THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS AND THEIE FOLK-LOEE 303 



than 1850, Father Arnaud, who is still living, met 

 at Sept Isles a Nascapee woman, who, before her 

 conversion to Christianity by Father Durocher, was 

 not only a noted sorceress of her tribe, but an inveter- 

 ate cannibal. Her first victim was her husband, who 

 had died of hunger and starvation, and she continued 

 her feast until she had devoured three of her children, 

 two of whom had died of starvation, while the third 

 was killed by its unnatural mother. She next raised 

 her hand against a woman of her own tribe who had 

 herself feasted upon the dead body of one of her chil- 

 dren, and became food in turn for the miserable Vero- 

 nique, as the wretched woman was called after her 

 conversion and baptism. It was the hunters of the 

 tribe, in fear and trembling, and not her own remorse- 

 ful conscience, that took Veronique to the missionary. 

 They wanted the fear of the Great Spirit put into her, 

 and the missionary commenced operations by having 

 all her hair cut off and hung upon a pole at the en- 

 trance to the Indian cemetery, and then kept her on 

 her knees outside the church door -during the whole 

 continuance of a mission. Another missionary tells 

 of the murder during the same year, by another Ind- 

 ian woman, of two entire famihes, with the excep- 

 tion of one young man. Her victims included two 

 men, two women, three boys, and four girls, and she 

 subsisted for some time upon their flesh. 



As late as 1867 Father ISTedelec, who journeyed as 

 far north as Lake Mistassini to minister to the Ind- 

 ians there, reported the murder of a young man eigh- 

 teen years of age by his own mother, who was assisted 

 in the crime by another young man, and who declared 



