Canadian Crusoes: A Tale of the Rice Lake Plains

by Catharine Parr Strickland Traill

She would sit quiet and passive while Catharine bound up the long tresses of her hair, and smoothed them with her hands and the small wooden comb that Louis had cut for her use. Sometimes she would raise her eyes to her new friend’s face, with a quiet sad smile, and once she took her hands within her own, and gently pressed them to her breast and lips and forehead in token of gratitude, but she seldom gave utterance to any words, and would remain with her eyes fixed vacantly on some object which seemed unseen or to awaken no idea in her mind. At such times the face of the young squaw wore a dreamy apathy of expression, or rather it might with more propriety have been said, the absence of all expression, almost as blank as that of an infant of a few weeks old.

How intently did Catharine study that face, and strive to read what was passing within her mind! how did the lively intelligent Canadian girl, the offspring of a more intellectual race, long to instruct her Indian friend, to enlarge her mind by pointing out such things to her attention as she herself took interest in! She would then repeat the name of the object that she showed her several times over, and by degrees the young squaw learned the names of all the familiar household articles about the shanty, and could repeat them in her own soft plaintive tone; and when she had learned a new word, and could pronounce it distinctly, she would laugh, and a gleam of innocent joy and pleasure would lighten up her fine dark eyes, generally so fixed and sad-looking.

It was Catharine’s delight to teach her pupil to speak a language familiar to her own ears; she would lead her out among the trees, and name to her all the natural objects that presented themselves to view. And she in her turn made “Indiana” (for so they named the young squaw, after a negress that she had heard her father tell of, a nurse to one of his Colonel’s infant children,) tell her the Indian names for each object they saw. Indiana soon began to enjoy in her turn the amusement arising from instructing Catharine and the boys, and often seemed to enjoy the blunders they made in pronouncing the words she taught them. When really interested in anything that was going on, her eyes would beam out, and her smile gave an inexpressible charm to her face, for her lips were red and her teeth even and brilliantly white, so purely white that Catharine thought she had never seen any so beautiful in her life before; at such times her face was joyous and innocent as a little child’s, but there were also hours of gloom, that transformed it into an expression of sullen apathy; then a dull glassy look took possession of her eye, the full lip drooped and the form seemed rigid and stiff; obstinate determination neither to move nor speak characterised her in what Louis used to call the young squaw’s “dark hour.” Then it was that the savage nature seemed predominant, and her gentle nurse almost feared to look at her protegée or approach her.

“Hector,” said Louis, “you spoke about a jar of water being left at the camp; the jar would be a great treasure to us, let us go over for it.” Hector assented to the proposal. “And we may possibly pick up a few grains of Indian corn, to add to what you showed us.”

“If we are here in the spring,” said Hector, “you and I will prepare a small patch of ground and plant it with this corn;” and he sat down on the end of a log and began carefully to count the rows of grain on the cob, and then each corn grain by grain. “Three hundred and ten sound grains. Now if every one of these produces a strong plant, we shall have a great increase, and beside seed for another year, there will be, if it is a good year, several bushels to eat.”

“We shall have a glorious summer, mon ami, no doubt, and a fine flourishing crop, and Kate is a good hand at making supporne.” [FN: Supporne, probably an Indian word for a stir-about, or porridge, made of Indian meal, a common dish in every Canadian or Yankee farmer’s house.]

“You forget we have no porridge pot.”

“I was thinking of that Indian jar all the time. You will see what fine cookery we will make when we get it, if it will but stand fire. Come, let us be off, I am impatient till we get it home;” and Louis, who had now a new crotchet at work in his fertile and vivacious brain, was quite on the qui vive, and walked and danced along at a rate which proved a great disturbance to his graver companion, who tried to keep down his cousin’s lively spirits, by suggesting the probability of the jar being cracked, or that the Indians might have returned for it; but Louis was not one of the doubting sort, and Louis was right in not damping the ardour of his mind by causeless fears. The jar was there at the deserted camp, and though it had been knocked over by some animal, it was sound and strong, and excited great speculation in the two cousins, as to the particular material of which it was made, as it was unlike any sort of pottery they had ever before seen. It seemed to have been manufactured from some very dark red earth, or clay mixed up with pounded granite, as it presented the appearance of some coarse crystals; it was very hard and ponderous, and the surface was marked over in a rude sort of pattern as if punctured and scratched with some pointed instrument. It seemed to have been hardened by fire, and, from the smoked hue of one side, had evidently done good service as a cooking utensil. Subsequently they learned the way in which it was used:[FN: Pieces of this rude pottery are often found along the shores of the inland lakes, but I have never met with any of the perfect vessels in use with the Indians, who probably find it now easier to supply themselves with iron pots and crockery from the towns of the European settlers.] the jar being placed near but not on the fire, was surrounded by hot embers, and the water made to boil by stones being made red hot and plunged into it: in this way soup and other food were prepared, and kept stewing, with no further trouble after once the simmering began, than adding a few fresh embers at the side furthest from the fir; a hot stone also placed on the top, facilitated the cooking process.

Louis, who like all French people was addicted to cookery,—indeed it was an accomplishment he prided himself on,—was enchanted with the improvement made in their diet by the acquisition of the said earthen jar, or pipkin, and gave Indiana some praise for initiating his cousin in the use of it. Catharine and Hector declared that he went out with his bow and arrows, and visited his dead-falls and snares, ten times oftener than he used to do, just for the sake of proving the admirable properties of this precious utensil, and finding out some new way of dressing his game. At all events there was a valuable increase of furs, for making up into clothing, caps, leggings, mitts, and other articles.

From the Indian girl Catharine learned the value of many of the herbs and shrubs that grew in her path, the bark and leaves of various trees, and many dyes she could extract, with which she stained the quills of the porcupine and the strips of the wood of which she made baskets and mats. The little creeping winter-green, [FN: Gualtheria procumbens,—Spice Winter-green.] with its scarlet berries, that grows on the dry flats, or sandy hills, which the Canadians call spice-berry, she showed them was good to eat, and she would crush the leaves, draw forth their fine aromatic flavour in her hands, and then inhale their fragrance with delight. She made an infusion of the leaves, and drank it as a tonic. The inner bark of the wild black cherry, she said was good to cure ague and fever. The root of the dulçamara, or bitter-sweet, she scraped down and boiled in the deer-fat, or the fat of any other animal, and made an ointment that possessed very healing qualities, especially as an immediate application to fresh burns.