I had the
pleasure of meeting my friends all in good health after an absence of
nearly five months, during which time I had travelled one thousand one
hundred and four miles on snowshoes, and had no other covering at night
in the woods than a blanket and deer-skin with the thermometer frequently
at minus 40 degrees and once at minus 57 degrees, and sometimes passing
two or three days without tasting food.
...
CHAPTER 9.
CONTINUATION OF PROCEEDINGS AT FORT ENTERPRISE.
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE COPPER INDIANS.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE JOURNEY TO THE NORTHWARD.
CONTINUATION OF PROCEEDINGS AT FORT ENTERPRISE. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE
COPPER INDIANS.
March 18, 1821.
I shall now give a brief account of the Copper Indians termed by the
Chipewyans Tantsawhotdinneh, or Birch-rind Indians. They were originally
a tribe of the Chipewyans and, according to their own account, inhabited
the south side of Great Slave Lake at no very distant period. 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. They suffer however the kinder affections to show
themselves occasionally; they in general live happily with their wives,
the women are contented with their lot, and we witnessed several
instances of strong attachment. Of their kindness to strangers we are
fully qualified to speak; their love of property, attention to their
interests, and fears for the future made them occasionally clamorous and
unsteady; but their delicate and humane attention to us in a season of
great distress at a future period are indelibly engraven on our memories.
Of their notions of a Deity or future state we never could obtain any
satisfactory account; they were unwilling perhaps to expose their
opinions to the chance of ridicule. Akaitcho generally evaded our
questions on these points but expressed a desire to learn from us and
regularly attended Divine Service during his residence at the fort,
behaving with the utmost decorum.
This leader indeed and many others of his tribe possess a laudable
curiosity which might easily be directed to the most important ends; and
I believe that a well-conducted Christian mission to this quarter would
not fail of producing the happiest effect.
