might believe. Visitors at Mackinac, Traverse, Sault Ste. Marie, and
other northern resorts are besought at certain times of the year by
silent calico-dressed squaws to purchase basket and bark work. If the
tourist happens to follow these women for more wholesale examination of
their wares, he will be led to a double-ended Mackinaw-built
sailing-craft with red-dyed sails, half pulled out on the beach. In the
stern sit two or three bucks wearing shirts, jean trousers, and broad
black hats. Some of the oldest men may sport a patched pair of
moccasins or so, but most are conventional enough in clumsy shoes.
After a longer or shorter stay they hoist their red sails and drift
away toward some mysterious destination on the north shore. If the
buyer is curious enough and persistent enough, he may elicit the fact
that they are Ojibways.
Now, if this same tourist happens to possess a mildly venturesome
disposition, a sailing-craft, and a chart of the region, he will sooner
or later blunder across the dwelling-place of his silent vendors. At
the foot of some rarely-frequented bay he will come on a diminutive
village of small whitewashed log houses. It will differ from other
villages in that the houses are arranged with no reference whatever to
one another, but in the haphazard fashion of an encampment. Its
inhabitants are his summer friends. If he is of an insinuating address,
he may get a glimpse of their daily life. Then he will go away firmly
convinced that he knows quite a lot about the North Woods Indian.
And so he does. But this North Woods Indian is the Reservation Indian.
And in the North a Reservation Indian is as different from a Woods
Indian as a negro is from a Chinese.
Suppose, on the other hand, your tourist is unfortunate enough to get
left at some North Woods railway station where he has descended from
the transcontinental to stretch his legs, and suppose him to have
happened on a fur-town like Missináibie at the precise time when the
trappers are in from the wilds. Near the borders of the village he will
come upon a little encampment of conical tepees. At his approach the
women and children will disappear into inner darkness. A dozen
wolf-like dogs will rush out barking. Grave-faced men will respond
silently to his salutation.
These men, he will be interested to observe, wear still the deer or
moose skin moccasin--the lightest and easiest foot-gear for the woods;
bind their long hair with a narrow fillet, and their waists with a red
or striped worsted sash; keep warm under the blanket thickness of a
Hudson Bay capote; and deck their clothes with a variety of barbaric
ornament. He will see about camp weapons whose acquaintance he has made
only in museums, peltries of whose identification he is by no means
sure, and as matters of daily use--snow-shoes, bark canoes, bows and
arrows--what to him have been articles of ornament or curiosity.
To-morrow these people will be gone for another year, carrying with
them the results of the week's barter. Neither he nor his kind will see
them again, unless they too journey far into the Silent Places. But he
has caught a glimpse of the stolid mask of the Woods Indian, concerning
whom officially "nothing" is known.
In many respects the Woods Indian is the legitimate descendant of the
Cooper Indian. His life is led entirely in the forests; his subsistence
is assured by hunting, fishing, and trapping; his dwelling is the
wigwam, and his habitation the wide reaches of the wilderness lying
between Lake Superior and the Hudson Bay; his relation to humanity
confined to intercourse with his own people and acquaintance with the
men who barter for his peltries. So his dependence is not on the world
the white man has brought, but on himself and his natural environment.
Civilization has merely ornamented his ancient manner. It has given him
the convenience of cloth, of firearms, of steel traps, of iron kettles,
of matches; it has accustomed him to the luxuries of white
sugar--though he had always his own maple product--tea, flour, and
white man's tobacco. That is about all. He knows nothing of whisky. The
towns are never visited by him, and the Hudson's Bay Company will sell
him no liquor. His concern with you is not great, for he has little to
gain from you.
This people, then, depending on natural resources for subsistence, has
retained to a great extent the qualities of the early aborigines.
To begin with, it is distinctly nomadic. The great rolls of birch bark
to cover the pointed tepees are easily transported in the bottoms of
canoes, and the poles are quickly cut and put in place. As a
consequence, the Ojibway family is always on the move. It searches out
new trapping-grounds, new fisheries, it pays visits, it seems even to
enjoy travel for the sake of exploration. In winter a tepee of double
wall is built, whose hollow is stuffed with moss to keep out the cold;
but even that approximation of permanence cannot stand against the
slightest convenience. When an Indian kills, often he does not
transport his game to camp, but moves his camp to the vicinity of the
carcass. There are of these woods dwellers no villages, no permanent
clearings. The vicinity of a Hudson's Bay post is sometimes occupied
for a month or so during the summer, but that is all.
An obvious corollary of this is that tribal life does not consistently
obtain. Throughout the summer months, when game and fur are at their
poorest, the bands assemble, probably at the times of barter with the
traders. Then for the short period of the idling season they drift
together up and down the North Country streams, or camp for big
pow-wows and conjuring near some pleasant conflux of rivers. But when
the first frosts nip the leaves, the families separate to their
allotted trapping districts, there to spend the winter in pursuit of
the real business of life.
The tribe is thus split into many groups, ranging in numbers from
the solitary trapper, eager to win enough fur to buy him a wife, to a
compact little group of three or four families closely related in
blood. The most striking consequence is that, unlike other Indian
bodies politic, there are no regularly constituted and acknowledged
chiefs. Certain individuals gain a remarkable reputation and an equally
remarkable respect for wisdom, or hunting skill, or power of woodcraft,
or travel. These men are the so-called "old men" often mentioned in
Indian manifestoes, though age has nothing to do with the deference
accorded them. Tawabinisáy is not more than thirty-five years old;
Peter, our Hudson Bay Indian, is hardly more than a boy. Yet both are
obeyed implicitly by whomever they happen to be with; both lead the way
by river or trail; and both, where question arises, are sought in
advice by men old enough to be their fathers. Perhaps this is as good a
democracy as another.
The life so briefly hinted at in the foregoing lines inevitably
develops and fosters an expertness of woodcraft almost beyond belief.
The Ojibway knows his environment. The forest is to him so familiar in
each and every one of its numerous and subtle aspects that the
slightest departure from the normal strikes his attention at once. A
patch of brown shadow where green shadow should fall, a shimmering of
leaves where should be merely a gentle waving, a cross-light where the
usual forest growth should adumbrate, a flash of wings at a time of day
when feathered creatures ordinarily rest quiet--these, and hundreds of
others which you and I should never even guess at, force themselves as
glaringly on an Indian's notice as a brass band in a city street. A
white man _looks_ for game; an Indian sees it because it differs
from the forest.
That is, of course, a matter of long experience and lifetime habit.
Were it a question merely of this, the white man might also in time
attain the same skill. But the Indian is a better animal. His senses
are appreciably sharper than our own.
In journeying down the Kapúskasíng River, our Indians--who had come
from the woods to guide us--always saw game long before we did. They
would never point it out to us. The bow of the canoe would swing
silently in its direction, there to rest motionless until we indicated
we had seen something.
"Where is it, Peter?" I would whisper.
But Peter always remained contemptuously silent.
One evening we paddled directly into the eye of the setting sun
across a shallow little lake filled with hardly sunken boulders. There
was no current, and no breath of wind to stir the water into betraying
riffles. But invariably those Indians twisted the canoe into a new
course ten feet before we reached one of the obstructions, whose
existence our dazzled vision could not attest until they were actually
below us. They _saw_ those rocks, through the shimmer of the
surface glare.
Another time I discovered a small black animal lying flat on a point of
shale. Its head was concealed behind a boulder, and it was so far away
that I was inclined to congratulate myself on having differentiated it
from the shadow.
"What is it, Peter?" I asked.
Peter hardly glanced at it.
"Ninny-moósh" (dog), he replied.
Now we were a hundred miles south of the Hudson's Bay post, and two
weeks north of any other settlement. Saving a horse, a dog would be
about the last thing to occur to one in guessing at the identity of any
strange animal. This looked like a little black blotch, without form.
Yet Peter knew it. It was a dog, lost from some Indian hunting-party,
and mightily glad to see us.
The sense of smell, too, is developed to an extent positively uncanny
to us who have needed it so little. Your Woods Indian is always
sniffing, always testing the impressions of other senses by his
olfactories. Instances numerous and varied might be cited, but probably
one will do as well as a dozen. It once became desirable to kill a
caribou in country where the animals are not at all abundant.
Tawabinisáy volunteered to take Jim within shot of one. Jim describes
their hunt as the most wonderful bit of stalking he had ever seen. The
Indian followed the animal's tracks as easily as you or I could have
followed them over snow. He did this rapidly and certainly. Every once
in a while he would get down on all fours to sniff inquiringly at the
crushed herbage. Always on rising to his feet he would give the result
of his investigations. "Ah-téek [caribou] one hour."
And later, "Ah-téek half hour."
Or again, "Ah-téek quarter hour."
And finally, "Ah-téek over nex' hill."
And it was so.
In like manner, but most remarkable to us because the test of direct
comparison with our own sense was permitted us, was their acuteness of
hearing. Often while "jumping" a roaring rapids in two canoes, my
companion and I have heard our men talking to each other in quite an
ordinary tone of voice. That is to say, I could hear my Indian, and Jim
could hear his; but personally we were forced to shout loudly to carry
across the noise of the stream. The distant approach of animals they
announce accurately.
"Wawashkeshí" (deer), says Peter.
And sure enough, after an interval, we too could distinguish the
footfalls on the dry leaves.
As both cause and consequence of these physical endowments--which place
them nearly on a parity with the game itself--they are most expert
hunters. Every sportsman knows the importance--and also the
difficulty--of discovering game before it discovers him. The Indian has
here an immense advantage. And after game is discovered, he is
furthermore most expert in approaching it with all the refined art of
the still hunter.
Mr. Caspar Whitney describes in exasperation his experience with the
Indians of the Far North-West. He complains that when they blunder on
game they drop everything and enter into almost hopeless chase, two
legs against four. Occasionally the quarry becomes enough bewildered so
that the wild shooting will bring it down. He quite justly argues that
the merest pretence at caution in approach would result in much greater
success.
The Woods Indian is no such fool. He is a mighty poor shot--and he
knows it. Personally I believe he shuts both eyes before pulling
trigger. He is armed with a long flint or percussion lock musket, whose
gas-pipe barrel is bound to the wood that runs its entire length by
means of brass bands, and whose effective range must be about ten
yards. This archaic implement is known as a "trade gun" and has the
single merit of never getting out of order. Furthermore ammunition is
precious. In consequence, the wilderness hunter is not going to be
merely pretty sure; he intends to be absolutely certain. If he cannot
approach near enough to blow a hole in his prey, he does not fire.
I have seen Peter drop into marsh-grass so thin that apparently we
could discern the surface of the ground through it, and disappear so
completely that our most earnest attention could not distinguish even a
rustling of the herbage. After an interval his gun would go off from
some distant point, exactly where some ducks had been feeding serenely
oblivious to fate. Neither of us white men would have considered for a
moment the possibility of getting any of them. Once I felt rather proud
of myself for killing six ruffed grouse out of some trees with the
pistol, until Peter drifted in carrying three he had bagged with a
stick.
Another interesting phase of this almost perfect correspondence to
environment is the readiness with which an Indian will meet an
emergency. We are accustomed to rely first of all on the skilled labour
of some one we can hire; second, if we undertake the job ourselves, on
the tools made for us by skilled labour; and third, on the shops to
supply us with the materials we may need. Not once in a lifetime are we
thrown entirely on our own resources. Then we improvise bunglingly a
makeshift.
The Woods Indian possesses his knife and his light axe. Nails, planes,
glue, chisels, vices, cord, rope, and all the rest of it he has to do
without. But he never improvises makeshifts. No matter what the
exigency or how complicated the demand, his experience answers with
accuracy.
Utensils and tools he knows exactly where to find. His job is neat and
workmanlike, whether it is a bark receptacle--water-tight or not--a
pair of snow-shoes, the repairing of a badly-smashed canoe, the
construction of a shelter, or the fashioning of a paddle. About noon
one day Tawabinisáy broke his axe-helve square off. This to us would
have been a serious affair. Probably we should, left to ourselves, have
stuck in some sort of a rough straight sapling handle which would have
answered well enough until we could have bought another. By the time we
had cooked dinner that Indian had fashioned another helve. We compared
it with the store article. It was as well shaped, as smooth, as nicely
balanced. In fact, as we laid the new and the old side by side, we
could not have selected, from any evidence of the workmanship, which
had been made by machine and which by hand. Tawabinisáy then burned out
the wood from the axe, retempered the steel, set the new helve, and
wedged it neatly with ironwood wedges. The whole affair, including the
cutting of the timber, consumed perhaps half an hour.
To travel with a Woods Indian is a constant source of delight on this
account. So many little things that the white man does without, because
he will not bother with their transportation, the Indian makes for
himself. And so quickly and easily! I have seen a thoroughly
waterproof, commodious, and comfortable bark shelter made in about the
time it would take one to pitch a tent. I have seen a raft built of
cedar logs and cedar bark ropes in an hour. I have seen a badly-stove
canoe made as good as new in fifteen minutes. The Indian rarely needs
to hunt for the materials he requires. He knows exactly where they
grow, and he turns as directly to them as a clerk would turn to his
shelves. No problem of the living of physical life is too obscure to
have escaped his varied experience. You may travel with Indians for
years, and learn something new and delightful as to how to take care of
yourself every summer.
The qualities I have mentioned come primarily from the fact that the
Woods Indian is a hunter. I have now to instance two whose development
can be traced to the other fact--that he is a nomad. I refer to his
skill with the bark canoe and his ability to carry.
I was once introduced to a man at a little way station of the Canadian
Pacific Railway in the following words:--
"Shake hands with Munson; he's as good a canoeman as an Indian."
A little later one of the bystanders remarked to me:--
"That fellow you was just talking with is as good a canoeman as an
Injun."
Still later, at an entirely different place, a member of the bar
informed me, in the course of discussion:--
"The only man I know of who can do it is named Munson. He is as good a
canoeman as an Indian."
At the time this unanimity of praise puzzled me a little. I thought I
had seen some pretty good canoe work, and even cherished a mild conceit
that occasionally I could keep right side up myself. I knew Munson to
be a great woods-traveller, with many striking qualities, and why this
of canoemanship should be so insistently chosen above the others was
beyond my comprehension. Subsequently a companion and I journeyed to
Hudson Bay with two birch canoes and two Indians. Since that trip I
have had a vast respect for Munson.
Undoubtedly among the half-breed and white guides of Lower Canada,
Maine, and the Adirondacks are many skilful men. But they know their
waters; they follow a beaten track. The Woods Indian--well, let me tell
you something of what he does.
We went down the Kapúskasíng River to the Mattágami, and then down that
to the Moose. These rivers are at first but a hundred feet or so wide,
but rapidly swell with the influx of numberless smaller streams. Two
days' journey brings you to a watercourse nearly half a mile in
breadth; two weeks finds you on a surface approximately a mile and a
half across. All this water descends from the Height of Land to the sea
level. It does so through a rock country. The result is a series of
roaring, dashing boulder rapids and waterfalls that would make your
hair stand on end merely to contemplate from the banks.
The regular route to Moose Factory is by the Missinaíbie. Our way was
new and strange. No trails; no knowledge of the country. When we came
to a stretch of white water, the Indians would rise to their feet for a
single instant's searching examination of the stretch of tumbled water
before them. In that moment they picked the passage they were to follow
as well as a white man could have done so in half an hour's study. Then
without hesitation they shot their little craft at the green water.
From that time we merely tried to sit still, each in his canoe. Each
Indian did it all with his single paddle. He seemed to possess absolute
control over his craft.
Even in the rush of water which seemed to hurry us on at almost
railroad speed, he could stop for an instant, work directly sideways,
shoot forward at a slant, swing either his bow or his stern. An error
in judgment or in the instantaneous acting upon it meant a hit; and a
hit in these savage North Country Rivers meant destruction. How my man
kept in his mind the passage he had planned during his momentary
inspection was always to me a miracle. How he got so unruly a beast as
the birch canoe to follow it in that tearing volume of water was always
another. Big boulders he dodged, eddies he took advantage of, slants of
current he utilized. A fractional second of hesitation could not be
permitted him. But always the clutching of white hands from the rip at
the eddy finally conveyed to my spray-drenched faculties that the rapid
was safely astern. And this, mind you, in strange waters.
Occasionally we would carry our outfit through the woods, while the
Indians would shoot some especially bad water in the light canoe. As a
spectacle nothing could be finer. The flash of the yellow bark, the
movement of the broken waters, the gleam of the paddle, the tense
alertness of the men's figures, their carven, passive faces, with the
contrast of the flashing eyes and the distended nostrils, then the leap
into space over some half-cataract, the smash of spray, the exultant
yells of the canoemen! For your Indian enjoys the game thoroughly. And
it requires very bad water indeed to make him take to the brush.
This is, of course, the spectacular. But also in the ordinary gray
business of canoe travel the Woods Indian shows his superiority. He is
tireless, and composed as to wrist and shoulder of a number of
whale-bone springs. From early dawn to dewy eve, and then a few
gratuitous hours into the night, he will dig energetic holes in the
water with his long, narrow blade. And every stroke counts. The water
boils out in a splotch of white air-bubbles, the little suction holes
pirouette like dancing-girls, the fabric of the craft itself trembles
under the power of the stroke. Jim and I used, in the lake stretches,
to amuse ourselves--and probably the Indians--by paddling in furious
rivalry one against the other. Then Peter would make up his mind he
would like to speak to Jacob. His canoe would shoot up alongside as
though the Old Man of the Lake had laid his hand across its stern.
Would I could catch that trick of easy, tireless speed! I know it lies
somewhat in keeping both elbows always straight and stiff, in a lurch
forward of the shoulders at the end of the stroke. But that, and more!
Perhaps one needs a copper skin and beady black eyes with surface
lights.
Nor need you hope to pole a canoe upstream as do these people.
Tawabinisáy uses two short poles, one in either hand, kneels amidships,
and snakes that little old canoe of his upstream so fast that you would
swear the rapids an easy matter--until you tried them yourself. We were
once trailed up a river by an old Woods Indian and his interesting
family. The outfit consisted of canoe Number One--_item_, one old
Injin, one boy of eight years, one dog; canoe Number Two--_item_,
one old Injin squaw, one girl of eighteen or twenty, one dog; canoe
Number Three--_item_, two little girls of ten and twelve, one
dog. We tried desperately for three days to get away from this party.
It did not seem to work hard at all. We did. Even the two little girls
appeared to dip the contemplative paddle from time to time. Water
boiled back of our own blades. We started early and quit late, and
about as we congratulated ourselves over our evening fire that we had
distanced our followers at last, those three canoes would steal
silently and calmly about the lower bend to draw ashore below us. In
ten minutes the old Indian was delivering an oration to us, squatted in
resignation.
The Red Gods alone know what he talked about. He had no English, and
our Ojibway was of the strictly utilitarian. But for an hour he would
hold forth. We called him Talk-in-the-Face, the Great Indian Chief.
Then he would drop a mild hint for sáymon, which means tobacco, and
depart. By ten o'clock the next morning he and his people would
overtake us in spite of our earlier start. Usually we were in the act
of dragging our canoe through an especially vicious rapid by means of a
tow-line. Their three canoes, even to the children's, would ascend
easily by means of poles. Tow-lines appeared to be unsportsmanlike--like
angle-worms. Then the entire nine--including the dogs--would roost on
rocks and watch critically our methods.
The incident had one value, however: it showed us just why these people
possess the marvellous canoe skill I have attempted to sketch. The
little boy in the leading canoe was not over eight or nine years of
age, but he had his little paddle and his little canoe-pole, and, what
is more, he already used them intelligently and well. As for the little
girls--well, they did easily feats I never hope to emulate, and that
without removing the cowl-like coverings from their heads and
shoulders.