198 LABRADOR 



Their immediate neighbours call the eastern Nascaupees 

 Mushauau-eo, " Barren-ground People," and their principal 

 river, the George, is known to all Indians as Mushauau 

 Shibo, or " Barren-ground River." 



The Nascaupees' name for themselves is Nenenot, " True 

 or Ideal People." Literally this seems to mean "Our Own 

 People," which, after all, in the minds of most races comes 

 to much the same thing. These meanings have been 

 quoted by a recent traveller, Wallace, who gives some of 

 the information gathered during a visit at Chimo. His 

 statement regarding the Indians' extreme fear of the sea 

 seems at least exaggerated. He describes them as afraid 

 to even look upon the sea below Chimo. On the contrary, 

 Mr. Guy, long resident at Chimo, has observed little feeling 

 of the sort. During his time there a young white man 

 while hunting was drowned in a lake on a stream emptying 

 into the bay. Some Indians not only went down to the 

 sea by canoe and around to recover the body, but made 

 the trip a second time to find the rifle. In the recent ob- 

 servation of some Chimo hunters on the Atlantic side, they 

 took very readily to salt water, boating and canoeing under 

 reasonable conditions. If unnecessary canoeing about Un- 

 gava with its forty- to sixty-foot tides and notoriously 

 bad navigation has small attraction for them, the circum- 

 stance is not to be taken as phenomenal. None who has 

 actually voyaged with these masters of the open canoe is 

 likely to believe them water-timid. Turner says these 

 Indians bear cold as well as the Eskimo do, although under 

 starvation they do not hold their working strength so well. 

 The little children certainly show astonishing indifference to 

 cold. 



