Canadian Wilds: Tells About the Hudson's Bay Company, Northern Indians and Their Modes of Hunting, Trapping, Etc.Hunter, Martin
History
Canadian Wilds: Tells About the Hudson's Bay Company, Northern Indians and Their Modes of Hunting, Trapping, Etc.
Hunter, Martin
Hudson's Bay Company; Hunting -- Canada
As an agriculturist the Indian is a failure. The life is too hard and
humdrum for one whose ancestors from away back have lived a nomad
life. His sphere of action on a farm is too circumspect and he pines
and longs for the freedom of the wilds. It is a sad and not a
successful measure, this corralling of the once lords of the country
on restricted reservations which in plain English is no better than a
prison to them.
The Indian in his native state is hospitable to a degree. The
stranger who comes to his wigwam is given the best and choicest
pieces of what his larder contains. The softest and best bed is made
for him furtherest from the door. When he arrives no impertinent
questions are asked as to his business, destination or his success in
the hunt. Any such information that he thinks fit to impart is given
voluntarily over a pipe of peace before rolling up in his robe or
blanket.
It is not considered good form to ask questions, even a member of the
family coming home at night is not asked as to what success he has
had in the chase. His bundle or game bag is thrown inside the door
and remains there until his mother has placed food before him. While
partaking of this his mother (or wife if it happens to be the father)
opens his bag and takes out, piece by piece, the contents. If he has
killed a deer the head and heart only are brought to camp. If a bear,
the four paws, if a moose, the tongue and muzzle.
The Indians are very superstitious as to how they treat the flesh and
bones of the large game they kill. Beaver bones are never thrown to
the dogs, but are carefully collected and sunk in the lake or river,
thus returning them to the element from which they came. A bear
killed by an Indian is always addressed as cousin and a harangue is
given him by the hunter and his pardon asked for the necessity of
taking his life. The bones, especially the skull, are hung up at the
exact spot where he fell, journeys from camp often being taken with
the express purpose of carrying out this sacred duty.
Deer and moose antlers and shoulder blades are generally found on
stakes or dry knots of trees at the discharge of some big lake on
main canoe route. There are certain parts of the flesh and insides of
these animals that the women are never allowed to partake of, such as
the head, heart and paws of the bear.
Likewise it is _infra dig._ for a man to carry water to the camp,
chop wood or dry his own moccasins. After the killing of big game it
rests with the women and children to cut up the meat and toboggan it
to camp. The man merely walking ahead to show the way and lolling
about an open fire while the work of butchering and loading sled is
going on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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