Its Cree name is passeeaweymeenan, and it is known to occur as far
north as Great Slave Lake.
(*Footnote. Thuya occidentalis.)
(**Footnote. Prunus virginiana.)
(***Footnote. Prunus pensylvanica.)
The most esteemed fruit of the country however is the produce of the
Aronia ovalis. Under the name of meesasscootoomena it is a favourite dish
at most of the Indian feasts and, mixed with pemmican, it renders that
greasy food actually palatable. A great variety of currants and
gooseberries are also mentioned by the natives under the name of
sappoommeena but we only found three species in the neighbourhood of
Cumberland House. The strawberry, called by the Crees oteimeena, or
heart-berry, is found in abundance and rasps are common on the sandy
banks of the rivers. The fruits hitherto mentioned fall in the autumn but
the following berries remained hanging on the bushes in the spring and
are considered as much mellowed by exposure to the colds in winter. The
red whortleberry (Vaccinium vitis idea) is found everywhere but is most
abundant in rocky places. It is aptly termed by the Crees weesawgummeena,
sour-berry. The common cranberry (Oxycoccos palustris) is distinguished
from the preceding by its growing on moist sphagnous spots and is hence
called maskoegomeena, swamp-berry. The American guelder rose whose fruit
so strongly resembles the cranberry is also common. There are two kinds
of it (Viburnum oxycoccos and edule) one termed by the natives
peepoonmeena, winter-berry, and the other mongsoameena, moose-berry.
There is also a berry of a bluish white colour, the produce of the white
cornel tree, which is named musquameena, bear-berry, because these
animals are said to fatten on it. The dwarf Canadian cornel bears a
corymb of red berries which are highly ornamental to the woods throughout
the country but are not otherwise worthy of notice for they have an
insipid farinaceous taste and are seldom gathered.
The Crees extract some beautiful colours from several of their native
vegetables. They dye their porcupine quills a beautiful scarlet with the
roots of two species of bed-straw (Galium tinctorium and boreale) which
they indiscriminately term sawoyan. The roots, after being carefully
washed, are boiled gently in a clean copper kettle, and a quantity of the
juice of the moose-berry, strawberry, cranberry, or arctic raspberry, is
added together with a few red tufts of pistils of the larch. The
porcupine quills are plunged into the liquor before it becomes quite cold
and are soon tinged of a beautiful scarlet. The process sometimes fails
and produces only a dirty brown, a circumstance which ought probably to
be ascribed to the use of an undue quantity of acid. They dye black with
an ink made of elder bark and a little bog-iron-ore, dried and pounded,
and they have various modes of producing yellow.
