By Canoe and Dog Train Among The Cree and Salteaux Indians

by Egerton Ryerson Young

Then there was a little whispering among them, and one of them, speaking out softly, said in the Cree language, “Non pimmatissit;” the English of which is, “He is not among the living.”

The poor Indians, who have not as yet come to understand that death is a conquered foe, never like to use the word; and so, when speaking of those who have gone, they say they are “not among the living.”

When in this expressive way I learned that my old friend was dead, my heart was filled with sorrow, as I saw also were theirs. After a little pause I said, “Tell me how he died.”

At first there was a great deal of reluctance to answer this question; but when they saw I was not only anxious but resolved to know all about it, they took me into a wigwam where most of his relatives were, and there a young man, a grandson, got up and told me this pathetic story.

He said: “Missionary, you had not been long gone with your canoe last summer before Mismis,” (the Indian word for “grandfather”), “got very sick, and after some weeks he seemed to know that he was going to leave us. So he called us all around him, and said a great many things to us. I cannot remember them all, as he spoke many times; but I do remember that he said, ‘how I wish the Missionary would soon come again to talk to me and comfort me! But he is far away, and my memory is bad, and I have forgotten what he used to say to me. My body is breaking up, and so also is my memory getting bad. Tell him his coming was like the sunlight on the waters; but it was so seldom that he came that all in my mind has got so dark, and my memory is so bad, that I have forgotten all he used to say to me. The good things he used to tell us about the Good Spirit and His Son, and what we ought to do, have slipped away from me. O that he were here to help me! Tell him, as long as I was able; I used to go up to the point of land that runs out into the lake, and watch if I could see his canoe returning. But it came not. Tell him I have, since the winter set in, listened for the sound of the bells on his dog-trains. But I have not heard them. O that he were here to help me! He is far away; so get me my old drum and medicine bag, and let me die as did my fathers. But you, young people, with good memories, who can remember all the Missionary has said to you, listen to his words, and worship the Great Spirit and His Son, as he tells you, and do not do as I am doing!’

“Then, as we saw his mind was weak, or he would not have asked for his old things, we got him the old drum, and put it before him where he was sitting upon the ground. We also hung up a medicine bag before him in the wigwam, and he drummed. As he drummed he fell, and as he fell he died. But his last words were to the young people with good memories to be sure and listen to the Missionary, and to give up all their old Indian sinful paganism.”

When the young man ceased and sat down again, a deep silence fell upon us all, as there we were huddled that cold, stormy day in that little bark tent. An occasional sob from some sorrowing relative was the only sound heard for several minutes.

My own heart was deeply affected when they told me these and other things, which I cannot now call up, about the old Indian’s death. After a while I broke the silence by saying, “Where have you buried him?”

They showed me the place. It was where his wigwam had stood. So terrible is the power of the Frost King in that land in winter, that to dig a grave out in the open places is like cutting through a granite rock. And so in his tent, where burned his fire, thus keeping the ground unfrozen, there they dug his grave and buried him. The wigwam was removed, and soon the fierce storms swept over the place, and the snow fell deeply upon it, and there was nothing to indicate that there, so shortly before, had been a human habitation.

When they had pointed out the place where, underneath the snow-drift, rested all that was mortal of my old friend, I lingered until the Indians had sought the shelter of their wigwams from the bitter cold, and then all alone, except with Him Who hears His people’s cry, I knelt down in the snow and prayed, or tried to pray. But I could only weep out my sorrow as I thought of this old man’s precious soul passing into eternity under such strange circumstances. With his waning strength he exhorted his loved ones to be Christians, and yet he himself was performing some of the foolish and unmeaning rites of paganism, not because he had much faith in them, but because there was no Missionary or teacher to keep in his memory the story of Jesus and His wondrous love!