HEATHEN INDIANS.
The question of how and where to begin work among the Indians was a difficult one, and on Mr. Black largely fell the responsibility of determining the question. He had the confidence of the committee in the east, and he was the friend of the Hudson's Bay Company in the far west. The Church of England and Roman Catholics were carrying on work among the Swampy Crees, Saulteaux, and other Ojibways about Lake of the Woods and Lake Manitoba, as well as in the far off Mackenzie River district, while the former had almost a monopoly of the missions around Hudson Bay. The English Wesleyans had for years carried on missions among the Indians near Norway House and the north end of Lake Winnipeg, and after the visit of John Ryerson, whose letters about the region were published, the work was taken over by the Methodist Church in Canada. It was manifest that the call sent the Presbyterian Church was to the Indians of the western prairies, who had only seen the passing missionary and were still in absolute heathenism. After much deliberation it was decided to undertake work among the Crees of the plains, of whom there were said to be from ten to fifteen thousand largely without the gospel.
These Indians are among the finest physically and mentally of the Canadian Indians. They are of the same race as the Ojibways, belonging to the great Algonquin family known on the Atlantic sea-board and continuing along the Laurentian country to the north of our Canadian lake chain. Leaving behind the rocky regions where the birch-bark canoe and wigwam, and the fish of the streams, with the game of the forest, had been their chief dependence, the Crees of the Plains used horses, of which they had numerous bands, chased the buffalo to obtain a bountiful subsistence, and lived in leathern teepees. The language of the Crees, while the same in structure as that of the Ojibways, has yet its vocabulary much modified from that of the parent tongue. While the Crees, in their love of the buffalo and fondness for following the herds over the plains, were thoroughly nomadic and likely to be difficult to evangelize, yet the task was undertaken cheerfully. Their great camps were the scenes of the wildest excitement and greatest excesses, and yet they were a brave, self-reliant, and able people. The cut given of four of their chiefs who visited Brantford at the time of the unveiling of the Brant statue in 1886, gives a good illustration of the appearance of staidness and solidity found among them.