 

 buted to birds and beasts by the aborigines of 

 America, instantly transformed the particles of 

 brain into the roe of a white-fish, to the wide- 

 spread benefit of the Indian nations.* 



Though the earth-works already alluded to are 

 supposed to have been raised by a people more 

 ancient than the Eythinyuwuk, yet the fact of 

 their northern limits being within the Chippeway 

 lands is worthy of note; and vestiges of pottery 

 works, apparently of a rude kind, have been found 

 on the south branch of the Saskatchewan within 

 the Nithe-wuk bounds, but not further north f, 

 the substitute for earthenware among the Eskimos 

 being vessels of pot stone, and among the 'Tinne 

 water-tight baskets, in which the fluid was warmed 

 by hot stones dropped into it. 



* Schoolcraft. 



| On the east side of the Rocky Mountains. The Eskimos 

 on the western coast of Russian America manufactured a very 

 rude pottery when first visited by the Russians. 



