The Crees are a vain, fickle, improvident, indolent, and ludicrously boastful race. They are also great gamblers, but, instead of cards or dice, they play with the stones of a species of prunus. The difficulty lies in guessing the number of stones which are tossed out of a small wooden dish, and the hunters will spend whole nights at this destructive sport, staking their most valuable articles. They have, however, a much more manly amusement, termed the “cross,” although they do not engage even in it without depositing considerable stakes. An extensive meadow is chosen for this sport, and the articles staked are tied to a post, or deposited in the custody of two old men. The combatants being stripped and painted, and each provided with a kind of racket, in shape resembling the letter P, with a handle about two feet long, and a head loosely wrought with net-work, so as to form a shallow bag, range themselves on different sides. A ball being now tossed up in the middle, each party endeavors to drive it to their respective goals, and much dexterity and agility is displayed in the contest. When a nimble runner gets the ball in his cross, he sets off towards the goal with the utmost speed, and is followed by the rest, who endeavor to jostle him and shake it out, but, if hard pressed, he discharges it with a jerk, to be forwarded by his own party or bandied back by their opponents until the victory is decided by its passing the goal.
Neither the Esquimaux nor the Tinné have any visible objects of worship, but the Crees carry with them small wooden figures rudely carved, or merely the tops of a few willow-bushes tied together, as the representatives of a malicious, or at least capricious being, called Kepoochikann. Their most common petition to this being is for plenty of food, but as they do not trust entirely to his favor, they endeavor at the same time to propitiate the animal, an imaginary representative of the whole race of larger quadrupeds that are objects of the chase.
Though often referring to the Kitche-manito, the “Great Spirit,” or “Master of Life,” they do not believe that he cares for his creatures, and consequently never think of praying to him. They have no legend about the creation, but they speak of a deluge caused by an attempt of the fish to drown Woesack-ootchacht, a kind of demi-god, with whom they had quarrelled. Having constructed a raft, this being embarked with his family and all kinds of birds and beasts. After the flood had continued for some time, he ordered several waterfowl to dive to the bottom. They were all drowned; but a musk-rat, dispatched on the same errand, returned with a mouthful of mud, out of which Woesack-ootchacht, imitating the mode in which the rats construct their houses, formed a new earth. First a small conical hill of mud appeared above the water; by-and-by, its base gradually spreading out, it became an extensive bank, which the rays of the sun at length hardened into firm land. Notwithstanding the power that Woesack-ootchacht here displayed, his person is held in very little reverence by the Indians, who do not think it worth while to make any effort to avert his wrath.
Like the Tinné, the Crees also have a Tartarus and an Elysium. The souls of the departed are obliged to scramble with great labor up the sides of a steep mountain, upon attaining the summit of which they are rewarded with the prospect of an extensive plain abounding in all sorts of game, and interspersed here and there with new tents pitched in pleasant situations. While they are absorbed in the contemplation of this delightful scene, they are descried by the inhabitants of the happy land, who, clothed in new skin dresses, approach and welcome, with every demonstration of kindness, those Indians who have led good lives, but the bad Indians are told to return from whence they came, and without more ceremony are hurled down the precipice.
As yet Christianity has made but little progress among the Indians of British North America, its benefits being hitherto confined to the Ojibbeways of Lake Huron, and to a small number of the Crees of the Hudson’s Bay territory. The well-fed Sauteurs of the Winipeg are as disinclined to be converted as the buffalo-hunters of the prairies.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE TINNÉ INDIANS.
The various Tribes of the Tinné Indians.—The Dog-ribs.—Clothing.—The Hare Indians.—Degraded State of the Women.—Practical Socialists.—Character.—Cruelty to the Aged and Infirm.
The Tinné Indians, whose various tribes range from the Lower Mackenzie to the Upper Saskatchewan, and from New Caledonia to the head of Chesterfield Inlet, occupy a considerable part of the territories of the Hudson’s Bay Company. To their race belong the Strongbows of the Rocky Mountains; the Beaver Indians, between Peace River and the west branch of the Mackenzie; the Red-knives, thus named from the copper knives of which their native ores furnish the materials, and who roam between the Great Fish River and the Coppermine; the Hare Indians, who inhabit the thickly wooded district of the Mackenzie from Slave Lake downward; the Dog-ribs, who occupy the inland country on the east from Martin Lake to the Coppermine; the Athabascans, who frequent the Elk and Slave Rivers, and many other tribes of inferior note.
The Tinné, in general, have more regular features than the Esquimaux, and, taken on the whole, exhibit all the characteristics of the red races dwelling farther south; but their utter disregard of cleanliness and their abject behavior (for when in the company of white people they exhibit the whine and air of inveterate mendicants) give them a wretched appearance. Mackenzie, the first European who became acquainted with the Dog-ribs, describes them as an ugly emaciated tribe, covered with dirt and besmeared with grease from head to foot. More than sixty years have passed since Mackenzie’s journey, but his account of them is true to the present day. The women are even uglier and more filthy than the men, for the latter at least paint their unwashed faces and wear trinkets on festive occasions, while the females leave even their hair without any other dressing than wiping their greasy hands on the matted locks, when they have been rubbing their bodies with marrow. The clothing of the men in summer consists of reindeer leather dressed like shammy, which, when newly made, is beautifully white and soft. “A shirt of this material,” says Sir John Richardson, to whom we are indebted for the best account of the various nations inhabiting the Hudson’s Bay territory, “cut evenly below, reaches to the middle; the ends of a piece of cloth secured to a waist-band hang down before and behind; the hose, or Indian stockings, descend from the top of the thigh to the ankle, and a pair of moccasins or shoes of the same soft leather with tops which fold round the ankle, complete the costume. When the hunter is equipped for the chase he wears, in addition, a stripe of white hare-skin, or of the belly part of a deer-skin, in a bandana round the head, with his lank, black elf-locks streaming from beneath; a shot-pouch suspended by an embroidered belt, a fire-bag or tobacco-pouch tucked into the girdle, and a long fowling-piece thrown carelessly across the arm, or balanced on the back of the neck. The several articles here enumerated are ornamented at the seams and hems with leather thongs wound round with porcupine quills, or more or less embroidered with bead-work, according to the industry of the wife or wives. One of the young men, even of the slovenly Dog-ribs, when newly equipped, and tripping jauntily over the mossy ground with an elastic step, displays his slim and not ungraceful figure to advantage. But this fine dress once donned is neither laid aside nor cleaned while it lasts, and soon acquires a dingy look, and an odor which betrays its owner at some distance. In the camp a greasy blanket of English manufacture is worn over the shoulders by day, and forms with the clothes the bedding by night.”