THE CREE INDIANS, OR EYTHINYUWUK. 



321 



:x 



'^-^^^'fS 



DRIVING BISON OVER A PRECIPICE. 



In the year 1 840 a bloody ^\ ar bi ol^c 

 out between the Ciees and tlie Black- 

 feet, arising as in genei al f i oni a very- 

 trifling cause. Peace v/as at lengtli con- 

 cluded, but while the two nations ueie 

 celebrating this foitunate event Avith 

 games and races, a Ciec stole a i xgged 

 blanket, and a new figlit ininicdi itol) 

 began. Returning home, tlie Black feet 

 met a Cree chief tain, a\ ith two of his, 

 warriors, and killed them after a shoi t 

 altercation. Soon after the Crees sur- 

 prised and murdered some of the Black- 

 feet, and thus the war raged more furiously than ever. Sir George Simpson, 

 who was travelling through the country at the time, visited the hut of a Cree 

 who had been wounded in the conflict at the peace meeting. As in his flight 

 he bent over his horse's neck, a ball had struck him on the right side, and re- 

 mained sticking near the articulation of the left shoulder. In this condition he 

 had already lain for three-and-thirty days, his left arm frightfully swollen, and 

 the rest- of his body emaciated to a skeleton. Near the dying savage, whose 

 glassy eye and contracted features spoke of the dreadful pain of which he dis- 

 dained to speak, lay his child, reduced to skin and bones, and expressing by a 

 perpetual moaning the pangs of illness and hunger, while most to be pitied 

 perhaps of this wretched family was the wife and mother, who seemed to 

 be sinking under the double load of care and fatigue. During the night the 

 "medicine-man" was busy beating his magic drum and driving away the evil 

 spirits from the hut. 



Although the Crees show great fortitude in enduring hunger and the other 

 evils incident to a hunter's life, yet any unusual accident dispirits them at once, 

 and they seldom venture to meet their enemies in open warfare, or even to sur- 

 prise them, unless they have a great advantage in point of numbers. Instances 

 of personal bravery like that of the Esquimaux are rare indeed among them. 

 Superior in personal appearance to the Tinne, they are less honest, and though 

 perhaps not so much given to falsehood as the Tinne, are more turbulent and 

 more prompt to invade the rights of their countrymen, as well as of neighbor- 

 ing nations. 



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