INDIANS OF NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 



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numbers than is usually supposed. Baron de Lery visited Sable 

 Island as early as 1518. Savelet in 1604, had made forty voyages 

 from France ; a voyage and home being then about one year. 

 Thus, when Les Carbot gives us his minute descriptions, from two 

 to three generations must have passed since the Iron age had com- 

 menced its operations on the races of the Stone period. Iron 

 knives and axes, the steel and flint, with its great powers of carry- 

 ing fire everywhere, and coarse potteries and beads, must have 

 begun already to modify their habits. The ancient arrow-maker 

 must have ceased his art ; the son must have used an axe foreign 

 to his father, and the squaw to ornament her skins with French 

 beads instead of small shells. The first name by which they were 

 called by the French is Souriquois or Sourique. This name seems 

 almost identical with Irequois, Arromouchequois and Algonquin. 

 It is probable the Mic-Macs, as we now call them, were a set-off 

 from the great Algonquin race, who extend from Canada to the 

 extreme West ; but set off for so long a period of time as to lose a 

 common dialect. Whilst our Indians from the earliest date used 

 the language common to Canada, they could not understand the 

 Armouchiquois, or those who lived in what is now called New 

 Hampshire and Massachusetts. In the year sixteen hundred and 

 nine, the French living at Port Royal, Nova Scotia, estimated their 

 numbers between three and four thousand souls. This included 

 Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island. This, by the usual calcu- 

 lations, would make between five and six hundred adult or fighting 

 men. They were clothed in skins of bear, otter, beaver and fox, 

 and the larger skins of elk and deer. They had learned the art of 

 softening and taking the hair off the larger ones. In Summer their 

 clothing was a girdle around their waists, on which was fixed a 

 skin that went betwixt the legs, and was attached again to the 

 girdle behind. A cloak of skins was hung around the neck, with a 

 loose cape hanging back from the shoulder. Usually the right arm 

 was exposed. In winter they made sleeves of beaver skins, tied 

 at the back, and long hose of the same, tied to the girdle around 

 the loins, and their feet were covered with a buskin of untanned 

 leather drawn into plaits in front, the present mocasin. The women 



