[ The winds.—]
At each of the corners of the earth there dwells an immense but invincible spirit, whose head is many times larger than all the remainder of his body. When he breathes the wind blows and his breath is felt. Some breathe violent storms and others gentle zephyrs. The male spirits dwell at the north, northeast, northwest, and west. The females dwell at the remaining points, and each principal spirit has innumerable intermediate and less powerful attendants.
[ THE NENENOT OR “NASKOPIE.”]
The Indians of the Ungava district are locally known as Naskopie, a term of reproach applied to them by the mountaineers (the Montagnais of the early Jesuit missionaries) during the earlier days when the former acted falsely in one of their concerted struggles with the Eskimo of the eastern coast.
The name given to themselves is Nenenot, a word meaning true, or ideal red men. To the west of these people dwell a branch of the tribe along the east shore of Hudson bay. To the southeast dwell the mountaineers.
The western people differ greatly in customs and many words of their language from the Nenenots. The mountaineers differ but little in their customs, and only in speech as much as would be expected from the different locality in which they dwell.
These three tribes have distinct boundaries, beyond which they seldom wander. Of late years, however, a gradual influx of the western people has poured into the Ungava district, due to the decrease of the food supply along that portion of the eastern coast of Hudson bay.
The Nenenots appear, from the best information I could obtain on the subject, to have been driven to their present location during the wars waged against them by the Iroquois in times long gone by and remembered only in tradition.
They assert that their original home was in a country to the west, north of an immense river, and toward the east lay an enormous body of salt water. The former was supposed to be the St. Lawrence river and the latter to be Hudson bay. When they came to their present place they say that they found Eskimo alone, and these only along the coast. They are a branch of the Cree stock, as their language clearly indicates.
Many years ago war was waged upon them by the people whose name is remembered with terror even to this day. Most cruel atrocities were perpetrated, and in despair they fled from the land of their fathers, where they had lived as a numerous people, and were pursued by their merciless foes until but a remnant reached what is now known as the “Height of Land.”