LOST ARTS OF PRIMITIVE RACES. 169 



Hence the Micmac was almost wholly a hunter, and 

 the arts of life had reference mainly to the implements 

 for the chase, and for fishing, or for the preparation of 

 meat and skins ; and as he must necessarily move 

 from place to place according to the seasons for differ- 

 ent kinds of fish and game, he dwelt in tents, or wig- 

 wams (his oik or wiclt) , made of birch bark, and could 

 easily pack his family and property in his bark canoe, 

 or transport his whole house and furniture on the 

 backs of his party, or on a tobogan drawn over the 

 snow. Mambertou, a celebrated Micmac Sachem, and 

 one of the first converts of the French missionaries, 

 when taught the petition, " give us this day our daily 

 bread/' which, by the way, was practically a mis- 

 translation on the part of the missionaries, objected, 

 ' ' Why is no mention made of our fish and venison ? " 

 and very properly, since these two in his former creed 

 were gifts of the Great Spirit, and were to him much 

 more than bread. Yet the Micmacs were not only 

 adepts in the more delicate and difficult parts of the 

 art of chipping flints, but as we have seen, were geo- 

 graphers and travellers of no mean intelligence, and 

 made their name and power known and felt widely 

 over the American coast, both to the north and to the 

 south ; and this, perhaps, just for the reason that they 

 were hunters rather than farmers. 



Another illustration may be taken from the now 

 extinct Ked Indians of Newfoundland. McCormick, 

 in his expedition to discover this people, found that 

 thev had built across the country long fences of wood 



