Voyages from Montreal Through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans Volume I Part 9

There are no people more attentive to the comforts of their dress, or less anxious respecting its exterior appearance. In the winter it is composed of the skins of deer, and their fawns, and dressed as fine as any chamois leather, in the hair. In the summer their apparel is the same, except that it is prepared without the hair. Their shoes and leggins are sewed together, the latter reaching upwards to the middle, and being supported by a belt, under which a small piece of leather is drawn to cover the private parts, the ends of which fall down both before and behind. In the shoes they put the hair of the moose or reindeer with additional pieces of leather as socks. The s.h.i.+rt or coat, when girted round the waist, reaches to the middle of the thigh, and the mittens are sewed to the sleeves, or are suspended by strings from the shoulders. A ruff or tippet surrounds the neck, and the skin of the head of the deer forms a curious kind of cap. A robe, made of several deer or fawn skins sewed together, covers the whole. This dress is worn single or double, but always in the winter, with the hair within and without. Thus arrayed a Chepewyan will lay himself down on the ice in the middle of a lake, and repose in comfort; though he will sometimes find a difficulty in the morning to disenc.u.mber himself from the snow drifted on him during the night. If in his pa.s.sage he should be in want of provision, he cuts a hole in the ice, when he seldom fails of taking some trout or pike, whose eyes he instantly scoops out, and eats as a great delicacy; but if they should not be sufficient to satisfy his appet.i.te, he will, in this necessity make his meal of the fish in its raw state; but, those whom I saw, preferred to dress their victuals when circ.u.mstances admitted the necessary preparation. When they are in that part of their country which does not produce a sufficient quant.i.ty of wood for fuel, they are reduced to the same exigency, though they generally dry their meat in the sun.[4]

The dress of the women differs from that of the men. Their leggins are tied below the knee; and their coat or s.h.i.+ft is wide, hanging down to the ankle, and is tucked up at pleasure by means of a belt, which is fastened round the waist. Those who have children have these garments made very full about the shoulders, as when they are travelling they carry their infants upon their backs, next their skin, in which situation they are perfectly comfortable and in a position convenient to be suckled. Nor do they discontinue to give their milk to them till they have another child. Childbirth is not the object of that tender care and serious attention among the savages as it is among civilized people. At this period no part of their usual occupation is omitted, and this continual and regular exercise must contribute to the welfare of the mother, both in the progress of parturition and in the moment of delivery. The women have a singular custom of cutting off a small piece of the navel string of the new-born children, and hang it about their necks: they are also curious in the covering they make for it, which they decorate with porcupine's quills and beads.

Though the women are as much in the power of the men, as other articles of their property, they are always consulted, and possess a very considerable influence in the traffic with Europeans, and other important concerns.

Plurality of wives is common among them, and the ceremony of marriage is of a very simple nature. The girls are betrothed at a very early period to those whom the parents think the best able to support them: nor is the inclination of the women considered. Whenever a separation takes place, which sometimes happens, it depends entirely on the will and pleasure of the husband. In common with the other Indians of this country, they have a custom respecting the periodical state of a woman, which is rigorously observed: at that time she must seclude herself from society. They are not even allowed in that situation to keep the same path as the men, when travelling: and it is considered a great breach of decency for a woman so circ.u.mstanced to touch any utensils of manly occupation. Such a circ.u.mstance is supposed to defile them, so that their subsequent use would be followed by certain mischief or misfortune. There are particular skins which the women never touch, as of the bear and wolf; and those animals the men are seldom known to kill.

They are not remarkable for their activity as hunters, which is owing to the ease with which they snare deer and spear fish: and these occupations are not beyond the strength of their old men, women, and boys: so that they partic.i.p.ate in those laborious occupations, which among their neighbours are confined to the women. They make war on the Esquimaux, who cannot resist their superior numbers, and put them to death, as it is a principle with them never to make prisoners. At the same time they tamely submit to the Knisteneaux, who are not so numerous as themselves, when they treat them as enemies.

They do not affect that cold reserve at meeting, either among themselves or strangers, which is common with the Knisteneaux, but communicate mutually, and at once, all the information of which they are possessed.

Nor are they roused like them from an apparent torpor to a state of great activity. They are consequently more uniform in this respect, though they are of a very persevering disposition when their interest is concerned.

As these people are not addicted to spirituous liquors, they have a regular and uninterrupted use of their understanding, which is always directed to the advancement of their own interest; and this disposition, as may be readily imagined, sometimes occasions them to be charged with fraudulent habits. They will submit with patience to the severest treatment, when they are conscious that they deserve it, but will never forget or forgive any wanton or unnecessary rigour. A moderate conduct I never found to fail, nor do I hesitate to represent them, altogether, as the most peaceable tribe of Indians known in North America.

There are conjurers and high-priests, but I was not present at any of their ceremonies; though they certainly operate in an extraordinary manner on the imaginations of the people in the cure of disorders.

Their princ.i.p.al maladies are, rheumatic pains, the flux and consumption.

The venereal complaint is very common; but though its progress is slow, it gradually undermines the const.i.tution, and brings on premature decay.

They have recourse to superst.i.tion for their cure, and charms are their only remedies, except the bark of the willow, which being burned and reduced to powder, is strewed upon green wounds and ulcers, and places contrived for promoting perspiration. Of the use of simples and plants they have no knowledge; nor can it be expected, as their country does not produce them.

Though they have enjoyed so long an intercourse with Europeans, their country is so barren, as not to be capable of producing the ordinary necessaries naturally introduced by such a communication and they continue, in a great measure, their own inconvenient and awkward modes of taking their game and preparing it when taken. Sometimes they drive the deer into the small lakes, where they spear them, or force them into inclosures, where the bow and arrow are employed against them. These animals are also taken in snares made of skin. In the former instance the game is divided among those who have been engaged in the pursuit of it. In the latter it is considered as private property; nevertheless, any unsuccessful hunter pa.s.sing by, may take a deer so caught, leaving the head, skin, and saddle for the owner. Thus, though they have no regular government, as every man is lord in his own family, they are influenced, more or less, by certain principles which condone to their general benefit.

In their quarrels with each other, they very rarely proceed to a greater degree of violence than is occasioned by blows, wrestling, and pulling of the hair, while their abusive language consists in applying the name of the most offensive animal to the object of their displeasure, and adding the term ugly, and chiay, or still-born.[5]

Their arms and domestic apparatus, in addition to the articles procured from Europeans, are spears, bows, and arrows, fis.h.i.+ng nets, and lines made of green deer-skin thongs. They have also nets for taking the beaver as he endeavours to escape from his lodge when it is broken open.

It is set in a particular manner for the purpose, and a man is employed to watch the moment when he enters the snare, or he would soon cut his way through it. He is then thrown upon the ice where he remains as if he had no life in him.

The snow-shoes are of a very superior workmans.h.i.+p. The inner part of their frame is straight, the outer one is curved, and it is pointed at both ends, with that in front turned up. They are also laced with great neatness with thongs made of deer-skin. The sledges are formed of thin slips of board turned up also in front, and are highly polished with crooked knives, in order to slide along with facility. Close-grained wood is, on that account, the best; but theirs are made of the red or swamp spruce-fir tree.

The country, which these people claim as their land, has a very small quant.i.ty of earth, and produces little or no wood or herbage. Its chief vegetable substance is the moss, on which the deer feed; and a kind of rock moss, which, in times of scarcity, preserves the lives of the natives. When boiled in water, it dissolves into a clammy, glutinous substance, that affords a very sufficient nourishment. But, notwithstanding the barren state of their country, with proper care and economy, these people might live in great comfort, for the lakes abound in fish, and the hills are covered with deer. Though, of all the Indian people of this continent they are considered as the most provident, they suffer severely at certain seasons, and particularly in the dead of winter, when they are under the necessity of retiring to their scanty, stinted woods. To the Westward of them the musk-ox may be found, but they have no dependence on it as an article of sustenance. There are also large hares, a few white wolves, peculiar to their country, and several kinds of foxes, with white and grey partridges, etc. The beaver and moose-deer they do not find till they come within 60 degrees North lat.i.tude; and the buffalo is still further South. That animal is known to frequent an higher lat.i.tude to the Westward of their country. These people bring pieces of beautiful variegated marble, which are found on the surface of the earth. It is easily worked, bears a fine polish, and hardens with time; it endures heat, and is manufactured into pipes or calumets, as they are very fond of smoking tobacco; a luxury which the Europeans communicated to them.

Their amus.e.m.e.nts or recreations are but few. Their music is so inharmonious, and their dancing so awkward, that they might be supposed to be ashamed of both, as they very seldom practise either. They also shoot at marks, and play at the games common among them; but in fact they prefer sleeping to either; and the greater part of their time is pa.s.sed in procuring food, and resting from the toil necessary to obtain it. They are also of a querulous disposition, and are continually making complaints; which they express by a constant repet.i.tion of the word eduiy, "it is hard," in a whining and plaintive tone of voice.

They are superst.i.tious in the extreme, and almost every action of their lives, however trivial, is more or less influenced by some whimsical notion. I never observed that they had any particular form of religious wors.h.i.+p; but as they believe in a good and evil spirit, and a state of future rewards and punishments, they cannot be devoid of religious impressions. At the same time they manifest a decided unwillingness to make any communications on the subject.

The Chepewyans have been accused of abandoning their aged and infirm people to perish, and of not burying their dead; but these are melancholy necessities, which proceed from their wandering way of life.

They are by no means universal, for it is within my knowledge, that a man, rendered helpless by the palsy, was carried about for many years, with the greatest tenderness and attention, till he died a natural death. That they should not bury their dead in their own country, cannot be imputed to them as a custom arising from a savage insensibility, as they inhabit such high lat.i.tudes that the ground never thaws; but it is well known, that when they are in the woods, they cover their dead with trees. Besides, they manifest no common respect to the memory of their departed friends, by a long period of mourning, cutting off their hair, and never making use of the property of the deceased.

Nay, they frequently destroy or sacrifice their own, as a token of regret and sorrow.

If there be any people who, from the barren state of their country, might be supposed to be cannibals by nature, these people, from the difficulty they, at times, experience in procuring food, might be liable to that imputation. But, in all my knowledge of them, I never was acquainted with one instance of that disposition; nor among all the natives which I met with in a route of five thousand miles, did I see or hear of an example of cannibalism, but such as arose from that irresistible necessity, which has been known to impel even the most civilized people to eat each other.

EXAMPLES OF THE CHEPEWYAN TONGUE

Man Dinnie.

Woman Chequois.

Young man Quelaquis.

Young woman Quelaquis chequoi.

My son Zi azay.

My daughter Zi lengai.

My husband Zi dinnie.

My wife Zi zayunai.

My brother Zi raing.

My father Zi tah.

My mother Zi nah.

My grandfather Zi unai.

Me, or my See.

I Ne.

You Nun.

They Be.

Head Edthie.

Hand Law.

Leg Edthen.

Foot Cuh.

Eyes Nackhay.

Teeth Goo.

Side Kac-hey.

Belly Bitt.

Tongue Edthu.

Hair Thiegah.

Back Losseh.

Blood Dell.

The Knee Cha-gutt.

Clothes or Blanket Etlunay.

Coat Eeh.

Leggin Th.e.l.l.

Shoes Kinchee.

Robe or Blanket Thuth.

Sleeves Bah.

Mittens Geese.

Cap Sah.

Swan Kagouce.

Duck Keth.

Goose Gah.

White partridge Ca.s.s bah.

Grey partridge Deyee.

Buffalo Giddy.

Moose deer Dinyai.

Rein deer Edthun.

Beaver Zah.

Bear Za.s.s.

Otter Gaby-ai.

Martin Thah.

Wolverine Naguiyai.

Wolf Yess (Nouhoay).

Fox Naguethey.

Hare Cah.

Dog Sliengh.

Beaver-skin Zah thah.

Otter skin Naby-ai thith.