weights long distances. The Woods Indian is not a mighty man
physically. Most of them are straight and well built, but of only
medium height, and not wonderfully muscled. Peter was most beautiful,
but in the fashion of the flying Mercury, with long smooth panther
muscles. He looked like Uncas, especially when his keen hawk-face was
fixed in distant attention. But I think I could have wrestled Peter
down. Yet time and again I have seen that Indian carry two hundred
pounds for some miles through a rough country absolutely without
trails. And once I was witness of a feat of Tawabinisáy, when that wily
savage portaged a pack of fifty pounds and a two-man canoe through a
hill country for four hours and ten minutes without a rest. Tawabinisáy
is even smaller than Peter.
So much for the qualities developed by the woods life. Let us now
examine what may be described as the inherent characteristics of the
people.
XVI.
ON WOODS INDIANS (_continued_).
It must be understood, of course, that I offer you only the best of my
subject. A people counts for what it does well. Also I instance men of
standing in the loose Indian body politic. A traveller can easily
discover the reverse of the medal. These have their shirks, their
do-nothings, their men of small account, just as do other races. I have
no thought of glorifying the noble red man, nor of claiming for him a
freedom from human imperfection--even where his natural quality and
training count the most--greater than enlightenment has been able to
reach.
In my experience the honesty of the Woods Indian is of a very high
order. The sense of _mine_ and _thine_ is strongly forced by
the exigencies of the North Woods life. A man is always on the move; he
is always exploring the unknown countries. Manifestly it is impossible
for him to transport the entire sum of his worldly effects. The
implements of winter are a burden in summer. Also the return journey
from distant shores must be provided for by food-stations, to be relied
on. The solution of these needs is the cache.
And the cache is not a literal term at all. It _conceals_ nothing.
Rather does it hold aloft in long-legged prominence, for the inspection
of all who pass, what the owner has seen fit to leave behind. A heavy
platform high enough from the ground to frustrate the investigations of
animals is all that is required. Visual concealment is unnecessary,
because in the North Country a cache is sacred. On it may depend the
life of a man. He who leaves provisions must find them on his return,
for he may reach them starving, and the length of his out-journey may
depend on his certainty of relief at this point on his in-journey. So
men passing touch not his hoard, for some day they may be in the same
fix, and a precedent is a bad thing.
[Illustration: NOR NEED YOU HOPE TO POLE A CANOE UPSTREAM AS DO THESE
PEOPLE.]
Thus in parts of the wildest countries of northern Canada I have
unexpectedly come upon a birch canoe in capsized suspension between two
trees; or a whole bunch of snow-shoes depending fruit-like beneath the
fans of a spruce; or a tangle of steel traps thrust into the crevice of
a tree-root; or a supply of pork and flour, swathed like an Egyptian
mummy, occupying stately a high bier. These things we have passed by
reverently, as symbols of a people's trust in its kind.
The same sort of honesty holds in regard to smaller things. I have
never hesitated to leave in my camp firearms, fishing-rods, utensils
valuable from a woods point of view, even a watch or money. Not only
have I never lost anything in that manner, but once an Indian lad
followed me some miles after the morning's start to restore to me a
half-dozen trout flies I had accidentally left behind.
It might be readily inferred that this quality carries over into the
subtleties, as indeed is the case. Mr. MacDonald of Brunswick House
once discussed with me the system of credits carried on by the Hudson's
Bay Company with the trappers. Each family is advanced goods to the
value of two hundred dollars, with the understanding that the debt is
to be paid from the season's catch.
"I should think you would lose a good deal," I ventured. "Nothing could
be easier than for an Indian to take his two hundred dollars' worth and
disappear in the woods. You'd never be able to find him."
Mr. MacDonald's reply struck me, for the man had twenty years' trading
experience.
"I have never," said he, "in a long woods life known but one Indian
liar."
This my own limited woods-wandering has proved to be true to a
sometimes almost ridiculous extent. The most trivial statement of fact
can be relied on, provided it is given outside of trade or enmity or
absolute indifference. The Indian loves to fool the tenderfoot. But a
sober, measured statement you can conclude is accurate. And if an
Indian promises a thing, he will accomplish it. He expects you to do
the same. Watch your lightest words carefully and you would retain the
respect of your red associates.
On our way to the Hudson Bay we rashly asked Peter, towards the last,
when we should reach Moose Factory. He deliberated.
"T'ursday," said he.
Things went wrong; Thursday supplied a head wind. We had absolutely no
interest in reaching Moose Factory next day; the next week would have
done as well. But Peter, deaf to expostulation, entreaty, and command,
kept us travelling from six in the morning until after twelve at night.
We couldn't get him to stop. Finally he drew the canoes ashore.
"Moose-amik quarter hour," said he.
He had kept his word.
The Ojibway possesses a great pride which the unthinking can ruffle
quite unconsciously in many ways. Consequently the Woods Indian is
variously described as a good guide or a bad one. The difference lies
in whether you suggest or command.
"Peter, you've got to make Chicawgun to-night. Get a move on you!" will
bring you sullen service, and probably breed kicks on the grub supply,
which is the immediate precursor of mutiny.
"Peter, it's a long way to Chicawgun. Do you think we make him
to-night?" on the other hand, will earn you at least a serious
consideration of the question. And if Peter says you can, you will.
For the proper man the Ojibway takes a great pride in his woodcraft,
the neatness of his camps, the savoury quality of his cookery, the
expedition of his travel, the size of his packs, the patience of his
endurance. On the other hand, he can be as sullen, inefficient, stupid,
and vindictive as any man of any race on earth. I suppose the faculty
of getting along with men is largely inherent. Certainly it is blended
of many subtleties. To be friendly, to retain respect, to praise, to
preserve authority, to direct and yet to leave detail, to exact what is
due, and yet to deserve it--these be the qualities of a leader, and
cannot be taught.
In general the Woods Indian is sober. He cannot get whisky regularly,
to be sure, but I have often seen the better class of Ojibways refuse a
drink, saying that they did not care for it. He starves well, and keeps
going on nothing long after hope is vanished. He is patient--yea, very
patient--under toil, and so accomplishes great journeys, overcomes
great difficulties, and does great deeds by means of this handmaiden of
genius. According to his own standards is he clean. To be sure his
baths are not numerous, nor his laundry-days many, but he never cooks
until he has washed his hands and arms to the very shoulders. Other
details would but corroborate the impression of this instance--that his
ideas differ from ours, as is his right, but that he lives up to his
ideas. Also is he hospitable, expecting nothing in return. After your
canoe is afloat and your paddle in the river, two or three of his
youngsters will splash in after you to toss silver fish to your
necessities. And so always he will wait until this last moment of
departure, in order that you will not feel called on to give him
something in return. Which is true tact and kindliness, and worthy of
high praise.
Perhaps I have not strongly enough insisted that the Indian nations
differ as widely from one another as do unallied races. We found this
to be true even in the comparatively brief journey from Chapleau to
Moose. After pushing through a trackless wilderness without having laid
eyes on a human being, excepting the single instance of three French
_voyageurs_ going Heaven knows where, we were anticipating
pleasurably our encounter with the traders at the Factory, and
naturally supposed that Peter and Jacob would be equally pleased at the
chance of visiting with their own kind. Not at all. When we reached
Moose our Ojibways wrapped themselves in a mantle of dignity, and
stalked scornful amidst obsequious clans. For the Ojibway is great
among Indians, verily much greater than the Moose River Crees. Had it
been a question of Rupert's River Crees with their fierce blood-laws,
their conjuring-lodges, and their pagan customs, the affair might have
been different.
For, mark you, the Moose River Cree is little among hunters, and he
conducts the chase miscellaneously over his district without thought to
the preservation of the beaver, and he works in the hay marshes during
the summer, and is short, squab, and dirty, and generally
_ka-win-ni-shi-shin_. The old sacred tribal laws, which are better
than a religion because they are practically adapted to northern life,
have among them been allowed to lapse. Travellers they are none, nor do
their trappers get far from the Company's pork-barrels. So they inbreed
ignobly for lack of outside favour, and are dying from the face of the
land through dire diseases, just as their reputations have already died
from men's respect.
The great unwritten law of the forest is that, save as provision during
legitimate travel, one may not hunt in his neighbour's district. Each
trapper has assigned him, or gets by inheritance or purchase, certain
territorial power. In his land he alone may trap. He knows the
beaver-dams, how many animals each harbours, how large a catch each
will stand without diminution of the supply. So the fur is made to
last. In the southern district this division is tacitly agreed upon. It
is not etiquette to poach. What would happen to a poacher no one knows,
simply because the necessity for finding out has not arisen.
Tawabinisáy controls from Batchawanúng to Agawa. There old Waboos takes
charge. And so on. But in the Far North the control is more often
disputed, and there the blood-law still holds. An illegal trapper baits
his snares with his life. If discovered, he is summarily shot. So is
the game preserved.
The Woods Indian never kills waste-fully. The mere presence of game
does not breed in him a lust to slaughter something. Moderation you
learn of him first of all. Later, provided you are with him long enough
and your mind is open to mystic influence, you will feel the strong
impress of his idea--that the animals of the forest are not lower than
man, but only different. Man is an animal living the life of the
forest; the beasts are also a body politic speaking a different
language and with different view-points. Amik, the beaver, has certain
ideas as to the conduct of life, certain habits of body, and certain
bias of thought. His scheme of things is totally at variance with that
held by Me-en-gan, the wolf, but even to us whites the two are on a
parity. Man has still another system. One is no better than another.
They are merely different. And just as Me-en-gan preys on Amik, so does
Man kill for his own uses.
Thence are curious customs. A Rupert River Cree will not kill a bear
unless he, the hunter, is in gala attire, and then not until he has
made a short speech in which he assures his victim that the affair is
not one of personal enmity, but of expedience, and that anyway he, the
bear, will be better off in the Hereafter. And then the skull is
cleaned and set on a pole near running water, there to remain during
twelve moons. Also at the tail-root of a newly-deceased beaver is tied
a thong braided of red wool and deerskin. And many other curious
habitudes which would be of slight interest here. Likewise do they
conjure up by means of racket and fasting the familiar spirits of
distant friends or enemies, and on these spirits fasten a blessing or a
curse.
From this it may be deduced that missionary work has not been as
thorough as might be hoped. That is true. The Woods Indian loves to
sing, and possesses quaint melodies, or rather intonations, of his own.
But especially does he delight in the long-drawn wail of some of our
old-fashioned hymns. The church oftenest reaches him through them. I
know nothing stranger than the sight of a little half-lit church filled
with Indians swaying unctuously to and fro in the rhythm of a cadence
old Watts would have recognized with difficulty. The religious feeling
of the performance is not remarkable, but perhaps it does as a
starting-point.
Exactly how valuable the average missionary work is I have been puzzled
to decide. Perhaps the church needs more intelligence in the men it
sends out. The evangelist is usually filled with narrow, preconceived
notions as to the proper physical life. He squeezes his savage into log
houses, boiled shirts, and boots. When he has succeeded in getting his
tuberculosis crop well started, he offers as compensation a doctrinal
religion admirably adapted to us, who have within reach of
century-trained perceptions a thousand of the subtler associations a
savage can know nothing about. If there is enough glitter and tin
steeple and high-sounding office and gilt good-behaviour card to it,
the red man's pagan heart is tickled in its vanity, and he dies in the
odour of sanctity--and of a filth his out-of-door life has never taught
him how to avoid. The Indian is like a raccoon: in his proper
surroundings he is clean morally and physically because he knows how to
be so; but in a cage he is filthy because he does not know how to be
otherwise.
I must not be understood as condemning missionary work; only the stupid
missionary work one most often sees in the North. Surely Christianity
should be adaptable enough in its little things to fit any people with
its great. It seems hard for some men to believe that it is not
essential for a real Christian to wear a plug-hat. One God, love,
kindness, charity, honesty, right living, may thrive as well in the
wigwam as in a foursquare house--provided you let them wear moccasins
and a _capote_ wherewith to keep themselves warm and vital.
Tawabinisáy must have had his religious training at the hands of a good
man. He had lost none of his aboriginal virtue and skill, as may be
gathered from what I have before said of him, and had gained in
addition certain of the gentle qualities. I have never been able to
gauge exactly the extent of his religious _understanding_, for
Tawabinisáy is a silent individual, and possesses very little English;
but I do know that his religious _feeling_ was deep and reverent.
He never swore in English; he did not drink; he never travelled or
hunted or fished on Sunday when he could possibly help it. These
virtues he wore modestly and unassumingly as an accustomed garment. Yet
he was the most gloriously natural man I have ever met.
The main reliance of his formalism when he was off in the woods seemed
to be a little tattered volume, which he perused diligently all Sunday,
and wrapped carefully in a strip of oiled paper during the rest of the
week. One day I had a chance to look at this book while its owner was
away after spring water. Every alternate page was in the phonetic
Indian symbols, of which more hereafter. The rest was in French, and
evidently a translation. Although the volume was of Roman Catholic
origin, creed was conspicuously subordinated to the needs of the class
it aimed to reach. A confession of faith, quite simple, in one God, a
Saviour, a Mother of Heaven; a number of Biblical extracts rich in
imagery and applicability to the experience of a woods-dweller; a dozen
simple prayers of the kind the natural man would oftenest find occasion
to express--a prayer for sickness, for bounty, for fair weather, for
ease of travel, for the smiling face of Providence; and then some
hymns. To me the selection seemed most judicious. It answered the needs
of Tawabinisáy's habitual experiences, and so the red man was a good
and consistent convert. Irresistibly I was led to contemplate the idea
of any one trying to get Tawabinisáy to live in a house, to cut
cordwood with an axe, to roost on a hard bench under a tin steeple, to
wear stiff shoes, and to quit forest roaming.
The written language mentioned above you will see often in the
Northland. Whenever an Indian band camps, it blazes a tree and leaves,
as record for those who may follow, a message written in the phonetic
character. I do not understand exactly the philosophy of it, but I
gather that each sound has a symbol of its own, like shorthand, and
that therefore even totally different languages--such as Ojibway, the
Wood Cree, or the Hudson Bay Eskimos--may all be written in the same
character. It was invented nearly a hundred years ago by a priest. So
simple is it, and so needed a method of intercommunication, that its
use is now practically universal. Even the youngsters understand it,
for they are early instructed in its mysteries during the long winter
evenings. On the preceding page is a message I copied from a spruce
tree two hundred miles from anywhere on the Mattágami River.
[Illustration]
Besides this are numberless formal symbols in constant use. Forerunners
on a trail stick a twig in the ground whose point indicates exactly the
position of the sun. Those who follow are able to estimate, by noting
how far beyond the spot the twig points to the sun has travelled, how
long a period of time has elapsed. A stick pointed in any given
direction tells the route, of course. Another planted upright across
the first shows by its position how long a journey is contemplated. A
little sack suspended at the end of the pointer conveys information as
to the state of the larder, lean or fat according as the little sack
contains more or less gravel or sand. A shred of rabbit-skin means
starvation. And so on in variety useless in any but an ethnological
work.
[Illustration 1: A short journey.]
[Illustration 2: A medium journey.]
[Illustration 3: A long journey.]
The Ojibways' tongue is soft, and full of decided lisping and sustained
hissing sounds. It is spoken with somewhat of a sing-song drawl. We
always had a fancy that somehow it was of forest growth, and that its
syllables were intended in the scheme of things to blend with the woods
noises, just as the feathers of the mother partridge blend with the
woods colours. In general it is polysyllabic. That applies especially
to concepts borrowed of the white men. On the other hand, the Ojibways
describe in monosyllables many ideas we could express only in phrase.
They have a single word for the notion,
Place-where-an-animal-slept-last-night. Our "lair," "form," etc., do
not mean exactly that. Its genius, moreover, inclines to a flexible
verb-form, by which adjectives and substantives are often absorbed into
the verb itself, so that one beautiful singing word will convey a whole
paragraph of information. My little knowledge of it is so entirely
empirical that it can possess small value.
In concluding these desultory remarks, I want to tell you of a very
curious survival among the Ojibways and Ottawas of the Georgian Bay. It
seems that some hundreds of years ago these ordinarily peaceful folk
descended on the Iroquois in what is now New York, and massacred a
village or so. Then, like small boys who have thrown only too
accurately at the delivery wagon, they scuttled back home again.
Since that time they have lived in deadly fear of retribution. The
Iroquois have long since disappeared from the face of the earth, but
even to-day the Georgian Bay Indians are subject to periodical spasms
of terror. Some wild-eyed and imaginative youth sees at sunset a canoe
far down the horizon. Immediately the villages are abandoned in haste,
and the entire community moves up to the head-waters of streams, there
to lurk until convinced that all danger is past. It does no good to
tell these benighted savages that they are safe from vengeance, at
least in this world. The dreaded name of Iroquois is potent, even
across the centuries.
XVII.
THE CATCHING OF A CERTAIN FISH.
We settled down peacefully on the River, and the weather, after so much
enmity, was kind to us. Likewise did the flies disappear from the woods
utterly.
Each morning we arose as the Red Gods willed; generally early, when the
sun was just gilding the peaks to the westward; but not too early,
before the white veil had left the River. Billy, with woodsman's
contempt for economy, hewed great logs and burned them nobly in the
cooking of trout, oatmeal, pancakes, and the like. We had constructed
ourselves tables and benches between green trees, and there we ate. And
great was the eating beyond the official capacity of the human stomach.
There offered little things to do, delicious little things just on the
hither side of idleness. A rod wrapping needed more waxed silk; a
favourite fly required attention to prevent dissolution; the pistol was
to be cleaned; a flag-pole seemed desirable; a trifle more of balsam
could do no harm; clothes might stand drying, blankets airing. We
accomplished these things leisurely, pausing for the telling of
stories, for the puffing of pipes, for the sheer joy of contemplations.
Deerskin slipper moccasins and flapping trousers attested our
deshabille. And then somehow it was noon, and Billy again at the Dutch
oven and the broiler.
Trout we ate, and always more trout. Big fellows broiled with strips of
bacon craftily sewn in and out of the pink flesh; medium fellows cut
into steaks; little fellows fried crisp in corn-meal; big, medium, and
little fellows mingled in component of the famous North Country
_bouillon_, whose other ingredients are partridges, and tomatoes,
and potatoes, and onions, and salt pork, and flour in combination
delicious beyond belief. Nor ever did we tire of them, three times a
day, printed statement to the contrary notwithstanding. And besides
were many crafty dishes over whose construction the major portion of
morning idleness was spent.
Now at two o'clock we groaned temporary little groans; and crawled
shrinking into our river clothes, which we dared not hang too near the
fire for fear of the disintegrating scorch, and drew on soggy hobnailed
shoes with holes cut in the bottom and plunged with howls of disgust
into the upper riffles. Then the cautious leg-straddled passage of the
swift current, during which we forgot for ever--which eternity alone
circles the bliss of an afternoon on the River--the chill of the water,
and so came to the trail.
Now, at the Idiot's Delight Dick and I parted company. By three o'clock
I came again to the River, far up, halfway to the Big Falls. Deuce
watched me gravely. With the first click of the reel he retired to the
brush away from the back cast, there to remain until the pool was
fished and we could continue our journey.
In the swift leaping water, at the smooth back of the eddy, in the
white foam, under the dark cliff shadow, here, there, everywhere the
bright flies drop softly like strange snowflakes. The game is as
interesting as pistol-shooting. To hit the mark, that is enough. And
then a swirl of water and a broad lazy tail wake you to the fact that
other matters are yours. Verily the fish of the North Country are
mighty beyond all others.