It Had Been Our Invariable Practice Hitherto To Encamp Near
Hills, And Be On Their Summits By The Dawn Of
Day, to try to discover
the morning smoke ascending from the Red Indians' camps; and, to
prevent the discovery of
Ourselves, we extinguished our own fire
always some length of time before day-light.
Our only and frail hope now left of seeing the Red Indians lay on the
banks of the River Exploits, on our return to the sea-coast.
The Red Indians' Lake discharges itself about three or four miles from
its north-east end, and its waters from the River Exploits. From the
lake to the sea-coast is considered about seventy miles; and down this
noble river the steady perseverance and intrepidity of my Indians
carried me on rafts in four days, to accomplish which otherwise, would
have required, probably, two weeks. We landed at various places on
both banks of the river on our way down, but found no traces of the
Red Indians so recent as those seen at the portage at Badger Bay-Great
Lake, towards the beginning of our excursion. During our descent, we
had to construct new rafts at the different waterfalls. Sometimes we
were carried down the rapids at the rate of ten miles an hour or more,
with considerable risk of destruction to the whole party, for we were
always together on one raft.
What arrests the attention most while gliding down the stream, is the
extent of the Indian fences to entrap the deer. They extend from the
lake downwards, continuous, on the banks of the river at least thirty
miles. There are openings left here and there in them, for the animals
to go through and swim across the river, and at these places the
Indians are stationed, and kill them in the water with spears, out of
their canoes, as at the lake. Here, then, connecting these fences with
those on the north-west side of the lake, is at least forty miles of
country, easterly and westerly, prepared to intercept all the deer
that pass that way in their periodical migrations. It was melancholy
to contemplate the gigantic, yet feeble efforts of a whole primitive
nation, in their anxiety to provide subsistence, forsaken and going to
decay.
There must have been hundreds of the Red Indians, and that not many
years ago, to have kept up these fences and ponds. As their numbers
were lessened so was their ability to keep them up for the purposes
intended; and now the deer pass the whole line unmolested.
We infer, that the few of these people who yet survive, have taken
refuge in some sequestered spot, still in the northern part of the
island, and where they can procure deer to subsist on.
On the 29th November we were again returned to the mouth of the River
Exploits, in thirty days after our departure from thence, after having
made a complete circuit of about 200 miles in the Red Indian
territory.
* * * * *
I have now stated generally the result of my excursion, avoiding, for
the present, entering into any detail. The materials collected on
this, as well as on my excursion across the interior a few years ago,
and on other occasions, put me in possession of a general knowledge of
the natural condition and productions of Newfoundland; and, as a
member of an institution formed to protect the aboriginal inhabitants
of the country in which we live, and to prosecute inquiry into the
moral character of man in his primitive state, I can, at this early
stage of our institution, assert, trusting to nothing vague, that we
already possess more information concerning these people than has been
obtained during the two centuries and a-half in which Newfoundland has
been in the possession of Europeans. 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; and indeed I have already chosen
three of the most intelligent men from among the others met with in
Newfoundland to follow up my search.
In conclusion, I congratulate the institution on the acquisition of
several ingenious articles, the manufacture of the Boeothicks, some
of which we had the good fortune to discover on our recent
excursion; - models of their canoes, bows and arrows, spears of
different kinds, &c. and also a complete dress worn by that people.
Their mode of kindling fire is not only original, but as far as we at
present know, is peculiar to the tribe. These articles, together with
a short vocabulary of their language consisting of 200 to 300 words,
which I have been enabled to collect, prove the Boeothicks to be a
distinct tribe from any hitherto discovered in North America. One
remarkable characteristic of their language, and in which it resembles
those of Europe more than any other Indian languages do, with which we
have had an opportunity of comparing it, - is its abounding in
diphthongs. In my detailed report, I would propose to have plates of
these articles, and also of the like articles used by other tribes of
Indians, that a comparative idea may be formed of them; and, when the
Indian female Shawnawdithit arrives in St John's, I would recommend
that a correct likeness of her be taken, and be preserved in the
records of the institution. One of the specimens of mineralogy which
we found in our excursion, was a block of what is called Labrador
Felspar, nearly four one-half feet in length, by about three feet in
breadth and thickness. This is the largest piece of that beautiful
rock yet discovered any where.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 4 of 5
Words from 3104 to 4110
of 5074
