THE INDIANS 185 



distinct a division of language that existing tribes cannot 

 converse in Indian; and as observed by the writer upon 

 the meeting of a Montagnais with an Abnaki acquaintance 

 on the winter trail, conversation must proceed in some 

 foreign language in this instance in French. The Indians 

 of the Labrador estimate that as many as half of the people 

 speak no language but their own. The presence of white 

 blood is largely evident in the southwest, adjacent to the 

 settlements and the upper gulf ; and many who are counted 

 Indians might, but for the saving effect of a hunting life 

 inland, be reckoned as white rather than red. 

 Low writes : 



"The most northern tribe has a tradition that their 

 people originally lived far to the south, and it is prob- 

 able that they were driven northward from the country 

 about the St. Lawrence by the Iroquois, about the time 

 of the first settlement of Canada, by the French. There 

 are many traditions about these wars among the northern 

 Indians, and it is surprising to what distances the Iroquois 

 followed them, into the middle of Labrador, and up the east 

 coast of Hudson Bay to the neighbourhood of the mouth 

 of the Big River in north lat. 54. As the Crees retreated 

 before the Iroquois, they in turn displaced the Eskimo, 

 who at one time occupied the eastern and southern portions 

 of the peninsula as far as Eskimo Bay on the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence and all the territory about Hudson Bay. These 

 wars terminated when the Eskimo became supplied with 

 firearms, and are now traditions of the distant past; but 

 the memories still live, and the Eskimo and Indians, al- 

 though never engaging in open hostilities, have a mutual 

 hatred and never intermarry. The northern Indians 

 still regard with fear the descendants of the once fierce 

 Iroquois, and their name is used to frighten children." 



