The sphagnum in which the child is laid forms a soft elastic bed which absorbs moisture very readily and affords such a protection from the cold of a rigorous winter that its place would be ill supplied by cloth.
The mothers are careful to collect a sufficient quantity in autumn for winter use; but when through accident their stock fails they have recourse to the soft down of the typha, or reed mace, the dust of rotten wood, or even feathers, although none of these articles are so cleanly or so easily changed as the sphagnum.
The above is a brief sketch of such parts of the manners, character and customs of the Crees as we could collect from personal observation or from the information of the most intelligent half-breeds we met with; and we shall merely add a few remarks on the manner in which the trade is conducted at the different inland posts of the Fur Companies.
The standard of Exchange in all mercantile transactions with the natives is a beaver skin, the relative value of which as originally established by the traders differs considerably from the present worth of the articles it represents; but the Indians are averse to change. Three marten, eight muskrat, or a single lynx or wolverine skin, are equivalent to one beaver; a silver fox, white fox, or otter, are reckoned two beavers, and a black fox or large black bear are equal to four; a mode of reckoning which has very little connection with the real value of these different furs in the European market. Neither has any attention been paid to the original cost of European articles in fixing the tariff by which they are sold to the Indians. A coarse butcher’s knife is one skin, a woollen blanket or a fathom of coarse cloth eight, and a fowling-piece fifteen. The Indians receive their principal outfit of clothing and ammunition on credit in the autumn to be repaid by their winter hunts; the amount entrusted to each of the hunters varying with their reputations for industry and skill from twenty to one hundred and fifty skins. The Indians are generally anxious to pay off the debt thus incurred but their good intentions are often frustrated by the arts of the rival traders. Each of the Companies keeps men constantly employed travelling over the country during the winter to collect the furs from the different bands of hunters as fast as they are procured. The poor Indian endeavours to behave honestly and, when he has gathered a few skins, sends notice to the post from whence he procured his supplies but, if discovered in the meantime by the opposite party, he is seldom proof against the temptation to which he is exposed. However firm he may be in his denials at first his resolutions are enfeebled by the sight of a little rum and, when he has tasted the intoxicating beverage, they vanish like smoke and he brings forth his store of furs which he has carefully concealed from the scrutinising eyes of his visitors. This mode of carrying on the trade not only causes the amount of furs collected by either of the two Companies to depend more upon the activity of their agents, the knowledge they possess of the motions of the Indians, and the quantity of rum they carry, than upon the liberality of the credits they give, but is also productive of an increasing deterioration of the character of the Indians and will probably ultimately prove destructive to the fur trade itself. Indeed the evil has already in part recoiled upon the traders; for the Indians, long deceived, have become deceivers in their turn, and not unfrequently, after having incurred a heavy debt at one post, move off to another to play the same game. In some cases the rival posts have entered into a mutual agreement to trade only with the Indians they have respectively fitted out, but such treaties, being seldom rigidly adhered to, prove a fertile subject for disputes and the differences have been more than once decided by force of arms. To carry on the contest the two Companies are obliged to employ a great many servants whom they maintain often with much difficulty and always at a considerable expense.[[8]]
[8] As the contending parties have united the evils mentioned in this and the two preceding pages are now in all probability at an end.
There are thirty men belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Fort at Cumberland and nearly as many women and children.
The inhabitants of the North-West Company’s House are still more numerous. These large families are fed during the greatest part of the year on fish which are principally procured at Beaver Lake, about fifty miles distant. The fishery, commencing with the first frosts in autumn, continues abundant till January, and the produce is dragged over the snow on sledges, each drawn by three dogs and carrying about two hundred and fifty pounds. The journey to and from the lake occupies five days and every sledge requires a driver. About three thousand fish averaging three pounds apiece were caught by the Hudson’s Bay fishermen last season; in addition to which a few sturgeon were occasionally caught in Pine Island Lake; and towards the spring a considerable quantity of moose meat was procured from the Basquiau Hill, sixty or seventy miles distant. The rest of our winter’s provision consisted of geese, salted in the autumn, and of dried meats and pemmican obtained from the provision posts on the plains of the Saskatchewan. A good many potatoes are also raised at this post and a small supply of tea and sugar is brought from the depôt at York Factory. The provisions obtained from these various sources were amply sufficient in the winter of 1819-20; but through improvidence this post has in former seasons been reduced to great straits.
Many of the labourers and a great majority of the agents and clerks employed by the two Companies have Indian or half-breed wives, and the mixed offspring thus produced has become extremely numerous.
These métifs, or, as the Canadians term them, bois brulés, are upon the whole a good-looking people and, where the experiment has been made, have shown much aptness in learning and willingness to be taught; they have however been sadly neglected. The example of their fathers has released them from the restraint imposed by the Indian opinions of good and bad behaviour; and generally speaking no pains have been taken to fill the void with better principles. Hence it is not surprising that the males, trained up in a high opinion of the authority and rights of the Company to which their fathers belonged and, unacquainted with the laws of the civilised world, should be ready to engage in any measure whatever that they are prompted to believe will forward the interests of the cause they espouse. Nor that the girls, taught a certain degree of refinement by the acquisition of an European language, should be inflamed by the unrestrained discourse of their Indian relations, and very early give up all pretensions to chastity. It is however but justice to remark that there is a very decided difference in the conduct of the children of the Orkney men employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company and those of the Canadian voyagers. Some trouble is occasionally bestowed in teaching the former and it is not thrown away, but all the good that can be said of the latter is that they are not quite so licentious as their fathers are.
Many of the half-breeds both male and female are brought up amongst and intermarry with the Indians; and there are few tents wherein the paler children of such marriages are not to be seen. It has been remarked, I do not know with what truth, that half-breeds show more personal courage than the pure Crees.[[9]]