(_Concluded from page 136._)
"We spent several melancholy days wandering on the borders of the east end
of the lake, surveying the various remains of what we now contemplated to
have been an unoffending and cruelly extirpated people. At several places,
by the margin of the lake, are small clusters of winter and summer wigwams
in ruins. One difference, among others, between the Boeothick wigwams and
those of the other Indians, is, that in most of the former there are small
hollows, like nests, dug in the earth around the fireplace, one for each
person to sit in. These hollows are generally so close together, and also
so close to the fireplace, and to the sides of the wigwam, that I think it
probable these people have been accustomed to sleep in a sitting position.
There was one wooden building constructed for drying and smoking venison
in, still perfect; also a small log-house, in a dilapidated condition,
which we took to have been once a storehouse. The wreck of a large,
handsome, birch-rind canoe, about twenty-two feet in length, comparatively
new, and certainly very little used, lay thrown up among the bushes at the
beach. We supposed that the violence of a storm had rent it in the way it
was found, and that the people who were in it had perished; for the iron
nails, of which there was no want, all remained in it. Had there been any
survivors, nails being much prized by these people, they never having held
intercourse with Europeans, such an article would most likely have been
taken out for use again. All the birch trees in the vicinity of the lake
had been rinded, and many of them, and of the spruce fir, or var, had the
bark taken off, to use the inner part of it for food, as noticed before."
"Their wooden repositories for the dead are what are in the most perfect
state of preservation. These are of different constructions, it would
appear, according to the character or rank of the persons entombed. In one
of them, which resembled a hut ten feet by eight or nine, and four or five
feet high in the centre, floored with squared poles, the roof covered with
rinds of trees, and in every way well secured against the weather inside,
and the intrusion of wild beasts, there were two grown persons laid out at
full length, on the floor, the bodies wrapped round with deerskins. One of
these bodies appeared to have been placed here not longer ago than five or
six years. We thought there were children laid in here also. On first
opening this building, by removing the posts which formed the ends, our
curiosity was raised to the highest pitch; but what added to our surprise,
was the discovery of a white deal coffin, containing a skeleton neatly
shrouded in white muslin. After a long pause of conjecture how such a thing
existed here, the idea of _Mary March_ occurred to one of the party, and
the whole mystery was at once explained.[3]"
[3] It should be remarked here, that Mary March, so called from the
name of the month in which she was taken, was the Red Indian
female who was captured and carried away by force from this
place by an armed party of English people, nine or ten in
number, who came up here in the month of March, 1809. The local
government authorities at that time did not foresee the result
of offering a reward to _bring a Red Indian to them_. Her
husband was cruelly shot, after nobly making several attempts,
single-handed, to rescue her from the captors, in defiance of
their fire-arms, and fixed bayonets. His tribe built this
cemetery for him, on the foundation of his own wigwam, and his
body is one of those now in it. The following winter, Captain
Buchan was sent to the River Exploits, by order of the local
government of Newfoundland, to take back this woman to the lake,
where she was captured, and if possible at the same time, to
open a friendly intercourse with her tribe. But she died on
board Captain B.'s vessel, at the mouth of the river. Captain B.
however, took up her body to the lake; and not meeting with any
of her people, left it where they were afterwards likely to meet
with it. It appears the Indians were this winter encamped on the
banks of the River Exploits, and observed Captain B.'s party
passing up the river on the ice. They retired from their
encampments in consequence; and, some weeks afterwards, went by
a circuitous route to the lake, to ascertain what the party had
been doing there. They found _Mary March's_ body, and removed it
from where Captain B. had left it to where it now lies, by the
side of her husband.
With the exception of Captain Buchan's first expedition, by
order of the local government of Newfoundland, in the winter of
1810, to endeavour to open a friendly intercourse with the Red
Indians, the two parties just mentioned are the only two we know
of that had ever before been up to the Red Indian Lake. Captain
B. at that time succeeded in forcing an interview with the
principal encampment of these people. All of the tribe that
remained at that period were then at the Great Lake, divided
into parties, and in their winter encampments, at different
places in the woods on the margin of the lake. Hostages were
exchanged; but Captain B. had not been absent from the Indians
two hours, in his return to a depôt left by him at a short
distance down the river, to take up additional presents for
them, when the want of confidence of these people in the whites
evinced itself. A suspicion spread among them that he had gone
down to bring up a reinforcement of men, to take them all
prisoners to the sea-coast; and they resolved immediately to
break up their encampment and retire farther into the country,
and alarm and join the rest of their tribe, who were all at the
western parts of the lake. To prevent their proceedings being
known, they killed and then cut off the heads of the two English
hostages; and, on the same afternoon on which Captain B. had
left them, they were in full retreat across the lake, with
baggage, children, &c. The whole of them afterwards spent the
remainder of the winter together, at a place twenty to thirty
miles to the south-west, on the south-east side of the lake. On
Captain B.'s return to the lake next day or the day after, the
cause of the scene there was inexplicable; and it remained a
mystery until now, when we can gather some facts relating to
these people from the Red Indian woman, _Shawnawdithit_.
"In this cemetery were deposited a variety of articles, in some instances
the property, in others the representations of the property and utensils,
and of the achievements, of the deceased. There were two small wooden
images of a man and woman, no doubt meant to represent husband and wife and
a small doll which we supposed to represent a child (for _Mary March_ had
to leave her only child here, which died two days after she was taken);
several small models of their canoes; two small models of boats; an iron
axe; a bow and quiver of arrows were placed by the side of _Mary March's_
husband; and two fire-stones (radiated iron pyrites, from which they
produce fire, by striking them together) lay at his head; there were also
various kinds of culinary utensils, neatly made, of birch rind and
ornamented; and many other things, of some of which we did not know the use
or meaning."
"Another mode of sepulture which we saw here was, where the body of the
deceased had been wrapped in birch rind, and with his property, placed on a
sort of scaffold about four feet and a half from the ground. The scaffold
was formed of four posts, about seven feet high, fixed perpendicularly in
the ground, to sustain a kind of crib, five feet and a half in length, by
four in breadth, with a floor made of small squared beams, laid close
together horizontally, and on which the body and property rested."
"A third mode was, when the body, bent together, and wrapped in birch rind,
was enclosed in a kind of box, on the ground. The box was made of small
squared posts, laid on each other horizontally, and notched at the corners,
to make them meet close; it was about four feet by three, and two and a
half feet deep, and well lined with birch rind, to exclude the weather from
the inside. The body lay on its right side."
"A fourth and the most common mode of burying among these people, has been,
to wrap the body in birch rind, and cover it over with a heap of stones, on
the surface of the earth, in some retired spot; sometimes the body, thus
wrapped up, is put a foot or two under the surface, and the spot covered
with stones; in one place, where the ground was sandy and soft, they
appeared to have been buried deeper, and no stones placed over the graves."
"These people appear to have always shewn great respect for their dead; and
the most remarkable remains of them commonly observed by Europeans at the
sea-coast, are their burying-places. These are at particular chosen spots;
and it is well known that they have been in the habit of bringing their
dead from a distance to them. With their women they bury only their
clothes."
"On the north-side of the lake, opposite the River Exploits, are the
extremities of two deer fences, about half a mile apart, where they lead to
the water. It is understood that they diverge many miles in north-westerly
directions. The Red Indian makes these fences to lead and scare the deer to
the lake, during the periodical migration of these animals; the Indians
being stationed looking out, when the deer get into the water to swim
across, the lake being narrow at this end, they attack and kill the animals
with spears out of their canoes. In this way they secure their winter
provisions before the severity of that season sets in."
"There were other old remains of different kinds peculiar to these people
met with about the lake."
"One night we encamped on the foundation of an old Red Indian wigwam, on
the extremity of a point of land which juts out into the lake, and exposed
to the view of the whole country around. A large fire at night is the life
and soul of such a party as ours, and when it blazed up at times, I could
not help observing that two of my Indians evinced uneasiness and want of
confidence in things around, as if they thought themselves usurpers on the
Red Indian territory. From time immemorial none of the Indians of the other
tribes had ever encamped near this lake fearlessly, and, as we had now
done, in the very centre of such a country; the lake and territory adjacent
having been always considered to belong exclusively to the Red Indians, and
to have been occupied by them. It had been our invariable practice
hitherto, to encamp near the hills, and be on their summits by the dawn of
day, to try to discover the morning smoke ascending from the Red Indians'
camps; and to prevent the discovery of ourselves, we extinguished our own
fire always some length of time before daylight."
"Our only and frail hope now left of seeing the Red Indians, lay on the
banks of the River Exploits, on our return to the sea-coast."
"The Red Indians' Lake discharges itself about three or four miles from its
north-east end, and its waters form the River Exploits. From the lake to
the sea-coast is considered about seventy miles; and down this noble river
the steady perseverance and intrepidity of my Indians carried me on rafts
in four days, to accomplish which otherwise, would have required, probably,
two weeks. We landed at various places on both banks of the river on our
way down, but found no traces of the Red Indians so recent as those seen at
the portage at Badger Bay-Great Lake, towards the beginning of our
excursion. During our descent, we had to construct new rafts at the
different waterfalls. Sometimes we were carried down the rapids at the rate
of ten miles an hour, or more, with considerable risk of destruction to the
whole party, for we were always together on one raft."
"What arrests the attention most, while gliding down the stream, is the
extent of the Indian fences to entrap the deer. They extend from the lake
downwards, continuous, on the banks of the river, at least thirty miles.
There are openings left here and there in them, for the animals to go
through and swim across the river, and at these places the Indians are
stationed, and kill them in the water with spears, out of their canoes, as
at the lake. Here, then, connecting these fences with those on the
north-west side of the lake, is at least forty miles of country, easterly
and westerly, prepared to intercept all the deer that pass that way in
their periodical migrations. It was melancholy to contemplate the gigantic,
yet feeble, efforts of a whole primitive nation, in their anxiety to
provide subsistence, forsaken and going to decay."
"There must have been hundreds of the Red Indians, and that not many years
ago, to have kept up these fences and pounds. As their numbers were
lessened so was their ability to keep them up for the purposes intended;
and now the deer pass the whole line unmolested."
"We infer, that the few of these people who yet survive have taken refuge
in some sequestered spot, still in the northern part of the island, and
where they can procure deer to subsist on."
"On the 29th of November we had again returned to the mouth of the River
Exploits, in thirty days after our departure from thence, after having made
a complete circuit of about 200 miles in the Red Indian territory."
"In conclusion, I congratulate the institution on the acquisition of
several ingenious articles, the manufacture of the _Boeothicks_, or Red
Indians, some of which we had the good fortune to discover on our recent
excursion;--models of their canoes, bows and arrows, spears of different
kinds, &c.; and also a complete dress worn by that people. Their mode of
kindling fire is not only original, but, as far as we at present know, is
peculiar to the tribe. These articles, together with a short vocabulary of
their language, consisting of 200 or 300 words, which I have been enabled
to collect, prove the Boeothicks to be a distinct tribe from any hitherto
discovered in North America. One remarkable characteristic of their
language, and in which it resembles those of Europe more than any other
Indian languages do, with which we have had an opportunity of comparing
it,--is its abounding in diphthongs."
Mr. Cormack thinks that after the unfortunate circumstances attending past
encounters between the Europeans and the Red Indians, it is best now to
employ Indians belonging to the other tribes to be the medium of the
intercourse in view; and he has chosen three intelligent men from
Newfoundland to follow up the search.
* * * * *