CHARACTER OF THE PRAIRIE INDIANS. 143 



dead, smear themselves with blood, thrust their arms up 

 to the shoulders into the reeking bodies of their victims, 

 the savage barbarity of the wild prairie Indian shows 

 itself in its true colours. Not even a scalp dance over 

 many fallen foes, affords such a terrible picture of de- 

 graded humanity as a large band of prairie Indians, some 

 hundreds in number, during and after the slaughter of 

 buffalo in the pound. 



The condition of the Indians of the Saskatchewan 

 • Valley at the present day is very different to what it 



Cree Fire-bags. 



was even half a century since. Not only have imported 

 diseases greatly diminished their numbers, but game of 

 different kinds has become so scarce that during some 

 seasons starvation is no fiction. In the northern parts of 

 Eupert's Land a great mortality took place in 1816, 1817, 

 and 1818, from small-pox and measles. Vaccine inocu- 

 lation was then introduced by the Hudson' Bay Company, 

 and small-pox has been unknown in the country since.* 



* Sir George Simpson. Blue Book on the affairs of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company. 



