The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 387, August 28, 1829Various
History
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 387, August 28, 1829
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
"This spot has been a favourite place of settlement with these people. It
is situated at the commencement of a _portage_, which forms a
communication by a path between the sea-coast at Badger Bay, about eight
miles to the north-east, and a chain of lakes extending westerly and
southerly from hence, and discharging themselves by a rivulet into the
River Exploits, about thirty miles from its mouth. A path also leads from
this place to the lakes, near New Bay, to the eastward. Here are the
remains of one of their villages, where the vestiges of eight or ten
winter _mamatecks_, or wigwams, each intended to contain from six to
eighteen or twenty people, are distinctly seen close together. Besides
these, there are the remains of a number of summer wigwams. Every winter
wigwam has close by it a small square-mouthed or oblong pit, dug into the
earth, about four feet deep, to preserve their stores, &c. in. Some of
these pits were lined with birch rind. We discovered also in this village
the remains of a vapour-bath. The method used by the Boeothicks to raise
the steam, was by pouring water on large stones made very hot for the
purpose, in the open air, by burning a quantity of wood around them; after
this process, the ashes were removed, and a hemispherical framework
closely covered with skins, to exclude the external air, was fixed over
the stones. The patient then crept in under the skins, taking with him a
birch-rind bucket of water, and a small bark-dish to dip it out, which, by
pouring on the stones, enabled him to raise the steam at pleasure.[5]
"At Hall's Bay we got no useful information, from the three (and the only)
English families settled there. Indeed we could hardly have expected any;
for these, and such people, have been the unchecked and ruthless
destroyers of the tribe, the remnant of which we were in search of. After
sleeping one night in a _house_, we again struck into the country to the
westward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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