28 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



to show me some specimens of " Money " they had care- 

 fully folded in bits of cloth or birch bark. The "Money," 

 respecting which they have no distinct idea except that 

 it is " white," according to information they have obtained 

 from half-breeds, consisted of fragments of selenite, iron 

 pyrites, and silver mica. They profess to know where 

 a large quantity of this " Money " is to be found, and 

 demand tea and tobacco for the intelligence. These 

 Indians had been making their autumnal fishing hunt, 

 and possessed large birch bark vessels filled with pounded 

 white-fish, previously dried and smoked, a miserable sub- 

 stitute for pemmican. They had also sturgeon bladders 

 filled with white-fish oil. The pounded fish and the oil 

 form part of their winter stores ; some samples which 

 were submitted to me for inspection, with a view to barter, 

 were the reverse of inviting. 



The chief pointed out a portage path between the 

 Little Saskatchewan or Dauphin Biver, and the War-path 

 Eiver, which forms the war-road of the Ojibways and 

 Swampy s of Lake Winnipeg when they proceed on their 

 periodical excursions against the Sioux. This war road 

 was much used in the earlier history of the natives of the 

 Low Country, but on account of the great diminution in 

 their numbers, which has taken place during the present 

 century, war is no longer a pursuit or pastime with them, 

 as with the Lac la Pluie Ojibways and the Sioux. 



The selection of certain tracts of country for the 

 " War-path " is probably determined by the facilities pre- 

 sented for communication and concealment combined. 

 The following are celebrated " war-paths," where hunt- 

 ing is generally disallowed, although game from that 

 circumstance is usually most abundant. 



1. " The War-path Eiver " and war road of the Lac 

 la Pluie Ojibways, and the Sioux, from Eainy Eiver to 



