BULL. 30] 



MISSIONS 



903 



work, the author of important contrihu- 

 tions to philolojxy. To I'^itlu'r lyiicotnbc, 

 who foni;'l('(l twD missions iunonti the 

 Cree of the upper Nortli Sasi<atclic\van 

 and npcnt also inucli time with the 

 Bhickfeet, we owe, besides several reh- 

 ^ious and text-V)ook transhitions, a manu- 

 seript Biaekfoot ihrtionarv and a nionu- 

 niental j?:rannnar and (Hctionary of the 

 Oee lanj;;uafie. Father Veirrrvilie la- 

 bored anioufi Cree, Assinil)()in, and tlie 

 remote northernC'hipewyan, founded live 

 missions, and comjxjsed a manuscri|it 

 granm a", dietionary, and moni)<.Maph of 

 the Cree hxnguage. Father I'etitot'.s im- 

 portant work among the Cree has been 

 oversliadowed by his later great work 

 among tlie remote Athapascans and Es- 

 kimo, which will lie noted hereafter. 

 Among the lilackfeet the most jironn- 

 nent name is tliat<if l-'ather Knule i^egal. 

 Oblate (1881-UO), autlior of several lin- 

 guisticand ethnologic studies of tlu' tribe, 

 all in manuscript. 



EplsfOpaJidn work in the central regiim 

 may properly be said to hav(^ begun with 

 the arrival of Kev. John West, who was 

 sent out by the Church ^lissionary So- 

 ciety of P^ngland in 1S20 as cha])lain to 

 the Hudson's Bay Co's establishment 

 of Ft Garry (Winnipeg), on Red r. In 

 the three years of his ministrations, be- 

 sides giving attention to the white resi- 

 dents, he made missionary journeys 

 among the Cree and others for a distance 

 of 500 m. to the w. He was followed by 

 Rev. David Jones in 1823, by Rev. Wm. 

 Cochrane in 1825, Rev. A. Cowley in 

 1841, and Rev. R. James in 1846, by 

 whom, together, the tribes farther to the 

 N. were visited and brought within mis- 

 sion influence. In 1840 a Cree mission 

 at The Pas, on the lower Saskatchewan, 

 was organized by Henry liudd, a native 

 convert, and in i84B other stations were 

 estal)lished among the same tril)e at Lac 

 la Ronge and Lac la Crosse, by James 

 Settee and James Beardy respectively, 

 also native converts. In 1838 a large 

 bequest for Indian missions within Ru- 

 pert's Land, as the territory was then 

 known, had been made by Mr James 

 Leith, anofhcer of the Hudson's Bay Co., 

 and generously increased soon after by 

 the company itself. With the assist- 

 ance and the active effort of four mis- 

 sionary societies of the church, the work 

 grew so that in 1849 tlie territory was 

 erected into a l)ishopric, and on the 

 transfer of jurisdiction from the Hudson's 

 Bay Co., to the Canadian govern.ment 

 in 1870 there were 15 Episcopal mis- 

 sionaries laboring at the various stations 

 in the regions stretching from Hudson 

 bay to the upper Saskatchewan, the most 

 important being those at York Factory 



(Keewatin), Cumberland, and Carlton 

 (Saskatchewan ). 



.Among the most jted fif those in the 

 Cree country may be mentioned in chron- 

 ologic order. Rev. Archdeacon James 

 Hunter and his wife (1844-55), joint or 

 separate authors of a nundier of transla- 

 tions, including the Book of Conunon 

 Piayi'r, hymns, gospel extracts, etc., and a 

 valuable treatise on the Cree language; 

 i'.ishoiiJuhn Ilorden ( 1S51-90), of Moose 

 I'aitdry, York l\icti>ry, and Ft Churchill 

 statidus, self-taught printer and binder, 

 master of the language, and author of a 

 number of gospels, prayer, and hymn 

 translations; Bishop William Bompas 

 ( 18H5-5H)), best known for his work among 

 the more northern Athapascan tribes; 

 Rev. W. W. Kirkby (1852-79), author of 

 a Cree 'Manual of Prayer and Praise,' 

 but also best known for his Athapascan 

 work; Rev. John Mackay, author of sev- 

 eral religious translations and of a manu- 

 script grammar; and Rev. E. A. Watkins, 

 author of a standard dictionary. Among 

 the Blackfeet, Rev. J. W. Tims, who be- 

 gan his work in 1883, is a recognized 

 authority on the language, of which he 

 has published a granmiar and dictionary 

 and a gospel translation. 



^[cthodUt ( Wesleyan) effort in the Cree 

 and adjacent territories began in 1840. 

 In that year Rev. James Evans and his 

 Indian assistant. Rev. Henry Steinhauer, 

 both already noted in connection with 

 previous work in ( )ntario, were selected for 

 the western mission, and set out together 

 for Norway House, a Hudson's Bay Co's 

 post at the N. end of L. Winnipeg. 

 E\ans went on without stop to his des- 

 tination, but Steinhauer halted at Lac 

 la Pluie ( now Rainy Lake) to act as inter- 

 preter to Rev. WMlliam Mason, who had 

 just reached that spot, having been sent 

 out under the same auspices, the Wes- 

 leyan Missionary Society of England, by 

 arrangement with the Canadian body. 

 The joint control continued until 1855, 

 when the Canadian Methodists assumed 

 full charge. 'Sir Evans had been ap- 

 pointed superintendentof Methodistwork 

 for the whole region, and after establish- 

 ing Rossville mission, near Norway House, 

 as his central station, spent the next six 

 years until his health failed, in travers- 

 ing the long distances, founding several 

 missions, mastering the Cree language, 

 and devising for it a syllabary, which has 

 ever since been in successful use for all 

 literary purposes in the tribe. His first 

 printing in the syllabary was done upon 

 a press of his own making, with types 

 cast fi'om the sheet-lead lining of tea 

 boxes and cut into final shape with a 

 jackknife. In this primitive fashion he 

 printed many copies of the syllabary for 



