REDSKIN, ESKIMO, AND CHINK
One day two gentlemen were driving by the side of a small but beautiful
inland lake, when they met a little, shrivelled old man, with a forward
tilt of the body, a lurching, shuffling gait, and a parchment-like
wrinkled skin. Met! Yes, but when the odd-looking little man caught
sight of the rig or vehicle approaching, he hastily turned off the
road, and passed the conveyance at a good distance away. Yet as he
passed he never once lifted his head.
This behaviour excited the curiosity of one of the gentlemen, a
stranger, and he asked his companion: "Who's that odd-looking figure?"
"Ah! I don't wonder at your asking that? He's an old Indian. For
years he has haunted the shores of this lake. Every summer he has
attacks of fever or some such illness, and when he feels them coming on
he goes away from the reserve in which his own people live and makes
himself a hut of the branches of trees beside the lake, in a lonely
spot where nobody can see him, and there he remains until he recovers,
and never speaks to a single individual all the time he is here."
Now, this poor old Indian is typical of his race. The Indian, the
glorified Redskin of Fenimore Cooper as well as the fierce Indian of
the Western Plains, whom Mayne Reid has made familiar to English
readers, is rapidly dying out. As a race, the North American Indian is
as decrepit, as sad, and as dejected a creature as the poor old man who
sought healing beside the lake. In Canada the Indians are fairly
numerous in certain parts; but they are very little seen in the cities
and towns of the white man. You may catch a fleeting glimpse of one or
two at some wayside station, come to offer moccasins, gloves, purses,
deer's horns, or other curios for sale to the passing traveller; but it
is not until the Indian is spoken to that the traveller hears the sound
of his voice, and even then the native may not open his lips, but will
content himself with using the language of signs.
The Indians nearly all live in "reserves"--that is, tracts of land
which the Government gives to them, and off which it keeps all white
men. The reserve is meant for the Indian alone, and he is allowed to
till it and do what he pleases with it. The Government also gives him
help in providing him with food. The Indians do, however, make a
little by hunting, earning bounties on the slaying of harmful wild
beasts, or selling venison and deer's horns to white settlers. Then,
again, in certain districts they help to gather strawberries in the
middle of the summer, and in other districts pick hops towards the
autumn, or fall, as the Canadians call that season. The full
phrase--which, however, is never used--would be "the season of the fall
of the leaf."
A missionary who laboured in the Far North of Canada once astonished,
and yet deeply interested, a small company of listeners by describing
his own strange wedding.
"After we came out of church," he said, "we both got ready for our
honeymoon journey. When we were dressed, you could hardly have told
the bride from the bridegroom. We were both wrapped up in furs from
top to toe, so that the only part of our persons which could be seen
was just round the eyes, and over the eyes we both wore large coloured
goggles, to protect them against the dazzling snows.
"Well, we got into our sleigh, wrapped our fur aprons and rugs well
round us, said good-bye to our nearest white neighbours, and after I
had gathered up the reins and cracked my long whip over our team of
fourteen dogs, off we started on our 200 mile drive!"
The people this devoted couple were going to live and work amongst were
the Eskimo, a people who live all the year round amongst the Arctic
snow and ice. These folk are another, though not a very numerous,
element in the population of Canada.
Besides these two races--the Redskins and the Eskimo--there are two, or
rather three, other races now dwelling in Canada who have not white
skins. These are Hindus, Chinese, and Japanese. They are found
chiefly in the West, in the province of British Columbia. The people
of that province object strongly to the presence of all three races,
and if only they were able to do it, they would sweep every man Jack of
them into the ocean.
At first the Chinese came into the province without restriction, and
they began to arrive in such large numbers that the Government of the
province grew alarmed. With the view of checking them, the authorities
imposed a head-tax on every Chinaman who landed, and went on increasing
the amount until it reached no less a sum than £100 per head. This
large tax is paid for the Chinese immigrants by wealthy
fellow-countrymen already settled in the country, and known as _tyees_.
These men determine the wages at which the immigrants shall work, and
then they themselves pocket a certain proportion of each man's wages!
The slang names for a Chinaman are Chink and Celestial.
Again, both the Japanese and the Hindus began to arrive in much larger
numbers than the white men of the province liked, and in some large
towns the dislike to them culminated in riots and fierce attacks upon
them, especially upon the Japanese in Vancouver.
At last the Government of Canada succeeded in securing a promise from
the Government of Japan that not more than a certain number of Japs
should be permitted to land in Canada every year. The Hindus the
provincial authorities were not able to prevent from coming, or even to
restrict their numbers. They, too, were British subjects, and
consequently free to come and go in any and all parts of the British
Empire.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Canada, by J. T. Bealby