[1] There may have been an earlier race inhabiting north-east America which was killed out or driven away by the last Glacial period.
[2] "The dogs of the Northern Indians are of various sizes and colours, but all of them have a foxy or wolf-like appearance, sharp noses, bushy tails, and sharp ears standing erect." (Samuel Hearne).
Hearne also remarks that the northern Indians had a superstitious reverence and liking for the wolf. They would frequently go to the mouth of the burrows where the female wolves lived with their young, take out the puppies and play with them, and even paint the faces of the young wolves with vermilion or red ochre.
When first observed by Europeans the unhappy Beothiks (of Newfoundland) had apparently no domestic dogs, only "tame wolves", whom they distinguished from the wild wolves by marking their ears. They were made more angry by the European seamen attacking and killing the wolves than by anything else they did. Apparently some kind of alliance had been struck up between the Beothiks—a nation of hunters—and the wolf packs which followed in their tracks; and the Newfoundland wolves were on the way to becoming domesticated "dogs". Later on it was realized that the island did produce a special breed—the celebrated Newfoundland dog—the original type of which was much smaller than the modern type, nearly or entirely black in colour, with a sharper muzzle and less pendulous ears. But its feet were as strongly webbed and its habits as aquatic as those of the "Newfoundland" of the modern breed. Some people have noticed the resemblance between the farmers' dogs in Norway and the Newfoundland type, and have thought that the latter may not be altogether of wolf extraction, but be descended from the dogs brought from Norway and Iceland by the Norse adventurers who visited Newfoundland in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
[3] Of which they made very serviceable chisels.
[4] See also pp. [156], [164], [186], and [199]. In this list I have put in italics the names of the tribes more important in history, and in capitals the principal group names.
[5] Kinistino, Kiristineaux, Kilistino; called "Crees" or "Kris" for short.