FAMINE AMONG THE INDIANS. 275 



They often sufter from famine: I heard Mr. 

 Low, a sealmg-master, intimately acquainted with 

 the natives of this country, give a curious account 

 of the state of a party of one hundred and fifty na- 

 tives on the west coast, who were very thin and in 

 great distress. A succession of gales prevented 

 the women from getting shell-fish on the rocks, and 

 they could not go out in their canoes to catch seal. 

 A small party of these men one morning set out, 

 and the other Indians explained to him that they 

 were going a four days' journey for food : on their 

 return, Low went to meet them, and he found them 

 excessively tired, each man carrying a great square 

 piece of putrid whale's blubbei", with a hole in the 

 middle, through which they put their heads, like 

 the Gauchos do through their ponchos or cloaks. 

 As soon as the blubber was brought into a wigwam, 

 an old man cut off' thin slices, and muttering over 

 them, broiled them for a minute, and distributed 

 them to the famished party, who during this time 

 preserved a profound silence. Mr. Low believes 

 that whenever a whale is cast on shore, the natives 

 bury large pieces of it in the sand, as a resource 

 in time of famine ; and a native boy, whom he had 

 on board, once found a stock thus buried. The 

 different tribes, when at war, are cannibals. From 

 the concurrent, but quite independent evidence of 

 the boy taken by Mr. Low, and of Jemmy Button, 

 it is certainly true, that, when pressed in winter by 

 hunger, they kill and devour their old women be- 

 fore they kill their dogs : the boy, being asked by 

 Mr. Low why they did this, answered, " Doggies 

 catch otters, old women no." This boy described 

 the manner in which they are killed by being held 

 over smoke and thus choked; he imitated their 

 screams as a joke, and described the parts of their 

 bodies which are considered best to eat. Horrid 



