Chipewyan

“ This district, more particularly termed the Chipewyan lands or barren country, is frequented by numerous herds of reindeer which furnish easy subsistence and clothing to the Indians, but the traders endeavour to keep them in the parts to the westward where the beavers resort. There are about one hundred and sixty hunters who carry their furs to the Great Slave Lake, forty to Hay River, and two hundred and forty to Fort Chipewyan. A few Northern Indians also resort to the posts at the bottom of the Lake of the Hills, on Red Deer Lake, and to Churchill. ”

“ There were Loutits in Chipewyan as far back as the old journals reach. The Scottish blood has intermingled with that of Cree and Chipewyan and the resultant in this day's generation is a family of striking young people—the girls good to look at and clever in bead-work and quill-ornamentation, the boys skilled in nemoral arts and holding the strong men's records of the North. ”

“ Frenchmen gave to France a continent. France thought little of the gift, and fate took it back again. History sometimes repeats itself. There is a younger if not a greater Britain waiting quietly to reap the harvest of her mother’s mistakes.
But to Chipewyan. It is emphatically a lonely spot; in summer the cry of the wild bird keeps time to the lapping of the wave on the rocky shore, or the pine islands rustle in the western breeze; nothing else moves over these 8000 square miles of crystal water. ”

“ If men were seen at a distance, and a Chipewyan was asked who those persons were, he would answer, The People, if he recognised them to belong to his tribe, and never Chipewyans; but he would give them their respective names, if they were Europeans, Canadians, or Cree Indians. ”

“ This shocking custom, however, is seldom heard of among the Indians of this neighbourhood; but is said to prevail with the Chipewyan or Northern Indians, who are no sooner burdened with their relations, broken with years and infirmities, and incapable of following the camp, than they leave them to their fate. Instead of repining they are reconciled to this dreadful termination of their existence, from the known custom of their nation, and being conscious that they can no longer endure the various distresses and fatigue of savage life, or assist in hunting for provisions. ”

“ A century ago Chipewyan was much the same as to-day, except that it lay on the south side of the lake. Mails came only once in two years instead of monthly, and rival traders were engaged in the merry game of slitting each other's throats. All together, it wasn't exactly the place for ambition to dream; but ambition was there in the person of Alexander Mackenzie, the young fur trader, dreaming what he hardly dared hope. Business men fight shy of dreamers; so Mackenzie told his dreams to no one but his cousin Roderick, whom he pledged to secrecy. ”

“ At length they came to a strait which they crossed upon a raft but the sea has since frozen and they have never been able to return. These traditions are unknown to the Chipewyans.
The number of men and boys of the Strong-bow nation who are capable of hunting may amount to seventy.
There are some other tribes who also speak dialects of the Chipewyan upon the upper branches of the Rivière aux Liards such as the Nohhannies and the Tsillawdawhoot-dinneh or Brushwood Indians. They are but little known but the latter are supposed occasionally to visit some of the establishments on Peace River. ”

“ The Chipewyan Indians, whom he found occupying advantageous positions everywhere as far as the north end of Dubawnt Lake, had disappeared, and in their places the country had been occupied by scattered bands and families of Eskimos, who had almost forgotten the ocean shores of the north, from which they had come. They were depending entirely, for food and clothing, on the caribou, which they killed on the banks of the inland streams and lakes. ”

“ Soon he was winding his way up a gully in the ridge of rocks, and right before him was the object he had previously descried. As he drew near, it took on the form of an Indian girl, a young and beautiful Chipewyan of about eighteen summers. She wore a blanket-skirt, very short as to length; a pair of red stroud leggings, beadwork moccasins and a thick woollen shawl, which ordinarily muffled the head and face but had now slipped back, leaving them exposed to view. She was a Chipewyan, but had scarcely a feature like them. ”

“ From Edmonton northward to Fort Chipewyan the Indians are all Crees. At Fort Chipewyan the northern limit of the Crees impinges on the southern limit of the Chipewyan, but here at Fond du Lac the Indians are all true Chipewyans. The Chipewyan wife is the New Red Woman. We see in her the essential head of the household. No fur is sold to the trader, no yard or pound of goods bought, without her expressed consent. Indeed, the traders refuse to make a bargain of any kind with a Chipewyan man without the active approbation of the wife. When a Chipewyan family moves camp, it is Mrs. ”

“ I found several of the older men lamenting the degeneracy of their people. "Our fathers were hunters and our mothers made good moccasins, but the young men are lazy loafers around the trading posts, and the women get money in bad ways to buy what they should make with their hands."
The Chipewyan dialects are peculiarly rasping, clicking, and guttural, especially when compared with Cree.
Every man and woman and most of the children among them smoke. ”

“ We likewise engaged, as hunters for Great Bear Lake, a Chipewyan family, comprehending an old man, his two sons and two sons-in-law, accompanied by their wives and children.
It is with sincere pleasure I take this occasion of observing, that the harsh treatment of their women, for which the Chipewyans were, not long since, remarkable, even among the North American tribes, is now greatly alleviated, especially among those who have frequent communication with the establishments. ”

“ But there is one remarkable circumstance that impressed me more and more—practically every Chipewyan reads and writes his own language.
This miracle was inborn on me slowly. On the first Buffalo hunt we had found a smoothened pole stuck in the ground by the trail. It was inscribed as herewith.
"What is that Sousi?" "It's a notice from Chief William that Swiggert wants men on the portage," and he translated it literally: "The fat white man 5 scows, small white man 2 scows, gone down, men wanted for Rapids, Johnnie Bolette this letter for you. (Signed) Chief William." ”

“ These people are so minutely described by Hearne and Mackenzie that little can be added by a passing stranger whose observations were made during short interviews and when they were at the forts, where they lay aside many of their distinguishing characteristics and strive to imitate the manners of the voyagers and traders.
The Chipewyans are by no means prepossessing in appearance: they have broad faces, projecting cheek-bones and wide nostrils; but they have generally good teeth and fine eyes. ”

“ Their language, traditions, and customs, are essentially the same with those of the Chipewyans but in personal character they have greatly the advantage of that people, owing probably to local causes or perhaps to their procuring their food more easily and in greater abundance. They hold women in the same low estimation as the Chipewyans do, looking upon them as a kind of property which the stronger may take from the weaker whenever there is just reason for quarrelling, if the parties are of their own nation, or whenever they meet if the weaker party are Dog-Ribs or other strangers. ”

“ From this moment men spake in various tongues, for there remained in one fragment of the divided ark those whose descendants speak the Thlinkeet language, and in the other those whose descendants employ a different idiom. [I-33] The Chipewyan deluge covered all the earth except the high mountain-tops, upon which many of the people saved themselves. [I-34] The Isthmians believed that the world was peopled by a man who with his wife and children escaped the great flood. The Peruvians had several flood-myths. ”

“ Of the courage of the Chipewyan men I shall say nothing; of the beauty of the women I shall say something. To assert that they are very plain would not be true; they128 are undeniably ugly. Some of the young ones are very fat; all of the old ones are very thin. ”

“ These artful fellows usually gain complete ascendancy over the minds of their companions. They are supported by voluntary contributions of provision that their minds may not be diverted by the labour of hunting from the peculiar duties of their profession.
The chiefs among the Chipewyans are now totally without power. The presents of a flag and a gaudy dress still bestowed upon them by the traders do not procure for them any respect or obedience except from the youths of their own families. ”

“ The Chipewyans are considered to be less expert hunters than the Crees, which probably arises from their residing much on the barren lands, where the rein-deer are so numerous that little skill is requisite. A good hunter, however, is highly esteemed among them. The facility of procuring goods, since the commercial opposition commenced, has given great encouragement to their native indolence of disposition, as is manifested by the difference in the amount of their collections of furs and provision between the late and former years. ”

“ Dease to obtain answers from the old men of the tribe to a few queries which I drew up, and the following is the substance of the information he procured, which may be compared with the more extended statements by Hearne and Mackenzie, of the general belief of the Chipewyans.
The first man, they said, was, according to the tradition of their fathers, named Chapewee. He found the world well stocked with food, and he created children, to whom he gave two kinds of fruit, the black and the white, but forbade them to eat the black. ”

“ Since they have received arms from the traders, the Chipewyans are fearful of venturing upon their lands; and all of that nation, who frequent the shores of Great Slave Lake, hold the name of Akaitcho in great respect. The Chipewyans have no leader of equal authority amongst themselves.
The number of the Copper Indians may be one hundred and ninety souls, viz., eighty men and boys, and one hundred and ten women and young children. There are forty-five hunters in the tribe. The adherents of Akaitcho amount to about forty men and boys ”

“ A Canadian servant of the North-West Company who was residing with them informed us that this family had lost numerous relatives, and that the destruction of property which had been made after their deaths was the only cause for the pitiable condition in which we saw them as the whole family were industrious hunters and therefore were usually better provided with clothes and other useful articles than most of the Indians. We purchased from them a pair of snowshoes in exchange for some ammunition. The Chipewyans are celebrated for making them good and easy to walk in ”

“ It was painful to see several Indian women in an infirm state of health and lame, continually begging for a little oatmeal, or picking tripe de roche for a subsistence, being unable to follow the tribe they belonged to; and, upon inquiry, I found that it was a common custom among the Chipewyans, to leave the aged, the infirm, and the sick, when supposed incapable of recovery, to perish for want! and that one-half of the aged probably die in this miserable condition! ”

“ The Indians frequenting these forts are the Crees and some Chipewyans; they scarcely ever come except in the spring and autumn; in the former season to bring their winter's collection of furs, and in the latter to get the stores they require.
Three Chipewyan lads came in during our stay, to report what furs the band to which they [Pg 197] belonged had collected, and to desire they might be sent for; the Indians having declined bringing either furs or meat themselves, since the opposition between the Companies commenced. Mr. ”

“ The improvidence of the Indian character is an unsurmountable obstacle to its success, and in the Chipewyans is aggravated by a custom which the whites have not yet been able wholly to eradicate. On the death of a relative, they destroy guns, blankets, kettles, everything, in short, they possess, concluding the havoc by tearing their lodges to pieces. When these transports of grief have subsided, they must have recourse to the nearest establishment for a fresh supply of necessaries, and thus their debts are renewed. The debts of the deceased are, in every case, lost to the Company. ”

“ I have heard the words of the son of the Chepewyan, and the tale he has told of the Happy Island, and the Stone Canoe. It is the belief of his fathers, and he does well to treasure it up in his soul. The Knisteneaux have too their land of delight. It is in a different clime from that of the Chepewyan—how could it be, and continue a land of delight? Wars would arise between these ancient and implacable enemies, and the peace and quiet of the blessed regions be destroyed by their cries of hatred and revenge. Ask a Knisteneau to throw away his war-spear with a Chepewyan in his hunting-grounds? ”

“ CHIPPEWA RIVER.--At twelve o'clock precisely we came to the confluence of this fork with the main stream. The Chippewa is a noble mass of water, flowing with a wide sweeping majesty to the Mississippi. It excites the idea of magnitude. Wide plains, and the most sylvan and picturesque hills bound the view. We abandoned our smallest canoe at this point, and, pushing into the central channel of the grand current, pursued for six hours our way to its mouth, where we encamped on a long spit of naked sand, which marked its entrance into the Mississippi. ”