210 LABEADOR 



In winter the frock has a hood, and the moderate coat of 

 hair which the summer skins bear is allowed to remain on, 

 usually turned inside. For extreme weather this sort of 

 frock is made without a hood, so that a hooded frock with 

 hair outward can be put on over it. Sleeping-bags of 

 caribou, skin are commonly used. 



Many of the Chimo Indians have lately adopted trousers 

 for winter wear, but the little band of George River people 

 under Chief Ostinitsu still prefer leggins and the bare thigh. 

 No foreign language is yet spoken by this group, nor do 

 they use ordinarily either bread or salt. 



Although well off for guns, the chief means of support 

 of this band are those of the prehistoric period. In fa- 

 vourable years the deer-spear alone furnishes the main living. 

 When the great migration is on, hundreds and sometimes 

 thousands of caribou are speared on the lake and river 

 crossings, without the firing of a shot. The smaller game 

 and birds are taken largely in snares and wooden traps. 

 Nets of their own making, either of sinew or twine, are 

 their most dependable means, rarely failing for long of 

 taking food during a large part of the year. Even in the 

 last months of winter, the time of graver straits, they rest 

 their forlorn hope, not on the gun or steel trap or fishing 

 gear of trade, but on the unfailing wooden hook of ancient 

 days. 



All in all, the life of these people remains singularly un- 

 changed . It may be doubted whether another such survival 

 of the purely primitive hunter, at the same time of so high a 

 personality as that of the savage of temperate America, 

 is to be found in any part of the world. The caribou are 

 to them what the buffalo were to the Indians of the plains. 



