38 CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Northern Indian Country — Meet some strange Northern Indians, 

 one of whom carried a letter for me to Prince of Wales's Fort, in 

 March one thousand seven hundred and seventy-one, and now gave 

 me an answer to it, dated twentieth of June following — Indians 

 begin preparing wood-work and birch-rind for canoes — The equi- 

 noctial gale very severe — Indian method of running the moose 

 deer down by speed of foot — Arrival at Theeleyaza River — See 

 some strangers — The brutality of my companions — A tremendous 

 gale and snow-drift — Meet with more strangers ; remarks on it — 

 Leave all the elderly people and children, and proceed directly to 

 the Fort — Stop to build canoes, and then advance — Several of the 

 Indians die through hunger, and many others are obliged to decline 

 the journey for want of ammunition — A violent storm and inunda- 

 tion, that forced us to the top of a high hill, where we suffered great 

 distress for more than two days — Kill several deer — The Indians' 

 method of preserving the flesh without the assistance of salt — See 

 several Indians that were going to Knapp's Bay — Game of all 

 kinds remarkably plentiful — Arrive at the Factory . . . .252 



[xvii] CHAP. IX. 



A short Description of the Northern Indians, also a farther 

 Account of their Country, Manufactures, Customs, &c. 



An account of the persons and tempers of the Northern Indians 

 — They possess a great deal of art and cunning — Are very guilty of 

 fraud when in their power, and generally exact more for their furs 

 than any other tribe of Indians — Always dissatisfied, yet have their 

 good qualities — The men in general jealous of their wives — Their 

 marriages — Girls always betrothed when children, and their reasons 

 for it — Great care and confinement of young girls from the age of 

 eight or nine years — Divorces common among those people — The 

 women are less prolific than in warmer countries — Remarkable 

 piece of superstition observed by the women at particular periods 

 — Their art in making it an excuse for a temporary separation from 

 their husbands on any little quarrel — Reckoned very unclean on 

 those occasions — The Northern Indians frequently, for the want of 

 firing, are obliged to eat their meat raw — Some through necessity 

 obliged to boil it in vessels made of the rind of the birch-tree — A 

 remarkable dish among those people — The young animals always 

 cut out of their dams, eaten, and accounted a great delicacy — The 

 parts of generation of all animals eat by the men and boys — 

 Manner of passing their time, and method of killing deer in 

 Summer with bows and arrows — Their tents, dogs, sledges, &c. — 

 Snow-shoes — Their partiality to domestic vermin — Utmost extent 

 of the Northern Indian country — Face of the country — Species of 



