""Reine des Cieux!
Intercedez pour nous,
Mère de Dieu!""
and proudly arrogate to the Church of Rome, the absolute interpretation of Scripture; forbidding the people to examine whether she does it rightly or not. I thank God that I am a Protestant against such idolatry and ecclesiastical tyranny!
The able and enlightened remarks of that renowned general and eminent statesman, Washington, in his farewell address to the people of the United States, relative to the well-being of a nation, are equally applicable to the existence and prosperity of a Colony: ""Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity (he observed), religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume would not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it be simply asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in the courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever be conceded to the influence of refined education, or minds of a peculiar structure; reason and experience forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.""
A daughter has driven her aged Indian father, lashed, in his buffaloe robe, on a sledge, to the Colony. He appeared to be in a very weak and dying state, and has suffered much from the want of provisions. I was much pleased with this instance of filial affection and care. Sometimes the aged and infirm are abandoned or destroyed; and however shocking it may be to those sentiments of tenderness and affection, which in civilized life we regard as inherent in our common nature, it is practised by savages in their hardships and extreme difficulty of procuring subsistence for the parties who suffer, without being considered as an act of cruelty, but as a deed of mercy. This shocking custom, however, is seldom heard of among the Indians of this neighbourhood; but is said to prevail with the Chipewyan or Northern Indians, who are no sooner burdened with their relations, broken with years and infirmities, and incapable of following the camp, than they leave them to their fate. Instead of repining they are reconciled to this dreadful termination of their existence, from the known custom of their nation, and being conscious that they can no longer endure the various distresses and fatigue of savage life, or assist in hunting for provisions. A little meat, with an axe, and a small portion of tobacco, are generally left with them by their nearest relations, who in taking leave of them, say, that it is time for them to go into the other world, which they suppose lies just beyond the spot where the sun goes down, where they will be better taken care of than with them, and then they walk away weeping. On the banks of the Saskashawan, an aged woman prevailed on her son to shoot her through the head, instead of adopting this sad extremity. She addressed him in a most pathetic manner, reminding him of the care and toil with which she bore him on her back from camp to camp in his infancy; with what incessant labour she brought him up till he could use the bow and the gun; and having seen him a great warrior, she requested that he would shew her kindness, and give a proof of his courage, in shooting her, that she might go home to her relations. ""I have seen many winters, she added, and am now become a burden, in not being able to assist in getting provisions; and dragging me through the country, as I am unable to walk, is a toil, and brings much distress:—take your gun."" She then drew her blanket over her head, and her son immediately deprived her of life: in the apparent consciousness of having done an act of filial duty and of mercy.
The old man who was brought to the Settlement, by his daughter for relief soon recovered, so as to become exceedingly troublesome by coming almost daily to my room. I succeeded at length in starting them for some hunters' tents on the plains, where they expressed a wish to go, if supplied with provisions to carry them there, by killing a small dog, and giving it to them for food. An ox would not have been more acceptable to a distressed European family than this animal was to these Indians. But on leaving me two more families came to my residence in a state of starvation. Necessity had compelled them to eat their dogs, and they themselves were harnessed to their sledges, dragging them in a most wretched and emaciated condition. One of the men appeared to be reduced to the last stage of existence, and upon giving him a fish and a few cooked potatoes, such was his natural affection for his children, that, instead of voraciously devouring the small portion of food, he divided it into morsels, and gave it to them in the most affectionate manner. His children from their appearance had partaken of by far the largest share of that scanty supply which he had lately been able to obtain in hunting. They pitched their tents at a short distance below in the woods, and the poor man came to me next morning with the request that I would bleed him for a violent pain which he complained of in his side. This I refused to do, and gave him a note to the medical gentleman of the Colony, promising to call on him the next day. When I saw him I found that he had not delivered the note, but had bled himself in the foot with the flint from his gun, and spoke of having experienced considerable relief. The party were dreadfully distressed for provisions, and had actually collected at their tents the remains of a dog which had died, with part of the head of a horse, that had been starved to death in the severity of the winter, and which was the only part of the animal that was left by the wolves. The head of the dog was boiling in the kettle, and that of the horse was suspended over it, to receive the smoke of the fire in the preparation for cooking; while the children were busily employed in breaking some bones which they had picked up, with an axe, and which they were sucking in their raw state for their moisture. This was the suffering extremity not of lazy bad Indians, but of those who bore the character of good hunters, and were particularly careful of their families; and I fear it is the case of many more from the exhausted state of animals in the neighbourhood of Red River: and from the frequent fires that occur in the plains, which extend also to the destruction of the woods.
Towards the conclusion of the month we had another melancholy proof of the Indians suffering extreme want from the few animals that were to be met with during the winter. An Indian with his wife on their arrival gave me to understand that they had been without food for twenty days, and had lost their three children by starvation. Their appearance was that of a melancholy dejection, and I had my suspicions excited at the time that they had eaten them. This was confirmed afterwards by the bones and hands of one of the children being found near some ashes at a place where they said they had encamped, and suffered their misery. It appears that two of their children died from want, whom they cooked and eat, and that they afterwards killed the other for a subsistence in their dire necessity. I asked this Indian, as I did the other, whether from having suffered so much, it was not far better to do as the white people did and cultivate the ground; he said, ""Yes;"" and expressed a desire to do so if he could obtain tools, seed wheat and potatoes to plant. Though it is the character of the savage to tell you what he will do in future at your suggestion, to prevent the calamity which he may be suffering from want of food or the inclemency of the weather, and as soon as the season becomes mild, and the rivers yield him fish, or the woods and plains provisions, to forget all his sufferings, and to be as thoughtless and improvident as ever as to futurity; yet, I think that a successful attempt might be made by a proper superintendance, and a due encouragement to induce some of the Indians of this quarter to settle in villages, and to cultivate the soil. The voice of humanity claims this attention to them, under their almost incredible privations at times: but prejudices may exist in the country which prevent this desirable object being carried into effect. There was a time when the Indians themselves had begun to collect into a kind of village towards the mouth of the Red River, had cultivated spots of ground, and had even erected something of a lodge for the purpose of performing some of their unmeaning ceremonies of ignorance and heathenism, and to which the Indians of all the surrounding country were accustomed at certain seasons to repair; but fears were entertained that the natives would be diverted from hunting furs to idle ceremonies, and an effectual stop was put to all further improvement, by the spirit of opposition that then existed in the country between the two rival Fur Companies.
March 10.—The ringing of the Sabbath bell now collects an encouraging congregation; and some of us, I trust, could experimentally adopt the language of the Psalmist, in saying, ""I was glad when they said unto us, let us go into the house of the Lord.""—My earnest prayer to God is, that I may exercise a spiritual ministry; and faithfully preach those truths which give no hope to fallen man, but that which is founded on God's mercy in Christ. I often felt rejoiced in spirit in the prospect of doing good amidst the wild profligacy of manners that surrounded me, and of making known the doctrines and precepts of Christianity, where Christ had never before been named. Several adult married Indian women attended the Sunday School, with many half-caste children to be taught to read, and to receive religious instruction, which gave me an opportunity of ascertaining what the notions of the Indians were concerning the flood and the creation of the world. They appeared either to be ignorant, or unwilling to relate any traditionary stories that they might have as to the original formation of the world, but spoke of an universal deluge, which they said was commonly believed by all Indians. When the flood came and destroyed the world, they say that a very great man, called Wæsackoochack, made a large raft, and embarked with otters, beavers, deer, and other kinds of animals. After it had floated upon the waters for some time, he put out an otter, with a long piece of shagganappy or leathern cord tied to its leg, and it dived very deep without finding any bottom, and was drowned. He then put out a beaver, which was equally unsuccessful, and shared the same fate. At length he threw out a musk-rat, that dived and brought up a little mud in its mouth, which Wæsackoochack took, and placing in the palm of his hand, he blew upon it, till it greatly enlarged itself, and formed a good piece of the earth. He then turned out a deer that soon returned, which led him to suppose that the earth was not large enough, and blowing upon it again its size was greatly increased, so that a [ loom ] which he then sent out never returned. The new earth being now of a sufficient size, he turned adrift all the animals that he had preserved. He is supposed still to have some intercourse with and power over them as well as over the Indians, who pray to him to protect them and keep them alive. Sir Alexander Mackenzie, in speaking of the Chipewyan or Northern Indians, who traverse an immense track of country, to the north of the Athabasca lake, says, ""that the notions which these people entertain of the creation are of a singular nature. They believe that the globe was at first one vast and entire ocean, inhabited by no living creature except a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were lightning, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descending to the ocean, and touching it, the earth instantly arose, and remained on the surface of the waters. They have also a tradition amongst them, that they originally came from another country, inhabited by very wicked people, and had traversed a great lake, where they suffered much misery, it being always winter, with ice and deep snow. At the Copper-Mine River, where they made the first land, the ground was covered with copper. They believe also that in ancient times their ancestors lived till their feet were worn out with walking, and their throats with eating. They describe a deluge, when the waters spread over the whole earth, except the highest mountains, on the tops of which they preserved themselves."" There appears to be a general belief of a flood among all the tribes of this vast continent; and the Bible shews me from whence spring all those fables, and wild notions which they entertain; and which prevail in other parts of the heathen world upon these subjects. They are founded upon those events which the sacred scriptures record, and which have been corrupted by different nations, scattered and wandering through the globe as the descendants of Noah, without a written language. The Hindoo therefore in his belief that the earth was actually drawn up at the flood, by the tusks of a boar, and that it rests at this hour on the back of a tortoise: and the North American Indian in his wild supposition that Wæsackoochack, whose reputed father was a snake, formed the present beautiful order of creation after the deluge, by the help of a musk-rat, afford no inconsiderable proof that the Bible is of far greater antiquity than any other record extant in the world, and that it is indeed of divine origin. While its sacred page therefore informs and decides my judgment by the earliest historic information, may its principles influence my life in all Christian practice, and joyful expectation of the world to come, through faith in Him, whom it records as the Redeemer of mankind; and in whom believing ""there is neither barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free.""
'One song employs all nations, and all sing,