238 ON THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND PHILOLOGY OF THE 
tains. They generally trade their robes on the Missouri, and carry their fine furs, wolf- 
skins, dried meat, and tallow, to the traders of the Hudson’s Bay Company. 
Besides the foregoing there are about two hundred lodges more who are not formed 
into bands, but scattered along Lac de L’Isle Croix, and live by hunting reindeer, moose, 
fish, and wild fowl. ‘They live in skin tents in the summer, but sometimes build log and 
bark huts in winter, and seldom more than one cabin is found in the same place. These 
are the poorest of the Crees. 
These Indians are of the same opinion in common with other prairie tribes, that the 
Master of Life, the sun, intended all hunting lands for the sole use and occupation of the 
Indians, but do not think that he parcelled out distinct portions to each nation. Land, 
as far as their knowledge of it extends, is regarded as a common whole, which any nation 
(of Indians) has a right to live upon and retain possession of as large a district as they are 
able to defend. ‘Their right to their own territory is in accordance with this general 
principle, contending that they have been forced back from superior grounds to those they 
now inhabit, and consequently they have the right in turn to dislodge others for their own 
welfare. All nations feel and acknowledge the expediency and necessity for seeking a 
subsistence any and everywhere, as long as they are dependent solely on the chase for 
support; hence the deadly struggles on the borders of each to prevent approximation. 
Each nation feels that it must make war to prevent others from settling near them, and 
the result is, that between each nation there is a large extent of neutral ground, seldom 
if ever traversed except by passing war parties. 
The Crees do not seem to possess any idea, either by tradition or otherwise, from which 
we should judge that whites or any other civilized race had occupied the country previous 
to the Indians; nor have they any knowledge of quadrupeds foreign to America, or differ- 
ing from those now hunted and domesticated by them. They have no name for the 
entire continent, neither are they aware of its extent. They will mention American lands, 
English possessions, &c., but these terms only extend to those parts with which they are 
acquainted. 
None of these wild tribes have any just idea of the form of the earth, nor of its natural 
divisions into seas, continents, islands, &c. The earth they regard as a great plain, and 
they know that there are many lakes that contain islands, for the Cree country abounds 
with them. All the nations are well enough acquainted with the natural features of their 
own lands, but they have no idea of the extent of other territories. They have no notion 
of the earth as a whole, and the ocean they think is a large lake, from the description 
given them by the voyageurs of that body of water. Indeed, they have a very faint idea 
of any lands or waters outside of the boundaries of the district over which they range; 
and when the voyageurs, who have been sent out by the Hudson’s Bay Company to the 
