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1898-99. | FAMOUS ALGONQUINS ; ALGIC LEGENDS, 287 
united in a loose confederacy under Pontiac. After his death and the 
capitulation of Montreal, the weight of the Algonkian power was with 
the British.(4) 
The early voyageurs, traders and employees of the Companies 
fraternized with their red neighbours, learned their tongue and often 
became joined tothem in ties of blood. The education so resulting was 
rather of the European into the native lore, than of the red man into the 
white man’s learning, religion or customs. Sir Alexander Mackenzie 
remarked one hundred years ago that it requires less time for a 
civilized people to deviate into the customs of savage life than for 
savages to rise into a state of civilization. 
From the red aborigine to the citizen with our artificial and complex 
civilization, there is an evolution that cannot be worked out in one 
generation. The scales of barbarism are sloughed off but the result is 
not an unmixed good. The appearance of white men, advancing in 
force with their lust for land, disturbs the conditions, the hunting 
ground becomes limited in space and in quantity of game. The 
tribes soon find it necessary to live at peace, not only with the 
whites, but with other tribes with whom they had for ages waged bloody 
feuds. Cultivation of the soil, toa small extent, had been practised by the 
squaws, now the men are urged to lay aside their weapons and to use the 
axe, the hoe and the plough, and eventually reaping and threshing ma- 
chines. Such evidences result from a severe discipline, involving hunger, 
decimating disease and a contest with the inevitable. The famous bargain 
of 1870 added three millions of square miles to the area.of the Dominion, 
now succeeding to the mild sway of the Hudson Bay Company with 
further Imperial authority. At this time the buffalo was disappearing 
and the old order was also passing away. Since the flag of Canada 
began to wave over the west, the farm instructor, school teacher, mission- 
ary and mounted police have been transforming the aborigines. Chiefs 
appear appareled in the red, councilmen in the biue, coats of their offices, 
as democratic leaders of their bands in the ways of peace. The Sun 
Dance, with its cruel rites, promises soon to be a forsaken custom even 
among the Blackfeet. The herding of cattle, raising of sheep, and 
breeding of swine promote domestic virtues. The scalping knife lies 
rusting in its sheath and the tomahawk is buried. Soon the blanketed 
Indian will be seen only in the most remote places and in photographs, 
and war-whoops will be heard only through the phonograph or in 
(6)—** The Odahwah Language”—F, Assikinack, Can. Inst. Journal III. 481. 
“Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac,” 1, 125. 
“Prehistoric Man,” by Sir D. Wilson, 3rd Edition 2. 3€9. 
