PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 25 



•dress standing upright and a feather waist-covering, the body tattoo-marked. This 

 comical figure, whether by accident or design, coincides with Mr. Grinnell's 

 description of Pawnee Picts, or tattooed Pawnees. Rollin Michael Barrin, Count 

 de la Gallissoniere, above mentioned, was Governor of New France, and a gentleman 

 of scholarly taste and refinement. He is one of the leading characters in Mr. Kirby's 

 excellent story, " The Golden Dog," the opening scene being laid in Quebec in 1748. 

 Among the masters of Panis is the name of De Veaudreuil, who succeeded as 

 Governor, and of the Chevalier la Corne St. Luc, a gallant soldier, who remained 

 after the capitulation, and became a loyal defender of British rule. Other names, 

 such as Benoit De Longueil and La Coste, are familiar to all readers of Canadian 

 history. 



Some months ago a worthy member of the Canadian Institute, with a handful 

 of ashes from an ancient kitchen-midden, by means of a microscope brought up 

 the Huron inhabitants and their surroundings as they were when Champlain un- 

 folded the fleur-de-lis on the Georgian Bay. Our attempt is now, with these 

 disjointed historic fragments from the ashes of time, to produce for development 

 some features of these humble persons, the domestic slaves, and of their sur- 

 roundings in those grand old times, when slavery was a thing of course and the 

 seigniorial tenure most flourished in the old regime. The Pani no doubt spoke in 

 a patois of French and Illinoisan. His dress was a rude commingling of the styles 

 of Quebec and the wild South. He had no taste for work at the tail of the plough, 

 but supplied venison and fish, made bows and lacrosse sticks for the boys, and joined 

 them in games and hunting. The squaws waited on table, were the ladies' maids, 

 the children's ayahs, and fashioned moose-skin moccasins, adorned with bright- 

 tinted quills of the bristling porcupine. Removed from his native wilds, the Pani 

 doubtless followed, to some extent, the religion of his masters, with its rites and 

 ceremonies. But when he gazed on the rising sun, away from the presence of the 

 Black-robe, we may imagine him imploring the protection of the dread Opirikut. 

 god of his fathers; and when, in the winter evenings, the aurora flashed across the 

 vault above, he saw the spirits of his friends in flight from the far south land, and 

 then his heart filled with longings for the banks of the Niobrara, where the ancestral 

 tents were set and the buffalo shook the plains. 



With such suggestions, names and facts as have been placed before us, it only 

 needs the wand of imagination to raise the curtain of six-score years and show the 

 home of the seigneur among his habitant friends and neighbours beside the St. 

 Lawrence, the St. Francis or the Chaudiere. And when there comes that happiest 

 hour of the day, when the work is done and the night as yet is young, they gather 

 into the great room, beech logs blaze and cast their light on bronzed features as 

 they enter, capotes are thrown back, waist-sashes loosened, and the snow is shaken 

 from homespun coats and deerskin leggings. Pleasant greetings and kind enquiries 

 pass around, and the news of the day is exchanged. The cure, the seigneur and the 

 notary sit where all can see and hear. In and out flits on moccasined feet a dusky 

 figure almost unnoticed, yet not unwelcome. He quiets barking dogs, brings a coal 

 to light a pipe, or stirs the logs to a fresh blaze. He is the Indian slave, the pani. 



III. The edict of Louis XIV. in 1688, authorizing the importation of slaves from 

 Africa, referred only to negroes. 



Some doubt seems to have existed as to the legal status of panis, and, to remove 

 these, Jacques Raudot, Ninth Intendant, issued an ordinance at Quebec on April 

 13th, 1709, referring to negroes and the Indian people called Panis, and declaring, 

 "We, therefore, under the good pleasure of His Majesty, order that all the panis 

 and negroes who have been bought, and who shall be purchased hereafter, shall 

 belong- in full pronrietorship to those who have purchased them as their slaves." 

 Then followed an injunction, prohibiting the slaves from running away, and pro- 

 visions for imposing on those who aided them in so doing a fine of 50 livres 



Hocquart, Intendant under the Marquis de Beauharnois, Governor-General. 



