285 
fartlier north, where the birch trees wei'e small and stunted, 
they substituted coverin.as of pine bark or the hide of tlie caribou.' 
The bands living around James bay often used soapstone pots for 
cooking tlieir food instead of the usual birch-bark vessels, a practice 
they leai’iied probably from the Eskimo. For scraping their skins, 
too, they employed a curved knife that resembled the everyday 
knife of Eskimo women, although bands west of IMoose Factory 
used a chisel-shaped tool after the manner of the jdains’ tribes. 
Since the winter was rather more severe in the territory of the 
\\h)odland Cree than farther south, many of them eschewed the 
tanned hides of tlie Ojibwa and Algonkians, and wore in their stead 
coats and blankets made of woven liare skin, or of soft, warm caribou 
fur, similar to the coats of the Naskapi and some of the Montagnais. 
Other features differentiating them fi'om their southern neighbours 
were the absence of mats, and of baskets made from roots or split 
twigs, together with the relative unimportance of fishing, which 
the CVee scorned in early days as unworthy of a hunter, and resorted 
to only from necessity. 
Tire game in most repute were the woodland caribou, moose, 
beavei-, and bear, but owing to the relative scarcity of these animals 
many bands subsisted in winter i)rincipally on hares, which they 
caught in snares made from the bark of the willow. Hares, like 
several other northern mammals, undergo periodic increase and 
decrease: they disappf'ar almost completely every ninth winter 
and remain scarce for a year or two afterwards. During these seasons 
shortage of food caused many natives to die of starvation and some- 
times led to cannibalism, which ins])ired no less horror among the 
Indians than among us. It must have occurred fairly frequently, 
however, for the early fur traders and explorers mention several 
instances- and it occupies a prominent place in the legends of the 
ti’ibe, which abound in stories of imndigos — human beings trans- 
formed into supernatural man-eating giants through the eating of 
human flesh. In spring and autumn the Cree secured many ducks 
and geese, and in the winter many grouse and i)tarmigan; but 
naturally these minor foods could only supplement, not replace, the 
meat of the larger mammals. 
1 Fru- a doscription of tlie tent of flic nortlu'rn Cn-e See Heanie: Op. cit., p. 74 f. 
~Cj. " Twfiily Years of York Faetoiy, 1691-1714, Jereinie’s .\crouiit of Hudson Strait and Bay”: 
translated by Douglas, R., and Wallace, J. X., jn 40 (Ottawa, 1926). 
