W. E. Cormack

“ But it is to be lamented that now, when we have taken up the cause of a barbarously treated people, so few should remain to reap the benefit of our plans for their civilization. The institution and its supporters will agree with me, that, after the unfortunate circumstances attending past encounters between the Europeans and the Red Indians, it is best now to employ Indians belonging to the other tribes to be the medium of beginning the intercourse we have in view ”

“ These people appear to have always shewn great respect for their dead; and the most remarkable remains of them commonly observed by Europeans, at the sea-coast, are their burying-places. These are at particular chosen spots; and it is well known that they have been in the habit of bringing their dead from a distance to them. With their women, they bury only their clothes.
On the north side of the lake, opposite the River Exploits, are the extremities of two deer fences, about half a mile apart, where they lead to the water. ”

“ Had there been any survivors, nails being much prized by these people, they never having held intercourse with Europeans, such an article would most likely have been taken out for use again. All the birch trees in the vicinity of the lake had been rinded, and many of them and of the spruce fir or var (Pinus balsamifera, Canadian balsam tree) had the bark taken off, to use the inner part of it for food, as noticed before.
Their wooden repositories for the dead are what are in the most perfect state of preservation. ”

“ A canoe-rest is simply a few beams, supported horizontally, about five feet from the ground, by perpendicular posts. A party with two canoes, when descending from the interior to the sea-coast, through such a part of the country as this, where there are troublesome portages, leave one canoe resting, bottom up, on this kind of frame, to protect it from injury by the weather, until their return. ”

“ A fourth, and the most common mode of burying among these people, has been, to wrap the body in birch-rind, and cover it over with a heap of stones, on the surface of the earth, in some retired spot; sometimes the body, thus wrapped up, is put a foot or two under the surface, and the spot covered with stones ”

“ At these passes, which are particular places in the migration lines of path, such as the extreme ends of, and straights in, many of the large lakes,—the foot of valleys between high or rugged mountains,—fords in the large rivers, and the like,—the Indians kill great numbers of deer with very little trouble, during their migrations. ”

“ Here are the remains of one of their villages, where the vestiges of eight or ten winter mamateeks or wigwams, each intended to contain from six to eighteen or twenty people, are distinctly seen close together. Besides these, there are the remains of a number of summer wigwams. Every winter wigwam has close by it a small square-mouthed or oblong pit, dug into the earth, about four feet deep, to preserve their stores, &c. in. Some of these pits were lined with birch-rind. ”

“ In one of them, which resembled a hut, ten feet by eight or nine, and four or five feet high in the centre, floored with squared poles, the roof covered with rinds of trees, and in every way well secured against the weather inside and the intrusion of wild beasts, there were two grown persons laid out at full length on the floor, the bodies wrapped round with deer-skins. ”

“ It was now near the middle of November, and the winter had commenced pretty severely in the interior. The country was everywhere covered with snow, and, for some days past, we had walked over the small ponds on the ice. ”

“ That it be the endeavour of this institution to collect every useful information respecting the natural productions and resources of this island, and, from time to time, to publish the same in its reports: That the instruction of Shawnawdithit would be much accelerated by bringing her to St John's, &c.: That the proceedings of the institution, since its establishment, be laid before his Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, by the president, on his arrival in England. ”