M'Keevor's Voyage to Hudson's Kay. 65 



At this time they subsist principally on salted geese, dried 

 tongues, and pimmicum. When the weather is more mode- 

 rate, however, they hunt the rein-deer, which they often meet 

 in vast herds, seeking the extreme cold. Frequently, they 

 merely take out the tong-ues, leaving the rest of the body to 

 putrify, or to be devoured by wild beasts. At times, however, 

 such is the extreme scarcity of food, that they are obliged to 

 have recourse to the most filthy and disgusting practices for 

 the purpose of sustaining life. Many are obliged to strip the 

 hair from the peltry which they are bringing to the different 

 factories, and subsist on the skins. Others procure a scanty 

 nourishment from the deer-skins, with which their shoes and 

 other parts of their dress are formed ; and, at times, such is 

 the dreadful want of provisions, that they are compelled to 

 resort to the horrid and revolting practice of cannibalism. 

 Mr. Swaine mentioned to me an instance which occurred the 

 preceding winter, of a southern Indian woman, who was in 

 such extreme want, that she dug up one of her own relatives, 

 who bad been some time buried, and fed for several days on 

 this shocking repast. 



Mr. Ellis tells us " that an Indian, who with his family 

 was coming down to trade from a place very far distant, had 

 the misfortune to meet with but little game by the way ; so 

 that in a short time himself, his wife, and his children, were 

 reduced to the last distress. In these circumstances, they 

 plucked the fur from their clothes, and preserved life as long' 

 as they were able, by feeding on the skins which they wore ; 

 but even this wretched resource soon failed them ; and then, 

 what is terrible to conceive, and horrible to relate, these poor 

 creatures sustained themselves by feeding on two of their 

 children." 



Mr. Hearne, in p. 85 of his interesting work, makes men- 

 tion of the following instance : " In the spring of the year 

 1775, when I was building Cumberland-house, an Indian, 

 whose name was Wappoos^ came to the settlement at a time 

 when fifteen tents of Indians were on the plantations; they 

 examined him very minutely, and found he had come a con- 

 siderable way by himself, without a gun or ammunition. This 

 made many of them conjecture he had met with and killed 

 some person by the way ; and this was the more easily cre- 

 dited, from the care he took to conceal a bag of provisions 

 which he had brought with him in a lofty pine-tree near the 

 house. Being a stranger, I invited him in, though I saw he 

 had nothing- for trade ; and, during that interview, some of 

 the Indian women examined his bag, and gave it as their opi- 

 nion that the meat it contained was human flesh ; in conse- 



VOYAES and TRAVELS, Ao. 2. Vol. II. K 



