154 Our North Land. 



is successfully encouraged, and the natives enter into the responsive 

 service with apparent relish ; while at the little chapel, within the 

 palisade, divine worship is made attractive by a choir of school boys, 

 and the melodeon. 



Last year, 1S83, the quiet of York Factory was disturbed by a 

 murder. In a brawl between two Indian women named Nancy 

 Natainew and Mary Quaqua, the former threw an axe at the latter, 

 which she managed to avoid, but it struck her son, a small boy, John, 

 on the head. He died from the effects of the blow two days after. 

 The woman, Natainew, was duly tried before Justice Fortesque in 

 the school-house. Chief Factor Fortesque, besides exercising some 

 judicial functions as the head officer at the post, is a Justice of the 

 Peace for the North- West Territories of Canada. 



Dr. Matthews, acting as Clerk of the Court and Crown Prosecutor, 

 interested himself in bringing the murderer to justice; but, before 

 the trial proceeded far, he found himself surrounded by many and 

 great difficulties. At the outset, the natives were loud in their 

 denunciations of the conduct of the hostile squaw, and manifested 

 the greatest desire to see her brought under the penalties of British 

 law ; but, as the trial proceeded, their manner became greatly changed. 

 All the feelings of their race became aroused, and they looked upon 

 the prosecution as a piece of tyranny or persecution on the part of 

 the Hudson's Bay Company. Before the trial came on they had 

 seen the whole affair, and related every phase of it with great exact- 

 ness ; but in the witness-box they knew nothing about it whatever. 

 Indeed they were dumb. As the examination progressed, the 

 feelings of the natives became more intense in favour of the prisoner; 

 and finally the woman, Natainew, became a martyr to the fullest 

 extent of their appreciation of the idea. 



It was plain that anything like conviction by the use of Indian 

 witnesses would be an impossibility, and Doctor Matthews gave the 

 case up, leaving it to the discretion of Justice Fortesque to deal with 

 the squaw as he might think fit. She was sentenced to one month 

 imprisonment, and to the worse penalty of having her beautiful, 

 long, black hair cut off close to her head. This punishment, in the 

 eyes of her sympathisers, was nearly as bad as hanging. To have 



