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INDIAN'S IN NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 



By a most fatal mistake in natural laws, and by teaching them 

 their own language, by printing what were called (but really were 

 not) Mic-Mac books and gospels, they meddled with their faith, 

 and sought to carry them back to their old worn-out life and lan- 

 guage, now sadly disjointed from the present times. Their only 

 language should be English. They have no written character dating 

 beyond their conversion to Christianity ; but amongst them are 

 devotional books in manuscript, hieroglyphics where a figure like a 

 beaver stands for a sentence, and others, also manuscript, where the 

 sounds appear to have been reduced to English letters somewhat 

 modified, but all derived from the French clergy. We can only 

 lament so much money, and so much hard work sincerely wasted, 

 in harrassing their untutored minds with another language and 

 another faith, before they had taught them to wear shoes and stock- 

 ings, or to eat from tables. 



In making a list of names and families, I have had recourse to 

 ancient treaties, old vouchers and Government lists, and my own 

 knowledge. I have found that many, and those the most perma- 

 nent ones, are derived from Scripture, and were no doubt given 

 them by the French clergy in baptism, others seem territorial, and 

 others seem to have sprung from illicit intercourse with the whites, 

 the son taking the white father's name. Many found in old records 

 have died out. The Cape Breton names are peculiarly French, as 

 it was held by the French fifty years after Nova Scotia. The 

 families whose names are derived from original baptism by the 

 .French clergy, are : — 



Peter, 



Thaughmough, 



Nicola, 



Paul, 



Bernard, 



Juhairie, 



Noel, 



Glode, 



Phillip, 



Thomas, 



Meuse, 



Bettis, 



Slome, 



Leuxy, 



Martin, 



rp • 



loni, 



Charles, 



Joseph, 



Jeremy, 



Francois, 



Cobadeel, 



Scire, 



John, 



Simon, 



Sosop, 



Elixe,, 



Louis, 



Malti, 



Pattus., 



Mick. 



'To ma, 



Tonsux. 





