From bank to bank fully six hundred yards of snow lay spread over the rough frozen surface; and at times, where the prairie plateau approached the river’s edge, black bitumen oozed out of the clayey bank, and the scent of tar was strong upon the frosty air.
On Sunday, the 2nd of March, we remained for the day in a wood of large pines and poplars. Dogs and men enjoyed that day’s rest. Many were footsore, some were sick, all were tired.
“The Bheel is a black man, and much more hairy; he carries archers in his hand, with these he shoots you when he meets you; he throws your body into a ditch: by this you will know the Bheel.” Such, word for word, was the written reply of a young Hindoo at an examination of candidates for a Government Office in Bombay a few years ago. The examiners had asked for a description of the hill-tribe known as Bheels, and this was the answer. It is not on record what number of marks the youthful Brahmin received for the information thus lucidly conveyed, or whether the examiners were desirous of making further acquaintance with the Bheel, upon the terms indicated in the concluding sentence; but, for some reason or other, the first sight of a veritable Chipewyan Indian brought to my mind the foregoing outline of the Bheel, and I found myself insensibly repeating, “The Chipewyan is a red man, and much more hairy.” There I stopped, for he did not carry archers in his hand, nor proceed in the somewhat abrupt and discourteous manner which characterized the conduct of the Bheel. And here, perhaps, it will be necessary to say a few words about the wild man who dwells in this Northern Land.
A great deal has been said and written about the wild man of America. The white man during many years has lectured upon him, written learned essays upon him, phrenologically proved him this, chronologically demonstrated him that, ethnologically asserted him to be the tother! I am not sure that the conchologists even have not thrown a shell at him, and most clearly shown that he was a conglomerate of this, that, and tother all combined. They began to dissect him very early. One Hugh Grotius had much to say about him a long time ago. Another Jean de Leut also descanted upon him, and so far back as the year of grace 1650, one Thorogood (what a glimpse the date gives of the name and the name of the date!) composed a godly treatise entitled “Jews in America, or a probability that Americans are of that race.” Perhaps, if good Master Thorogood was in the flesh to-day he might, arguing from certain little dealings in boundary cases, consequential claims and so forth, prove incontestably that modern American statesmen were of that race too. But to proceed. This question of the red man’s origin has not yet been solved; the doctors are still disputing about him. One professor has gotten hold of a skull delved from the presumed site of ancient Atazlan, and by the most careful measurements of the said skull has proceeded to show that because one skull measures in circumference the hundredth and seventy-seventh decimal of an inch more than it ought, it must of necessity be of the blackamoor type of headpiece.
Another equally learned professor, possessed of another equally curious skull (of course on shelf not on shoulders), has unfortunately come to conclusions directly opposite, and incontestably proven from careful occipital measurements that the type is Mongolian.
While thus the doctors differ as to what he is, or who he is, or whence he came, the farce of theory changes to the stern tragedy of fact; and over the broad prairie, and upon the cloud-capped mountain, and northwards in the gloomy pine-forest, the red man withers and dies out before our gaze: soon they will have nothing but the skulls to lecture upon.
From the Long Portage which we have but lately crossed, to the barren shores where dwell the Esquimaux of the coasts, a family of cognate tribes inhabit the continent; from east to west the limits of this race are even more extensive. They are found at Churchill, on Hudson’s Bay, and at Fort Simpson, on the rugged coast of New Caledonia. But stranger still, far down in Arizona and Mexico, even as far south as Nicaragua, the guttural language of the Chipewyan race is still heard, and the wild Navajo and fierce Apache horseman of the Mexican plains are kindred races with the distant fur-hunters of the North. Of all the many ramifications of Indian race, this is perhaps the most extraordinary. Through what vicissitudes of war and time, an offshoot from the shores of Athabasca wandered down into Mexico, while a hundred fierce, foreign, warlike tribes occupied the immense intervening distance, is more than human conjecture can determine.
To the east of the Rocky Mountains these races call themselves “Tinneh,” a name which signifies “People,” with that sublimity of ignorance which makes most savage people imagine themselves the sole proprietors of the earth. Many subdivisions exist among them; these are the Copper Indians, and the Dog Ribs of the Barren Grounds; the Loucheux or Kutchins, a fierce tribe on the Upper Yukon; the Yellow Knives, Hares, Nehanies, Sickanies, and Dahas of the Mountains and the Mackenzie River; the Slaves of the Great Slave Lake; the Chipewyans of Lake Athabasca, and Portage la Loche, the Beavers of the Peace River.
West of the Rocky Mountains, the Carriers, still a branch of the Chipewyan stock, intermingle with the numerous Atnah races of the coast. On the North Saskatchewan, a small wild tribe called the Surcees also springs from this great family, and as we have already said, nearly three thousand miles far down in the tropic plains of Old Mexico, the harsh, stuttering “tch” accent grates upon the ear. Spread over such a vast extent of country it may be supposed they vary much in physiognomy. Bravery in men and beauty in women are said to go hand in hand. Of the courage of the Chipewyan men I shall say nothing; of the beauty of the women I shall say something. To assert that they are very plain would not be true; they are undeniably ugly. Some of the young ones are very fat; all of the old ones are very thin. Many of the faces are pear-shaped; narrow foreheads, wide cheeks, small deep-set fat eyes. The type is said to be Mongolian, and if so, the Mongolians should change their type as soon as possible.
Several of the men wear sickly-looking moustaches, and short, pointed chin tufts; the hair, coarse and matted, is worn long. The children look like rolls of fat, half melted on the outside. Their general employment seems to be eating moose meat, when they are not engaged in deriving nourishment from the maternal bosom.