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western limits are uneertain, but in the early sixteenth century they 
appear to have wandered over ])art of the country west of lake 
Winnipeg, perhaps between the Red river and the Saskatchewan. As 
soon as they obtained firearms from Hudson bay, however, they 
expanded westward and northward, so that b}'' the middle of the 
eighteenth century they controlled northern ^Manitoba and Saskat- 
chewan as far as Churchill ri\'er, all northern Alberta, the valley 
of Slave river, and the southeastern part of Great Slave lake. Some 
of them had even raided up the Peace river into the Rocky 
mountains, and others down the ^Mackenzie to its delta almost 
within view of the Arctic sea, preceding in both directions the 
explorations of Sir Alexander Mackenzie. The acquisition of firearms 
by surrounding tribes, and a terrible epidemic of smallpox that 
devastated them in 1784, checked their further expansion. Tlie 
Cree then became demoralized through spirituous liquors, underwent 
constant attack from the Rlackfoot confederacy, and were decimated 
by a sccoiul epidemic of smallpox about 1838. From these disasters 
they never recovered, but remained scattered in whatever districts 
they found themselves, earning a meagre livelihood by hunting and 
trapping. Like some of the Athapaskan peoples, they took on the 
colour of the tribes with whom they had most contact, so that 
to-day we can divifle them into two large groups: 
(1) Plains’ Cree, living on the prairies. These we shall consider 
in a later chapter. 
(2) Woodland Cree, usually called Swampy Cree or IMuskegon. 
They include not oidy the bands around the southern part 
of Huflson bay, but those living on Peace. Athabaska, and 
Slave rivers and on Athabaska and Great Slave lakes. 
Like the Xaslvapi — but to an even greater extent — the Cree 
embellished themselves with tattoo marks, a ]:)ractice not common 
among Algoid\ian tribes. Their women had a widespread reputation 
for beauty; in fact, so experienced a traveller as Mackenzie con- 
sidered that they were better proportioned, and possessed more 
regular features, than any other Indians within the boundaries of 
Canada. In the more southern parts of their area the Woodland 
Cree dwelt in birch-bark wigwams, either dome-shaped like the 
Ojibwa wigwam, or conical like the dwellings elsewhere in the east; 
