216 LABRADOR 
as straits continue, wear down rapidly under the constant 
hunting. On the hunter, in the end, hangs the fate of all, 
and this is to be remembered when in times of plenty the 
men are found merely spearing the deer as they make the 
crossing and leaving the hard work of meat and skins to 
the women. In the evil day that is sure to come, it is most 
often the women and children who survive, husbanding 
their strength in the lodges until some hunter brings game. 
There is no question as to the fate of the hunter who does 
not return, though the spot where he sank to his lonely 
end may never be known. 
These recurring vicissitudes of the hunting life, especially 
in the farther north, must be taken account of before judg- 
ment is passed upon some of the customs and traits of such 
races. Until recently the old and feeble among the people 
were at times put out of the way by their relatives. It 
must be understood not only that the necessary alternative 
was usually abandonment and death by freezing or starva- 
tion, but that the event was brought about by the request 
of the person concerned. 
It might be difficult to find a people more devoted to 
their own than these. In his well-known Twenty-five 
Years of Service John McLean has an interesting chap- 
ter on their traits, his long relations with them standing 
in as good stead as the imagination which gives colour to 
Hind’s accounts of them as seen at Seven Islands in later 
years in his Labrador Peninsula. To quote a passage: — 
“In their intercourse with us the Nascaupees evince a 
very different disposition from the other branches of the 
Cree family, being selfish and inhospitable in the extreme; 
exacting rigid payment for the smallest portion of food. 
