52 CASTOROLOGIA. 



prudent liusbauder of the beaver, and by early accounts the two 

 seemed to have lived on remarkably intimate terms, as it is stated 

 that frequently colonies of beavers would be found within a short 

 distance of the Indian villages. It was easily possible for the Indian 

 to supply all his wants both of food and clothing from the near 

 beaver colony without disturbing them at all, for there would always 

 be those who wandered from the colony far enough to permit of 

 their destruction without giving the least alarm to their companions. 



The opportunity of obtaining from the white man a choice of his 

 best possessions in return for the discarded beaver coat, or for an3^ 

 surplus beaver skins then about the camp, was an era exceeding 

 even the dreams of life in the " land of the setting sun." Imagine 

 what it meant to the Indian to become the owner for the first time 

 in his history, of a knife, a file, or even a needle ; and when he could 

 in exchange for the easily gotten beaver-pelt possess not only some 

 of the wonderful manufactures of civilization, but clothe him- 

 self in the gorgeous scarlet cloth which to his mind was a robe 

 fit to appear in before the Manitou on the day when he would join 

 the departed spirits of his tribe ; nor should we be surprised that the 

 credulous Indian thought his white brother a demi-god, to bring such 

 treasures and ask so little in return. The car\-ing of the wampum 

 bead and the laborious shaping of implements from the ill-adapted 

 bone or stone, were soon doomed to be lost arts. But above all other 

 acquisitions, however, was the introduction of the gun which so far 

 surpassed the arrow and the spear, that these soon became the toys 

 for the prattling child, while the sire displayed the magic contrivance 

 which embodied the very spirit of death, What to him were a hun- 

 dred beaver skins compared with the possession of a gun, though 

 even then the white man held fast the key and claimed goodly toll 

 for powder and shot. Alas, that the avaricious trader should not 

 have been satisfied with the control he exercised in this way over the 

 Indian, but among his good gifts should have brought a curse so 

 dreadful in its records, that, while a red-skinned brother lives, we 

 should never cease the attempt to redress the awful wrong our race 

 has done, by using the fatal influence of " fire water" to obtain a 

 little worldl}^ gain. 



