34 



POLAR REGIONS. 



Polar by hunting or fishing, and obtain supplies of arms, 

 Regions, ammunition, ornaments, and unfortunately spirituous 

 1 / ^"" liquors from the fur traders, in exchange for the skins 

 of beavers, and other objects of the chase. The men 

 affect to treat .their women with contempt, yet are on 

 the whole less supercilious than many of their breth- 

 ren ; and Franklin has seen them evince much natural 

 affection. They are decidedly superior in moral quali- 

 ties to their neighbours the Chipewyans ; and though 

 covetous, and little scrupulous in evading promised fa- 

 vours, they evinced kindly affections, and even delicate 

 attentions to the distressed state of Franklin and his 

 party, in their disastrous expedition between FortEnter- 

 prize and the Icy Sea. Among them, as with the north- 

 ern Indians in general, polygamy is rare except with 

 the chiefs. They may marry two sisters; but a man 

 cannot take his niece to wife. The whole of the Cop- 

 per Indians do not exceed 190 individuals ; of whom, 

 about 40 males, with a proportionate number of females, 

 are under the authority of their principal chief Akait- 

 cho, or Big-foot. The Chipewyans, who inhabit the 

 country between the great Slave Lake and Lake la 

 Crosse, may be considered as the representatives of the 

 family. Their manners have been considerably alter- 

 ed, and their character deteriorated, by their communi- 

 cation with the Europeans and Canadian fur hunters ; 

 but they have preserved a much greater share of inde- 

 pendence and originality of character than their kindred 

 the Crees, who inhabit the territory about Lake Win- 

 nipeg, and the nearest settlements of the Hudson Bay 

 Company. The Crees, by the habitual use of rum, are 

 debased into a haggard and squalid race, negligent of 

 every thing but the means of intoxication, with man- 

 ners dissolute and disgusting. Their women have in- 

 termarried with the voyagers ; and the mixed race are 

 generally abandoned by their white parents to all the 

 vices and misery of a life composed of the worst traits 

 of the savage and civilized state. Franklin excepts 

 from this heavy censure the Orkney men, who have, iu 

 great numbers, entered the service of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, and who have generally taken care of their 

 offspring by Cree women. 



To the south and westward of the Crees, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Carlton-house factory, reside the Asseena- 

 boine, Eascab, or Stone Indians, a tribe of the Iroquois 

 family. They are a handsome race, with high features, 

 and well-made forms ; but they are represented as treach- 

 erous and cruel ; and, being mounted on horseback, 

 are formidable enemies. They live at amity with the 

 Crees, under whose protection they entered their pre- 

 isent territory ; but they are more numerous than their 

 allies. These two nations are in the habit of uniting 

 in annual predatory incursions into the territories of 

 the Indians to the westward, whom they stigmatize 

 by the name of Slave Indians, or rather Strangers, In 

 these equestrian expeditions both tribes often collect 

 300 or 400 horsemen, display the cunning and secrecy 

 of Indian warfare, and usually commit the most horri- 

 ble atrocities on their opponents, sparing neither age 

 nor sex, and carrying off the scalps, which they attach 

 to their dress as proofs of their prowess. The tribes 

 driven westward by these marauders, have settled at 

 the foot of the Rocky Mountains near Fort Augustus, 

 where they have latterly increased in numbers ; and 

 having dedicated themselves to the breeding of horses, 

 and acquired the use of fire arms, they already have 

 become objects of terror to the Stone Indians. They 

 are divided into five nations : 1st, The Fall Indians, 

 Avho formerly resided on the falls of the Saskatchawan 

 River ; and are the Minetarraes with whom Lewis and 



Clarke had a rencountre on their return from the Mis- 

 souri : 2d, The Pegans, or Muddy-river-Indians, who 

 have 400 tents ; 3d, The Blood Indians, who have 300 

 tents; 4th, The Black-foot Indians, who have 3.50 

 tents; 5th, The Sassees, or Circees, who have 150 

 tents. The language of the first tribe is very guttural 

 and difficult ; that of the Pegans, Blood, and Black- 

 foot Indians, is said to be soft, and easily acquired, but 

 to be quite distinct from the Chipewyan ; that of the 

 fifth is a dialect of the Chipewyan, which is also spo- 

 ken by their neighbours the Snow Indians, and by 

 the Nohhannies and Brush-wood Indians of the Riviere 

 aux Liards. 



The customs of all the Indian tribes have much si- 

 milarity when unadulterated by European communica- 

 tion. They are all hunters, who display much address 

 in procuring game ; they inhabit tents of skins, or huts 

 composed of boughs of trees, plastered with mud. 

 Their notions of religion are very rude and simple. 

 They generally acknowledge a great supreme Spirit, 

 the author of good ; and also worship a genius of evil 

 to deprecate his wrath. The religious rites of the 

 Crees, and other Chipewyans, consist of offerings of va- 

 rious articles to their deity ; in prayers for success in 

 hunting, and other necessary avocations, in which they 

 remind the object of their worship of the value of their 

 offerings. The use of tobacco, and the Calumet, or 

 pipe of peace, is generally diffused among them. In 

 manners and mental qualities the Lenape family 

 seem to have the advantage of their neighbours of the 

 Iroquois race. Tribes of them are found in Canada, 

 and in the neighbourhood of Hudson's Bay : they are 

 traced as far as Mackenzie's River, Peace River to the 

 south, and even to New Caledonia. 



The North American' Indians have a considerable 

 resemblance in appearance, though less so than was 

 formerly supposed. They are all swarthy, or of a 

 reddish-brown hue, have dark eyes, and black hair, 

 which is long, lank, and coarse. The features of some 

 of them, especially towards the north, are flat, the cheek- 

 bones high ; but some of the tribes have very hand- 

 some countenances, Roman noses, and lengthened oval 

 faces. It is to be regretted that, long as they have been 

 known to the European race of men, so little has been 

 done to reclaim them from a savage life, or to human- 

 ize their manners by the benevolent precepts of Christ- 

 ianity. Few Europeans have acquired their languages ; 

 and unfortunately those who have thus become qualified 

 to be their instructors, have, in general, been more 

 ready, by their example, to teach them the vices than 

 the virtues of civilized life. 



Pennant's Arctic Zoology. Cook's Voyages. Phipp's 

 Voyage. Scoresby's Arctic Regions. Scoresby's Jour- 

 not. Ross's Voyage to Baffin's Bay. Parry's Voyage 

 to the North West Ocean. Manby's Voyage to Green" 

 land. Franklin's Journey to the Polar Sea. Sir A. 

 Mackenzie's Joumics in North America. Hearne's Jour- 

 ney. Sir G. Mackenzie's Iceland. Hooker's Iceland. 

 Henderson's Iceland. Fabricii Fauna Grcenlandica. 

 Flora Lapponica. Von Buch's Norway. Acerbi's 

 Travels. Wahlenberg's Observations, $c. Fauna Sue- 

 sica. Pallas' Travels. Latham's Ornithology. Shaw's 

 General Zoology. Tooke's Vierv of the Russian Empire. 

 Brewster's Paper in Phil. Trans. Edin. On the Temper- 

 ature of the Globe. Lewis and Clarke's Travels in North 

 America. Murray's Origin of European Languages. 

 Transactions of American Phil. Society. Petersburgk 

 Transactions. Linncean Transactions. Crantz's Green- 

 land. Torfseus, Hist. Norveg. Crantz's Descrip- 

 tion of Greenland. Saaby's Jaurnal. See also our 



Polar 

 Regions. 



