THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS 
under the ministration of Pére Arnaud.” 
This was in July, 1861. In 1889 the Hudson’s 
Bay Company, in order to make the place as 
attractive as possible for the Indians, and as 
an inducement to bring their furs to this Post, 
built a small wooden house for the Indians and 
another three years later. These proved so 
attractive that the rest of the village was put 
up, we were told, in the years 1901 to 1903. 
However successful these houses may have 
been in stimulating trade, the effect on the 
health of the Indians has proved far otherwise. 
Infectious diseases, such as influenza and 
tuberculosis, were unknown among the primi- 
tive Indians, who have therefore developed no 
immunity, but, on the contrary, are especially 
susceptible to them and quickly succumb. 
When infected from the whites, they retire, 
like all ignorant people under the same cir- 
cumstances, to their houses, and crowd to- 
gether in close overheated rooms with doors and 
windows shut. The houses become therefore 
hotbeds of infection, and the course of the 
disease is hastened to a fatal termination. 
Hind, writing of his visit in 1861, records 
the fact that the Indians who lingered on the 
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