C 277 ) 



t&ey are extremely fuperftitious, and ufe fome kind 

 of facrifices. Thofe who have had the greater! in- 

 tercouife with them, affure us, that in common 

 with the Indians of Canada, they have a notion of 

 a good and of an evil genius, that the Sun is their 

 great divinity, and that when they deliberate upon 

 any affair ot importance, they make him an offer- 

 ing of fmoke which is done in the following man- 

 ner. At break of day they aflemble in the cabbin 

 of one of their chiefs, who, after having lighted 

 his pipe, prefents it three times to the rifing fun, 

 and then turning it with both his hands from the 

 eaft to the weft, he fupplieates this luminary to be 

 propitious to his people. This being done, all thofe 

 who compofe the affembly, fmoke in the fame pipe. 

 All thefe Indians, though of four or five different 

 nations are known in the French accounts under the 

 general name of the Savanois, becaufe the country 

 Shey inhabit is low, marfhy, and ill- wooded, and 

 in Canada, all thofe wet lands, which are good for 

 nothing are called Savannahs. 



Coafting along the north-more of the Bay, you 

 meet with two rivers, the firft of which is called 

 Danifh-River^ and the fecond the river of the Sea- 

 Wolf\ on the banks of both thefe rivers there are 

 Indians, who, I know not why, have got the name, 

 or rather nickname of Plats colez de Chiens, or 

 Flat-fided Dogs, and are often at war with the Sa- 

 vanois but neither of them treat their prifoners 

 with that barbarity which is ufual among the Cana- 

 dians, being contented with keeping them in fla- 

 very. Want fometimes reduces the Savanois to 

 ftrange extremities ; and whether it be idlenefs on 

 their part, or that their lands are abfolutely good 

 for nothing, they find themfelves entirely deftitute 

 of provifions when their hunting and fiming prove 



S 3 imfuc- 



