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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13762 ***
+
+REPORT OF MR W. E. CORMACK'S JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE RED INDIANS
+IN NEWFOUNDLAND
+
+Read before the Boeothick Institution at St John's, Newfoundland
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Pursuant to special summons, a meeting of this Institution was held at
+St John's on the 12th day of January 1828; the Honourable A.W.
+Desbarres, Vice-Patron, in the chair. The Honourable Chairman stated,
+that the primary motive which led to the formation of the Institution,
+was the desire of opening a communication with, and promoting the
+civilization of, the Red Indians of Newfoundland; and of procuring, if
+possible, an authentic history of that unhappy race of people, in
+order that their language, customs and pursuits, might be contrasted
+with those of other tribes of Indians and nations;--that, in following
+up the chief object of the institution, it was anticipated that much
+information would be obtained respecting the natural productions of
+the island; the interior of which is less known than any other of the
+British possessions abroad. Their excellent President, keeping all
+these objects in view, had permitted nothing worthy of research to
+escape his scrutiny, and consequently a very wide field of information
+was now introduced to their notice, all apparently highly interesting
+and useful to society, if properly cultivated. He was aware of their
+very natural anxiety to hear from the president an outline of his
+recent expedition, and he would occupy their attention farther, only
+by observing, that the purposes of the present meeting would be best
+accomplished by taking into consideration the different subjects
+recommended to them in the president's report, and passing such
+resolutions as might be considered necessary to govern the future
+proceedings of the Institution.
+
+The President, W.E. Cormack, Esq. then laid the following Statement
+before the meeting.
+
+Having so recently returned, I will now only lay before you a brief
+outline of my expedition in search of the Boeothicks or Red Indians,
+confining my remarks exclusively to its primary object. A detailed
+report of the journey will be prepared, and submitted to the
+Institution, whenever I shall have leisure to arrange the other
+interesting materials which have been collected.
+
+My party consisted of three Indians, whom I procured from among the
+other different tribes, viz. an intelligent and able man of the
+Abenakie tribe, from Canada; an elderly Mountaineer from Labrador; and
+an adventurous young Micmack, a native of this island, together with
+myself. It was difficult to obtain men fit for the purpose, and the
+trouble attending on this prevented my entering on the expedition a
+month earlier in the season. It was my intention to have commenced our
+search at White Bay, which is nearer the northern extremity of the
+island than where we did, and to have travelled southward; but the
+weather not permitting to carry my party thither by water, after
+several days delay, I unwillingly changed my line of route.
+
+On the 31st of October 1828 [Sic: 30th of October 1827] last, we
+entered the country at the mouth of the River Exploits, on the north
+side, at what is called the Northern Arm. We took a north-westerly
+direction to lead us to Hall's Bay, which place we reached through an
+almost uninterrupted forest, over a hilly country, in eight days. This
+tract comprehends the country interior from New Bay, Badger Bay, Seal
+Bay, &c.; these being minor bays, included in Green or Notre Dame Bay,
+at the north-east part of the island, and well known to have been
+always heretofore the summer residence of the Red Indians.
+
+On the fourth day after our departure, at the east end of Badger
+Bay-Great Lake, at a _portage_ known by the name of the Indian Path,
+we found traces made by the Red Indians, evidently in the spring or
+summer of the preceding year. Their party had had two canoes; and here
+was a _canoe-rest_, on which the daubs of red-ochre, and the roots of
+trees used to fasten or tie it together appeared fresh. A canoe-rest
+is simply a few beams, supported horizontally, about five feet from
+the ground, by perpendicular posts. A party with two canoes, when
+descending from the interior to the sea-coast, through such a part of
+the country as this, where there are troublesome portages, leave one
+canoe resting, bottom up, on this kind of frame, to protect it from
+injury by the weather, until their return. Among other things which
+lay strewed about here, were a spear-shaft, eight feet in length,
+recently made and ochred; parts of old canoes, fragments of their
+skin-dresses, &c. For some distance around, the trunks of many of the
+birch, and of that species of spruce pine called here the Var (_Pinus
+balsamifera_), had been rinded; these people using the inner part of
+the bark of that kind of tree for food. Some of the cuts in the trees
+with the axe were evidently made the preceding year. Besides these, we
+were elated by other encouraging signs. The traces left by the Red
+Indians are so peculiar, that we were confident those we saw here were
+made by them.
+
+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 _mamateeks_ 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 frame-work, 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[A].
+
+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.
+
+In five days we were on the high lands south of White Bay, and in
+sight of the high lands east of the Bay of Islands, on the west coast
+of Newfoundland. The country south and west of us was low and flat,
+consisting of marshes, extending in a southerly direction more than
+thirty miles. In this direction lies the famous Red Indians' Lake. It
+was now near the middle of November, and the winter had commenced
+pretty severely in the interior. The country was everywhere covered
+with snow, and, for some days past, we had walked over the small ponds
+on the ice. The summits of the hills on which we stood had snow on
+them, in some places many feet deep. The deer were migrating from the
+rugged and dreary mountains in the north to the low mossy barrens and
+more woody parts in the south; and we inferred, that if any of the Red
+Indians had been at White Bay during the past summer, they might be at
+that time stationed about the borders of the low tract of country
+before us, at the _deer-passes_, or were employed somewhere else in
+the interior, killing deer for winter provision. At these passes,
+which are particular places in the migration lines of path, such as
+the extreme ends of, and straights in, many of the large lakes,--the
+foot of valleys between high or rugged mountains,--fords in the large
+rivers, and the like,--the Indians kill great numbers of deer with
+very little trouble, during their migrations. We looked out for two
+days from the summits of the hills adjacent, trying to discover the
+smoke from the camps of the Red Indians; but in vain. These hills
+command a very extensive view of the country in every direction.
+
+We now determined to proceed towards the Red Indians' Lake, sanguine
+that, at that known rendezvous, we would find the objects of our
+search.
+
+Travelling over such a country, except when winter has fairly set in,
+is truly laborious.
+
+In about ten days we got a glimpse of this beautifully majestic and
+splendid sheet of water. The ravages of fire, which we saw in the
+woods for the last two days, indicated that man had been near. We
+looked down on the lake, from the hills at the northern extremity,
+with feelings of anxiety and admiration:--No canoe could be discovered
+moving on its placid surface in the distance. We were the first
+Europeans who had seen it in an unfrozen state, for the three former
+parties who had visited it before, were here in the winter, when its
+waters were frozen and covered over with snow. They had reached it
+from below, by way of the River Exploits, on the ice. We approached
+the lake with hope and caution; but found to our mortification that
+the Red Indians had deserted it for some years past. My party had been
+so excited, so sanguine, and so determined to obtain an interview of
+some kind with these people, that, on discovering, from appearances
+every where around us, that the Red Indians--the terror of the
+Europeans as well as the other Indian inhabitants of Newfoundland--no
+longer existed, the spirits of one and all of us were very deeply
+affected. The old mountaineer was particularly overcome. There were
+every where indications that this had long been the central and
+undisturbed rendezvous of the tribe, where they had enjoyed peace and
+security. But these primitive people had abandoned it, after having
+been tormented by parties of Europeans during the last eighteen [Sic:
+thirteen] years. Fatal rencounters had on these occasions
+unfortunately taken place.
+
+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 fire-place, one for each person to sit in.
+These hollows are generally so close together, and also so close to
+the fire-place, 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 store-house.
+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 (_Pinus
+balsamifera_, Canadian balsam tree) 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 deer-skins. 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[B].
+
+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; 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 Indians make 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
+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 day-light.
+
+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 from 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 ponds. 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 November we were 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.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have now stated generally the result of my excursion, avoiding, for
+the present, entering into any detail. The materials collected on
+this, as well as on my excursion across the interior a few years ago,
+and on other occasions, put me in possession of a general knowledge of
+the natural condition and productions of Newfoundland; and, as a
+member of an institution formed to protect the aboriginal inhabitants
+of the country in which we live, and to prosecute inquiry into the
+moral character of man in his primitive state, I can, at this early
+stage of our institution, assert, trusting to nothing vague, that we
+already possess more information concerning these people than has been
+obtained during the two centuries and a-half in which Newfoundland has
+been in the possession of Europeans. But it is to be lamented that
+now, when we have taken up the cause of a barbarously treated people,
+so few should remain to reap the benefit of our plans for their
+civilization. The institution and its supporters will agree with me,
+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 beginning
+the intercourse we have in view; and indeed I have already chosen
+three of the most intelligent men from among the others met with in
+Newfoundland to follow up my search.
+
+In conclusion, I congratulate the institution on the acquisition of
+several ingenious articles, the manufacture of the _Boeothicks_, 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 to 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. In my detailed report, I would propose to have plates of
+these articles, and also of the like articles used by other tribes of
+Indians, that a comparative idea may be formed of them; and, when the
+Indian female _Shawnawdithit_ arrives in St John's, I would recommend
+that a correct likeness of her be taken, and be preserved in the
+records of the institution. One of the specimens of mineralogy which
+we found in our excursion, was a block of what is called _Labrador
+Felspar_, nearly four one-half feet in length, by about three feet in
+breadth and thickness. This is the largest piece of that beautiful
+rock yet discovered any where. Our subsistence in the interior was
+entirely animal food, deer and beavers, which we shot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_Resolved_,--That the measures recommended in the president's report
+be agreed to; and that the three men, Indians of the Canadian and
+Mountaineer tribes, be placed upon the establishment of this
+institution, to be employed under the immediate direction and control
+of the president; and that they be allowed for their services such a
+sum of money as the president may consider a fair and reasonable
+compensation: That it be the endeavour of this institution to collect
+every useful information respecting the natural productions and
+resources of this island, and, from time to time, to publish the same
+in its reports: That the instruction of _Shawnawdithit_ would be much
+accelerated by bringing her to St John's, &c.: That the proceedings of
+the institution, since its establishment, be laid before his Majesty's
+Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, by the president, on
+his arrival in England.
+
+(Signed) "A.W. des BARRES, Chairman and Vice-Patron."
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[Footnote A: Since my return, I learn from the captive Red Indian
+woman _Shawnawdithit_, that the vapour-bath is chiefly used by old
+people, and for rheumatic affections.
+
+_Shanawdithit_ is the survivor of three Red Indian females, who were
+taken by, or rather who gave themselves up, exhausted with hunger, to
+some English furriers, about five years ago, in Notre Dame Bay. She is
+the only one of that tribe in the hands of the English, and the only
+one that has ever lived so long among them. It appears extraordinary,
+and it is to be regretted, that this woman has not been taken care of,
+nor noticed before, in a manner which the peculiar and interesting
+circumstances connected with her tribe and herself would have led us
+to expect.]
+
+[Footnote B: 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.[Sic: 1819] 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, [Sic:
+1815] 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 depot 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_.]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13762 ***