hunters. The women marry very young, have a custom of suckling
their children for several years, and are besides exposed constantly to
fatigue and often to famine; hence they are not prolific, bearing upon
an average not more than four children, of whom two may attain
the awe of puberty. Upon these data, the amount of each family
may be stated at five, and the whole Indian population in the district
at five hundred.
This is but a small population for such an extent of country, yet
their mode of life occasionally subjects them to great privations. The
winter of our residence at Cumberland House proved extremely
severe to the Indians. The hooping-cough made its appearance
amongst them in the autumn, and was followed by the measles,
which in the course of the winter spread through the tribe. Many
died, and most of the survivors were so enfeebled as to he unable
to pursue the necessary avocations of hunting and fishing.
Even those who experienced only a slight attack, or escaped the sickness
altogether, dispirited by the scenes of misery which environed
them, were rendered incapable of affording relief to their distressed
relations, and spent their time in conjuring and drumming to avert
the pestilence. Those who were able came to the fort and received
relief, but many who had retired with their families to distant
corners, to pursue their winter hunts, experienced all the horrors of
famine. One evening early in the month of January, a poor Indian
entered the North-West Company’s House, carrying his only child
in his arms, and followed by his starving wife. They had been
hunting apart from the other bands, had been unsuccessful, and
whilst in want were seized with the epidemical disease. An Indian
is accustomed to starve, and it is not easy to elicit from him an
account of his sufferings. This poor man’s story was very brief; as
soon as the fever abated, he set out with his wife for Cumberland
House, having been previously reduced to feed on the bits of skin
and offal, which remained about their encampment. Even this
miserable fare was exhausted, and they walked several days without
eating, yet exerting themselves far beyond their strength that
they might save the life of the infant. It died almost within sight
of the house. Mr. Connolly, who was then in charge of the post,
received them with the utmost humanity, and instantly placed food
before them ; but no language can describe the manner in which
the miserable father dashed the morsel from his lips and deplored
the loss of his child. Misery may harden a disposition naturally
bad, but it never fails to soften the heart of a good man.
The origin of the Crees, to which nation the Cumberland House
Indians belong, is, like that of the other Aborigines of America,
involved in obscurity; but the researches now making into the
nature and affinities of the language spoken by the different Indian
tribes, may eventually throw some light on the subject. Indeed,
the American philologists seem to have succeeded already in classing
the known dialects into three languages.— 1st. The Floridean,
spoken by the Creeks, Chickesaws, Choctaws, Cherokees, Pasca-
goulas, and some other tribes, who inhabit the southern parts of
the United States. 2d. The Iroquois, spoken by the Mengwe, or
Six Nations, the Wyandots, the Nadowessies, and Asseeneepoytuck.
3d. The Lenni-lenape, spoken by a great family more widely
spread than the other two, and from which, together with a
vast number of other tribes, are sprung our Crees. Mr. Hecke-
welder, a missonary, who 'resided long amongst these people, and
from whose paper, (published in the Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society,J the above classification is taken, states
that the Lenapii have a tradition amongst them, of their ancestors
having come from the westward, and taken possession of the
whole country from the Missouri to the Atlantic, after driving
away or destroying the original inhabitants of the land, whom
they termed Alligewi. In this migration and contest, which
endured for a series of years, the Mengwe, or Iroquois, kept pace