INDIANS. 305 



The languages of all these tribes are different, although I 

 have no doubt etymologists would have little difficulty in 

 tracing their dialects back to the same parent tongue. In 

 habits they are all much alike. They are not addicted to 

 scalping, and have never been known (when sober) to utter 

 a war cry. On the contrary, they are a quiet, civil, 

 obliging, lazy lot of people, given to making baskets and 

 smoking, and, I am sorry to say, drinking when they have 

 the means. They have entirely renounced paint and 

 feathers, and dress, the men in coats and continuations, 

 the women in petticoats, like white people; with one 

 grand exception, viz. the lady wears the beaver. It is 

 indeed a fine sight to see a squaw coming to market with 

 her baskets and a papoose on her back, a tall hat on her 

 head, mocassins on her feet, and a silver brooch like a tin 

 plate on her bosom. Their names are peculiar. I never 

 knew an Indian called Smith, Jones, or Kobinson. A dozen 

 of our commonest male Christian names would include the 

 names of almost every man in the tribe ; whilst half-a- 

 dozen female Christian names prefixed to these would 

 take in all the women. This apparent simplicity of 

 nomenclature is rather puzzling ; thus, in a party of four 

 Indians with their squaws, two of the men will perhaps 

 answer to the names of Peter Joe, the other two to Joe 

 Peter, whilst all the four ladies will be Nancy Joes and 

 Nancy Peters. 



Having secured the services of two good hunters at a 

 dollar a day each, rifles, blankets, axes, snow shoes, and 

 provisions are packed on a sled, the trabogens are tied on 

 behind, and the hunters start for their ground. Each year 

 this hunting ground moves farther away as the settlement 



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