The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 95

The origin of this people is, we believe, unknown. Another arctic traveller has suggested that they are "the missing link between a Saxon and a seal." They are rapidly decreasing in numbers; yet, if measured by the territory which they inhabit, they form one of the most widely-spread races on the face of the earth. Mr. Max Muller might help us to arrive at the ethnological family to which they belong, were he to study the specimens of their language with which Captain Hall supplies us. Judging from the physiognomy of two of them, whom the author has photographed for his frontispiece, we should say that {558} they certainly do not belong, as M. Berard and, we believe, Baron Humboldt have supposed, to those Mongol races, which, under the names of "Laps" and "Finns," inhabit the same lat.i.tudes of the European continent. They seem rather to approach the type of some of the tribes of the North American Indians; and the resemblance of their habits of life and traditions points to the same conclusion. They are small of stature, five feet two inches being rather a high standard for the men, but of great strength and activity, and they have a marvellous power of enduring fatigue, cold, and hunger.

The name "Esquimaux," by which we designate them, is a French form of on Indian word, _Aish-ke-um-oog_ (p.r.o.nounced Es-ke-moag)--meaning in the Cree language, "He eats raw flesh;" and in fact they are the only race of North-American savages who live habitually and entirely on raw flesh. In their own language they are called _Innuit_ that is, _the_ people par _excellence_. Formerly they had chiefs, and a sort of feudal system among them; but this has disappeared, and they have now no political organization whatever, and no authority among them, except that of the husband over his wives and children.

Their theology--so far as we can arrive at it--teaches that there is one Supreme Being, whom they call "Anguta," who created the material universe; and a secondary divinity, (the daughter of Anguta,) called "Sidne," through whose agency he created all living things, animal and vegetable. The Innuits believe in a heaven and a h.e.l.l, and the eternity of future rewards and punishments. Success and happiness, and benevolence shown to others, they consider the surest marks of predestination to eternal happiness in the next world; and they hold it to be as certain that whoever is killed by accident or commits suicide goes straight to heaven, as that the crime of murder will in all cases be punished eternally in h.e.l.l. They seem hardly to secure the attribute of omnipotence to their "Supreme Being;" for, in their account of the creation of the world, they affirm that his first attempt to create a man was a decided failure--that is to say, he produced a _white_ man. A second attempt, however, was crowned with entire success, in the production of an Esquimaux on Innuit--the faultless prototype of the human race. A tradition of a deluge, or "extraordinary high tide," which covered the whole earth, exists among the Esquimaux; and they have certain customs which they observe with religious reverence, although they can give no other reason or explanation of them except immemorial tradition. "The first Innuits did so," is always their answer when questioned on the subject. Thus, when a reindeer, or any other animal, is killed on land, a portion of the flesh is always buried on the exact spot where it fell--possibly the idea of sacrifice was connected with this practice; and when a polar bear is killed, its bladder must be inflated and exposed in a conspicuous place for three days. And many such practices, equally unintelligible, are scrupulously adhered to; and any departure from them is supposed to bring misfortune upon the offending party.

Though the Esquimaux own neither government nor control of any kind, they yet yield a superst.i.tious obedience to a character called the "Angeko," whose influence they rarely venture to contravene. The Angeko is at once physician and magician. In cases of sickness the Esquimaux never take medicine; but the Angeko is called, and if his enchantments fail to cure, the sick person is carried away from the tents, and left to die. The Angeko is also called upon to avert evils of all kinds; to secure success for hunting or fis.h.i.+ng expeditions, or any such undertaking; to obtain the disappearance of ice, and the public good on various occasions; and in all cases the efficacy of his ministrations is believed to be proportioned to the guerdon which he receives. Captain Hall {559} mentions only two instances, as having occurred in his experience, of resistance being made by Esquimaux to the wishes of the Angeko; and in both cases the parties demurred to a demand that they should give up their wives to him. Though more commonly they have but one wife, owing to the difficulty of supporting a number of women, polygamy is allowed and practised by the Esquimaux.

Their marriage is without ceremony of any kind, nor is the bond indissoluble. Exchange of wives is of frequent occurrence; and if a man becomes, from sickness or other cause, unable to support them, his wives will leave him, and attach themselves to some more vigorous husband. For the rest, the Esquimaux are intelligent, honest, and extremely generous to one another. When provisions are scarce, if a seal or walrus is killed by one of the camp, he invites the whole settlement to feast upon it, though he may be in want of food for himself and his family on the morrow in consequence of doing so. They are very improvident, and rarely store their food, but trust to the fortunes of the chase to supply their wants, and are generally during the winter in a constant state of oscillation between famine and abundance. The Esquimaux inhabit the extreme limits of the globe habitable by man, and they have certain peculiarities in their life consequent on the circ.u.mstances of their climate and country; but in other respects they resemble the rest of the nomad and savage races which people the extreme north of America. In summer the Esquimaux live in tents called _tupics_, made of skins like those used by the Indian tribes, and these are easily moved from place to place. As winter sets in, they choose a spot where provisions are likely to be plentiful, and there they erect _igloogs_, or huts constructed of blocks of ice, and vaulted in the roof. If they are obliged to change their quarters during the winter, either permanently or temporarily, they build fresh _igloos_ of snow cut into blocks, which soon freeze, and in the s.p.a.ce of an hour or two they are thus able to provide themselves with new premises. The only animals domesticated by the Esquimaux are their fine and very intelligent dogs. They serve them as guards, as guides, as beasts of burden and draught, as companions, and a.s.sist them in the pursuit of every kind of wild animal. The women have the care of all household affairs, and do the tailor's and shoemaker's work, and prepare the skins for all articles of clothing and bedding--no unimportant department in such a climate as theirs: the men have nothing to think of but to supply provisions by hunting and fis.h.i.+ng. Sporting, which in civilized society is a mere recreation and amus.e.m.e.nt, is the profession and serious employment, as well as the delight, of the savage. And we find in the rational as well as in the irrational animal, when in its wild state, the highest development of those instincts and sensible powers with which G.o.d has endowed it for its maintenance and self-preservation, and which it loses, in proportion as it ceases to need them, in civilized society or in the domesticated state.

The arctic regions, though ill-adapted for the abode of man, teem with animal life. The seal, the walrus, and the whale supply the ordinary needs of the Esquimaux. In the mouth of their rivers they find an abundance of salmon; various kinds of ducks and other aquatic birds inhabit their coasts in mult.i.tudes; reindeer and partridges are plentiful on the hills; while the most highly prized as well as the most formidable game is the great polar bear, whose flesh affords the most dainty feast, and whose skin the warmest clothing, to these children of the North.

Captain Hall lived, for months at a time, alone with the Esquimaux. He acquired some proficiency in their language and shared their life in all respects. He became popular with them, and even gained some influence over them. He experienced some {560} difficulty in his first attempt to eat raw flesh, (some whale's blubber, which was served up for dinner;) but on a second trial, when urged by hunger, he made a hearty meal on the blood of a seal which had just been killed, which he found to be delicious. After this, cooking was entirely dispensed with. Those who have visited new and "unsettled" countries will be able to testify how easily man pa.s.ses into a savage state, and how pleasant the transition is to his inferior nature. There is a charm in the freedom, in the total emanc.i.p.ation from the artificial restraints, the feverish collisions, and daily anxieties of civilized society which is one of the most secret, but also one of the most powerful agents in advancing the colonization of the world. Captain Hall's enthusiasm, which begins to mount at the sight of icebergs, whales, and the novelty and grandeur of arctic scenery, reaches its climax when he finds himself in an unexplored region, the solitary guest of this wild and eccentric people, and depending, like them, for his daily sustenance on the resources of nature alone.

The Esquimaux are sociable and cheerful, and, in Greenland and the neighboring islands, hospitable to strangers; but those of their race who inhabit the continent of America have a character for ferocity, and are the most unapproachable to Europeans of all the savage tribes of America. Even Captain Hall himself expresses uneasiness from time to time lest he should become an object of suspicion to them, or give them a motive for revenge. They are one of the few peoples of the extreme north with whom the Hudson's Bay Company have hitherto failed to establish relations of commerce. Many travellers and traders have been murdered by them on entering their territory, and the missioners of North-America regard them as likely to be the last in the order of their conversion to Christianity. Skilful boatmen and pilots, perfectly familiar with their coasts, with great intelligence in observing natural phenomena, and knowing by experience every probable variation of their inhospitable climate, as well as the mode of providing against it, they formed invaluable a.s.sistants to an expedition for the scientific survey of a region as yet imperfectly known to the geographer. Their sporting propensities were the chief hindrance to their services in the cause of science. No sooner were ducks, or seals, or reindeer in view, than all the objects of the expedition were entirely forgotten till the hunt was over. No motive is strong enough to restrain an Esquimaux from the chase so long as game is afoot:

"Canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto."

Seals are captured by the Esquimaux in various ways. Some are taken in nets. At other times they are seen in great numbers on the ice, lying at the brink of open water, into which they plunge on the first alarm, and much skill is then required in approaching them. In doing this, the Esquimaux imitate the tactics of the polar bear. The bear or the savage, as the case may be, throws himself flat upon the ice and imitates the slow jerking action of a seal in crawling toward his game. The seal sees his enemy approaching, but supposes him to be another seal; but if he shows any signs of uneasiness, the hunter stops perfectly still and "talks" to him--that is, he imitates the plaintive grunts in which seals converse with one another. Rea.s.sured by such persuasive language, the seal goes to sleep. Presently he starts up again, when the same process is repeated. Finally, when within range, the man fires, or the bear springs upon his victim. But the Esquimaux confess that the bear far surpa.s.ses them in this art, and that if they could only "talk" as well as "Ninoo," (that is, "Bruin,)" they should never be in want of seal's flesh. When the winter sets in, and the ice becomes thick, the seal cuts a pa.s.sage {561} through the ice with his sharp claws with which its flippers are armed, and makes an aperture in the surface large enough to admit its nose to the outer air for the purpose of respiration. This aperture is soon covered with snow. When the snow becomes deep enough, and the seal is about to give birth to its young, it widens the aperture, pa.s.ses through the ice, and constructs a dome-shaped chamber under the snow, which becomes the nursery of the young seals. This is called a seal's _igloo_, from its resemblance to the huts built by the Esquimaux. It requires a dog with a very fine nose to mark the bathing-place or igloo of a seal by the taint of the animal beneath the snow; but when once it has been discovered, the Esquimaux is pretty sure of his prey. If an igloo has been formed, and the seal has young ones, the hunter leaps "with a run" upon the top of the dome, crushes it in, and, before the seals can recover from their astonishment, he plunges his seal-hooks into them, from which there is no escape. If there be no igloo, but a mere breathing-hole, he clears away the snow with his spear and marks the exact spot where the seal's nose will protrude at his next visit, an aperture only a few inches in diameter; then with a seal-spear strongly barbed in his hand, and attached to his belt by twenty yards of the thongs of deer's hide, he seats himself over the hole and awaits the seal's "blow." The seal may blow in a few minutes, or in a few hours, or not for two or three days; but there the Esquimaux remains, without food, and whatever the weather may be, till he hears a low snorting sound; then, quick as lightning, and with unerring aim, he plunges the spear into the seal, opens the aperture in the ice with his axe till it will allow the body of the seal to pa.s.s, and draws it forth upon the ice. The mode of spearing the walrus is more perilous. The walrus are generally found among broken ice, or ice so thin that they can break it. If the ice is thin, they will often attack the hunter by breaking the ice under his feet. In order to do this, the walrus looks steadily at the man taking aim at him, and then dives; the Esquimaux, aware of his intention, runs to a short distance to s.h.i.+ft his position, and when the walrus rises, cras.h.i.+ng through the ice on which he was standing only a moment before, he comes forward again and darts his harpoon into it.

Ordinarily the Esquimaux selects a hole in the ice where he expects the walrus to "vent," and places himself so as to command it, with his harpoon in one hand, a few coils of a long rope of hide, attached to the harpoon, in the other, the remainder of the rope being wound round his neck, with a sharp spike fastened at the extreme end of it. As soon as the walrus rises to the surface, he darts the harpoon into its body, throws the coils of rope from his neck, and fixes the spike into the ice. A moment's hesitation, or a blunder, may involve serious consequences. If he does not instantly detach the rope from his neck, he is dragged under the ice. If he fails to drive the spike firmly into the ice before the walrus has run out the length of the line, he loses his harpoon and his rope.

But the sport which rouses the whole spirit of an Esquimaux community begins when a polar bear comes in view. "Ninoo" is the monarch of these arctic deserts, as the lion is of those of the South. The person who first shouts on seeing "Ninoo," whether man, woman, or child, is awarded with the skin, whoever may succeed in killing him. Dogs are immediately put upon his track, and, on coming up with him, are taught not to close with him, but to hang upon his haunches and bring him to bay. The men follow as best they can, and with the best arms that the occasion supplies. The sagacity and ferocity of this beast make an attack upon him perilous, even with fire-arms; but great nerve, strength, and skill are required, when armed {562} only with a harpoon or a spear, to meet him hand to hand in his battle for life,

"Or to his den, by snow-tracks, mark the way, And drag the struggling savage into day."

The polar bear it amphibious, and often takes to the sea. Then if boats can be procured, it becomes a trial of speed between rowing and swimming, and an exciting race of many miles often takes place. In the open sea "Ninoo" has a poor chance of escape, unless he gets a great start of his pursuers; but the arctic coasts are generally studded with islands, and, when he can do so, he makes first for one island, then for another, crossing them, and taking to the water again on the opposite side, while the votes have to make the entire circuit of each. The sagacity of these animals is marvellous, and proverbial among the Esquimaux, who study their habits in order to get hints for their own guidance. When seals are in the water, the bear will swim quietly among them, his great white head a.s.suming the appearance of a block of floating ice or snow, and when close to them he will dive and seize the seals under the water. When the walrus are basking on the rocks, "Ninoo" will climb the cliffs above them and loosen large ma.s.ses of rock, and then, calculating the curve to a nicety, launch them upon his prey beneath. When a she-bear is attended by her cubs, the Esquimaux will never attack the cubs until the mother has been despatched; such is their fear of the vengeance with which, in the event of her escaping, she follows up the slaughter of her offspring by day and night with terrible pertinacity and fury.

The Esquimaux stalk the reindeer much as we do the red deer in the Highlands of Scotland; but the snow which lies in arctic regions during the greater part of the year enables them to follow the same herd of deer by their tracks for several days together.

Such, then, are the life, the habits, the pursuits of the Esquimaux.

Pagan in religion, the stand in need of that phase which alone is able to save their race, now peris.h.i.+ng from the face of the earth. Their life is a constant struggle with the climate in which they live and the famine with which they are perpetually threatened. A hardy race of hunters, they exhibit many natural virtues, considerable intelligence, and a strong nationality. The true faith, if they embraced it, while it secured their eternal interests, would at the same time be to them, as it has been to so many savage races, the princ.i.p.al of a great social regeneration. At present they are wasting away as a race, and will soon become extinct. Polygamy has always been found to cause the decrease and decay of a population; and any human society, however simple, will fall to pieces when it is not animated by ideas of order and justice.

The Esquimaux occupy the extremities of human habitation in North America; and if we pa.s.s from their territory to the south, we enter upon that vast realm called "British America"--a region sufficient in extent and resources, if developed by civilization, to const.i.tute an empire in itself. Of this vast territory the two Canadas alone, on the north bank of the St. Lawrence River and the chain of mighty lakes from which it flows, have been colonized by European settlers. The remainder is inhabited by the nomad tribes of Indians and the wild animals upon which they subsist, the British government being there unrepresented except by the occasional forts and stations established by the Hudson's Bay Company as centres for the traffic in furs, which the Indians supply in the greatest abundance and variety.

The French, who were among the first to profit by the discovery of Columbus and to settle as colonists in the new hemisphere, have in their conquests always planted the cross of Christ side by side with the banner of France. Though they have failed to retain the dominion of those colonies {563} which they founded, yet, to their glory be it said, their missioners have not only kept alive that sacred flame of faith which they kindled in their former possessions, but have spread it from one end of the American continent to the other, beyond the limits within which lucre leads the trader, and even among the remote tribes who as yet reject all ordinary intercourse with the white man.

Monseigneur Faraud, now Bishop of Anemour and Vicar-Apostolic of Mackenzie, has published his experiences during eighteen years of missionary labor as a priest among the savages of the extreme north of America, [Footnote 123] with the view of giving information to future missioners in the same regions, and inspiring others to undertake the conversion of this portion of the heathen world. The proceeds of the sale of his book will be devoted to founding establishments for works of corporal and spiritual mercy among the tribes of Indians in his diocese. The narrative of his apostolic life is highly interesting.

Born of an old legitimist family in the south of France, some of whose members had fallen victims to the Reign of Terror in 1793, and carefully educated under the eye of a pious mother, he offered himself to the service of G.o.d in the priesthood. Being of a vigorous const.i.tution and of an enterprising spirit, he was drawn to the work of the foreign missions, and at the age of twenty-six he started for North America. Landing at New York, he pa.s.sed through Montreal to St.

Boniface, a settlement on the Red River, a few miles above the point where it discharges its waters into the great Lake Winnipeg. Here he fixed his abode for seven months, studying the language, and acquiring the habits and mode of life of the natives. At the end of this time the Indians of the settlement started on their annual expedition at the end of the summer to the prairies of the west to hunt the buffalo--an important affair, on which depends their supply of buffalo-hides and beef for the winter.

[Footnote 123: "Dix-huit Ans chez les Sauvages. Voyages et Missions de Mgr. Faraud dans le Nord de l'Amerique Britannique. Regis Ruffet et Cie. Paris, 1866."]

For this expedition, which was organized with military precision and most picturesque effect, one hundred and twenty skilful hunters were selected, armed with guns and long _couteaux de cha.s.se_, and mounted on their best horses. A long train of bullock-carts followed in the rear, with boys and women as drivers, carrying the tents and provisions for encampment, and destined to bring home the game. The priest accompanied them, saying ma.s.s for them every morning in a tent set apart as the chapel, and night-prayers before retiring to rest in the evening.

In this way they journeyed for a week, making about thirty miles in the day, and camping for the night in their tents. Let the reader, in order to conceive an American "prairie," imagine a level and boundless plain, reaching in every direction to the horizon, fertile and covered with luxuriant herbage, and unbroken except by swelling undulations and here and there occasional clumps of trees sprinkled like islets on the ocean, or oases on the desert. After marching for a week across the prairie, they came upon the tracks of a herd of buffaloes. The Indians are taught from childhood, when they encounter a track, to discern at once to what animal it belongs, how long it is since it pa.s.sed that way, and to follow it by the eye, as a hound does by scent. For two days they marched in the track of the buffaloes, and the second night the hunters brought a supply of fresh beef into camp--they had killed some old bulls. These old bulls are found single, or in parties of two or three, and always indicate the proximity of a herd. Accordingly, on the following morning the herd was discovered in the distance on the prairie, like a swarm of flies on a green carpet. The hunters now galloped to the front, and called a council of war behind some undulating ground about a mile and a half {564} from the buffaloes, who, in number about three thousand, were grazing lazily on the plain. All was now animation. It would be difficult to say whether the keener interest was shown by the men or the horses, who now, with dilated eyes and nostrils, ears p.r.i.c.ked, and nervous action, pawed the ground, impatient as greyhounds in the slips and eager for the fray. The plan of action was soon agreed upon--a few words were spoken in a low tone by the chief, and the hors.e.m.e.n vanished with the rapidity of the wind. In about a quarter of an hour they reappeared, having formed a circle round the buffaloes, whom they now approached at a hand-gallop, concentrating their descent upon the herd from every point of the compa.s.s. The effect of this strategy was that, though they were soon discovered, time was gained. Whichever way the herd pointed, they were encountered by an approaching horseman, and they were thus thrown into confusion, until, ma.s.sing themselves into a disordered mob, they charged, breaking away through the line of cavalry. Then began the race and the slaughter. A good horse, even with a man on his back, has always the speed of a buffalo; but the skill of a hunter is shown (besides minding his horse lest he gets entangled in the herd and trampled to death, and keeping his presence of mind during the delirium of the chase,) in selecting the youngest and fattest beasts of the herd, in loading his piece with the greatest rapidity--the Indians have no breech-loaders--and taking accurate aim while riding at the top of his speed. In the s.p.a.ce of a mile a skilful buffalo-hunter will fire seven, eight, nine shots in this manner, and at each discharge a buffalo will bite the dust. On the present occasion the pursuit continued for about a mile and a half, and above eight hundred buffaloes were safely bagged. When the chase was over, there was a plentiful supply of fresh beef, the hides were carefully stowed on the carts, the carca.s.ses cut up, the meat dried and highly spiced and made into pies, in which form it will keep for many months, and forms a provision for the winter. The buffalo (which in natural history would be called a bison) is the princ.i.p.al source of food and clothing to the Indians who live within reach of the great western prairies. But the forests also abound with elk, moose, and reindeer, as well as the smaller species of deer, and smaller game of other kinds, and the mult.i.tudes of animals of prey of all sizes which supply the markets of Europe with furs. The abundance of fish in the lakes and rivers is prodigious. The largest fish in these waters is the sturgeon. This fish lies generally near the surface of the water: the Indian paddles his canoe over the likely spots, and when he sees a fish darts his harpoon into it, which is made fast by a cord to the head of the canoe; the fish tows the canoe rapidly through the water till he is exhausted, and is then despatched. Besides many other inferior kinds of fish, they have the pike, which runs to a great size in the lakes, and two kinds of trout--the smaller of these is the same as that found in the rivers of England; the larger is often taken of more than eighty pounds in weight. The Indians take these with spears, nets, and baskets; but a trout weighing eighty pounds would afford considerable sport to one of our trout-fishers of Stockbridge or Driffield, if taken with an orthodox rod and line.

A fortnight was devoted to the chase; and between two and three thousand buffaloes having been killed, and the carts fully laden, the party returned to St. Bonifice. The settlement of St. Bonifice was founded by Lord Selkirk, who sent out a number of his Scotch dependents as colonists, and induced some Canadian families to join them. It was originally intended as a model Protestant colony; but the demoralization and vice which broke out in the new settlement brought it to the verge of temporal ruin. Lord Selkirk then called Catholics to his aid, {565} and three priests were sent there. Religion took the place of fanaticism, and ever since this epoch the colony has never ceased to flourish and increase, and has become the centre of numerous settlements in the neighborhood of friendly Indians converted to the faith. This is one of many instances which might be quoted in which the noxious weed of heresy has failed to transplant itself beyond the soil which gave it birth. St. Boniface has been the residence of a bishop since 1818, and is now the resting-place and point of departure for all missioners bound for the northern deserts of America. It was here that Mgr. Faraud spent eighteen months studying the languages of the northern tribes of Indians. Lord Bacon says that "he that goeth into a strange laud without knowledge of the language goeth to learn and not to travel." This, which is true of the traveller, is much more true of the missioner, as Mgr. Faraud soon found by experience. He made several essays at intercourse with neighboring tribes, like a young soldier burning with zeal and the desire to flesh his sword in missionary work. But the reception he met with was most mortifying, being generally told "not to think of teaching men as long as he spoke like a child." He applied himself with renewed energy to acquire the native language.

The dialects of most of the tribes of the extreme north of America (with the exception of the Esquimaux) are modifications of two parent languages, the Montaignais and the Cree. By acquiring these Mgr.

Faraud was able to make himself understood by almost any of these tribes after a short residence among them. Eighteen months spent at St. Boniface served as a novitiate for his missionary work, at the end of which time he received orders to start, early in the following month, for Isle de la Crosse, a fort on the Beaver river, about 350 leagues to the N.W. of St. Boniface. On his way thither he was the guest of the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, at Norway House, where he was most hospitably entertained. Mgr. Faraud bears witness to the liberal and enlightened spirit in which the authorities of the Hudson's Bay Company, as well as the government officials in Canada, render every aid and encouragement in their power to the Catholic missioners; and he quotes a speech made to him by Sir Edmund Head (then Governor of Canada) showing the high estimation, and even favor, in which the Catholic missioners are held by them. Whatever permanence and stability our missions possess in these vast deserts is owing to the protection and kind a.s.sistance rendered to them by the British authorities; while, on the other hand, it would be hardly possible for this powerful company of traders to maintain their present friendly relations with Indian tribes, upon which their trade depends, without the aid of the Catholic missioners.

After five months spent at Isle de la Crosse, and three years after his departure from Europe, Mgr. Faraud left for Atthabaska, one of the most northerly establishments of the Hudson's Bay Company, whither the various tribes of Indians, spread over an immense circuit 400 leagues in diameter, come twice in the year, early in spring and late in the autumn, to barter their furs, the produce of their winter and summer hunting. This was his final destinatibn and field of apostolical labor, it is often said that it is the happiness of the Red Indian to be totally ignorant of money; and this, in a certain sense is true.

But money has no necessary connection with the precious metals or bank-notes; and any medium of circulation which by common agreement can be made to represent a determined value becomes money, in fact, if not in name. Thus the market value of a beaver's skin in British America varies little, and is nearly equivalent to an American dollar.

The Hudson's Bay Company have adopted this as the unit of their currency, and the value of other furs {566} is reckoned in relation to this standard. The following are some of the prices given to the Indians for the furs ordinarily offered by them for sale:

The skin of a black bear values from six to ten beavers; the skin of a black fox, about six beavers; the skin of a silver fox, about five beavers; the skin of an otter, from two to three beavers; the skin of a pecari, from one to four beavers; the skin of a martin, from one to four beavers; the skin of a red or white fox, about one beaver, and so forth.

Twice in the year the steamers and canoes of the company, laden with merchandise, work their way up the lakes and rivers to these stations, where the Indians a.s.semble to meet them, and receive an equivalent for their furs in arms, ammunition, articles for clothing, hardware, and trinkets.

Two of our countrymen, Viscount Milton, and Dr. Cheadle, have lately published an account of their travels in British America, of which we give a notice in another part of this number. [Footnote 124] The description they give of the privations they endured and the difficulties they had to overcome in merely traversing the country as travellers, furnished as they were with all the resources which wealth could command, while it reflects credit on their British pluck and perseverance in attaining the object they had in view, gives us some idea of the obstacles which present themselves to a missioner in these regions, who has to take up his abode wherever his duty may call him, and without any means of maintaining life beyond those which these districts supply. The object of these gentlemen was to explore a line of communication between Canada and British Columbia, with a view to suggesting an overland route through British territory connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic--a most important project in a political point of view, upon which the success of the rising colony of Columbia appears eventually to depend. The territory administered by the Hudson's Bay Company, reaching as it does from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the coasts of Labrador on the N.E., to Vancouver's Island on the S.W., contains an area nearly equal to that of the whole of Europe.

[Footnote 124: "The North-West Pa.s.sage by Land." By Viscount Milton, M.P., and W. B. Cheadle, M.D. London. 1865.]

Mgr. Faraud remained fifteen years at Atthabaska. He found it a solitary station-house, in the midst of deserts inhabited by idolatrous savages; it is now a flouris.h.i.+ng mission, with a vast Christian population advancing in civilization, the capital of the district to which it gives its name, and a centre of operation from which missioners may act upon the whole north of British America, over which he now has episcopal jurisdiction. Such results, as may be supposed, have not been attained without labor and suffering. In the commencement the mission was beset with difficulties and discouragements. His first step was to build himself a house with logs of wood, an act which was accepted by the savages as a pledge that he intended to remain with them. A savage whom he converted and baptized soon after his arrival, acted as his servant and hunted for him; while with nets and lines he procured a supply of fish for himself when his servant was unsuccessful in the chase. In this manner he for some time maintained a life alternately resembling that of Robinson Crusoe and St. Paul. He soon made a few conversions in his neighborhood, and in the second year, with the aid of his catechumens, built a wooden chapel, ninety feet long by thirty broad. He was now able, when the tribes a.s.sembled in the spring and autumn, to converse with them, and preach to them. They invited him to visit them in their own countries, often many hundreds of miles distant; and these visits involved long and perilous journeys, in which he several times nearly perished. In the fourth year he began building a large church, surmounted by a steeple, from which he swung a {567} large bell, which he procured from Europe through the agents of the company. It was regarded as a supernatural phenomenon by the savages when "the sound of the church-going bell" was heard for the first time to boom over their primeval forests. As soon as a savage became his catechumen, he taught him to read, at the same time that he instructed him in religion. The soil was gradually cultivated, crops were reared, and cows and sheep introduced. In the tenth year a second priest was sent to his aid, who was able to carry on his work for him at home while he was absent on distant missions.

There are thirteen distinct tribes inhabiting British America, and Mgr. Faraud devotes a chapter to the distinctive characteristics of each. But a general idea of these savages may be easily arrived at.

Most of us are familiar with the lively descriptions of the red man in the attractive novels of Mr. Fenimore Cooper; and, though the stories are fiction, these portraits of the Indians are drawn to the life. We have most of us been struck by their taciturnity, their profound dissimulation, the perseverance with which they follow up their plans of revenge, the pride which prevents them from betraying the least curiosity, the stoical courage with which they brave their enemies in the midst of the most horrible sufferings, their caution, their cruelty, the extraordinary keenness and subtlety of their senses. The Indian savage is profoundly selfish; grat.i.tude and sympathy for others do not seem to enter into the composition of his nature. The same stubborn fort.i.tude with which he endures suffering seems to render him indifferent to it in others. Intellectually he is slow in his power of conception and process of reasoning, but is endowed with a marvellous power of memory and reflection. He has a great fluency of speech, which often rises to real eloquence; and there is a gravity and maturity in his actions which is the fruit of meditation and thought.

Cases of apostasy in religion are very rare among the Indians. A savage visited Mgr. Faraud soon after his arrival at Atthabaska. He had come from the sh.o.r.es of the Arctic Ocean, where his tribe dwelt, a distance of above six hundred miles, and asked some questions on religious subjects. After listening to the priest's instruction on a few fundamental truths, "I shall come to you again," he said, "when you can talk like a man; at present you talk like a child." Three years afterward he kept his promise; and immediately on arriving he presented himself to the priest, and placed himself under instruction.

On leaving after the first instruction, he a.s.sembled a number of heathen savages, at a short distance in the forest, and preached to them for several hours. This continued for many weeks. In the morning he came for instruction; in the afternoon he preached the truths he had learned in the morning to his countrymen. Mgr. Faraud had the curiosity to a.s.sist unseen at one of these sermons, and was surprised to hear his own instruction repeated with wonderful accuracy and in most eloquent language. In this way a great number of conversions were made; and the instructions given to one were faithfully communicated to the rest by this zealous savage. The name of this savage was Denegonusye. When the time arrived for his tribe to return to their own country, the priest proposed that he should receive baptism. "No,"

he said; "I have done nothing as yet for Almighty G.o.d. In a year you shall see me here again, and prepared for baptism." Punctual to his promise, he returned the following spring. In the mean time he had converted the greater portion of his tribe; he had taught them to recite the prayers the priest had taught him; and he brought the confessions of all the people who had died in the mean time among his own people, which he had received on their death-beds, and which his wonderful memory enabled him now to repeat word for word to the {568} priest, baking him to give them absolution. Denegonusye was now told to prepare for baptism; but he again insisted on preliminaries. First, that he was to take the name of Peter, and wait to receive his baptism on St. Peter's day--"Because," he said, "St. Peter holds the keys of heaven, and is more likely to open to one who bears his name and is baptized on his feast;" secondly, that he was to be allowed to fast before his baptism forty days and nights, as our Blessed Lord did. On the vigil of St. Peter's day he was so weak that he walked with difficulty to the church; but on the feast, before daybreak, he knocked loudly at the priests door and demanded baptism. He was told to wait till the ma.s.s was finished. When ma.s.s was over, the priest was about to preach to the people; but Denegonusye stood up and cried out, "It is St. Peter's day; baptize me." The priest calmed the murmurs which arose from the congregation at this interruption, and the eyes of all were suddenly drawn to the figure of this wild neophyte of the woods standing before the altar to receive the waters of regeneration.

A ray of light seemed to play round his head and rest upon him, as though the Holy Ghost were impatient to take up his abode in this new temple.

Cases are not unfrequent of "half-caste" Indians reared in the woods as savages claiming baptism from the priest as their "birthright."

They have never met a priest before, nor ever seen their Catholic parent. They are not Christians, and do not know even the most elementary doctrines of the church. Yet they have this strange faith (as they say "by inheritance") through some mysterious transmission of which G.o.d alone knows the secret. One of these "half-castes" met Mgr.

Faraud one day as he was travelling through the forest, and asked him to baptize him. "I have the faith of my father," he said, "and demand my birthright." Then, inviting him to his house, he added: "My wife also desires baptism." The priest accompanied him to his hunting-lodge, and was presented to his wife, a young savage lady of some twenty years. She was a veritable Amazon, a perfect model of symmetry of form and feminine grace; there was a savage majesty in her gestures and gait; she was a mighty huntress, tamed the wildest steeds, and was famed far and near for her prowess with the bow and spear. She welcomed the stranger with courtesy, and immediately presented him with a basket full of the tongues of elks which had been the spoil of her bow in the chase of the previous day. But as soon as she learned the errand on which he had come, her manner changed to profound reverence, and, throwing herself on her knees with hands clasped in the att.i.tude of prayer, she asked him for a crucifix, "to help me in my prayers," she said. The Indians do not pray. Her husband did not know one article of the creed. Who taught her to pray?--to venerate a priest?--to adore the mystery of the cross?--to desire baptism, and yearn for admission to the unity of G.o.d's church?

The three princ.i.p.al difficulties in the missioner's work among the Indians are to "stamp out" (to use a recently-invented phrase) the influence of their native magicians, and the practices of polygamy and cannibalism--though several of the tribes are free from the last-named vice. The magician, as we might expect, is always plotting to counteract his advances and to revenge them when successful. When a man has been possessed of half-a-dozen wives, and perhaps as yet barely realized to himself the Christian idea of marriage, it is a considerable sacrifice to part with all but one, and sometimes perplexing to decide which he will retain and which he will part with.

Then the ladies themselves have generally a good deal to say upon this question, and combinations arise in consequence, which are often very serious and oftener still very ludicrous.

At Fort Resolution, on the great Slave Lake, the missioner met with a {569} warm reception from the neighboring tribes of Indians; and as the greater part of them embraced Christianity, he set himself to work in instructing them. He explained to them that Christian marriage was a free act, and could never be valid where it was compulsory, and that in this respect the wife was as independent as the husband. This was quite a new doctrine to the savages, with whom it was an inveterate custom to obtain their wives either by force or by purchasing them from their parents. The doctrine, however, was eagerly received by the women, who felt themselves raised by it to equal rights with their husbands. The men were then instructed that the Christian religion did not permit polygamy, and that as many of them as had more than one wife must make up their minds which of them they would retain, and then part with the rest. It would be difficult to explain the reason why marriage, which is a serious and solemn contract, and which in mystical signification ranks first among the sacraments, is the subject of jests, and provokes laughter in all parts of the world. The savages were no exception to this rule; and while they set themselves to obey the commands of the church, they made their doing so the occasion of much merriment. The following morning a crowd of them waited upon the priest, each of whom brought the wife with whom he intended to be indissolubly united. After an exhortation, which dwelt upon the divine inst.i.tution, sacramental nature, and mutual obligations of matrimony, each couple was called up to the priest after their names had been written down in the register. The first couple who presented themselves were "Toqueiyazi" and "Ethikkan."

"Toqueiyaza," said the priest, "will you take Ethikkan to be your lawful wife?" "Yes," was the answer. "Ethikkan, will you take Toqueiyazi to be your lawful husband?" "No," said the bride, "on no account." Then turning to the bridegroom, who shared the general astonishment of all present, she continued, "You took me away by force; you came to our tent and tore me away from my aged father; you dragged me into the forests, and there I became your slave as well as your wife, because I believed that you had a right to make yourself my master: but now the priest himself has declared that G.o.d has given the same liberty to the woman as to the man. I choose to enjoy that liberty, and I will not marry you." Great was the sensation produced by this startling announcement. A revolution had taken place. The men beheld the social order which had hitherto obtained in their tribe suddenly overthrown. The women trembled for the consequences which this daring act might bring upon them. For a moment the issue was doubtful; but the women, who always get the last word in a discussion, in this case got the first also; they cried out that Ethikkan was a courageous woman, who had boldly carried out the principles of the Christian religion regardless of human respect; and what she had done was in fact so clearly in accordance with what the priest had taught, that the men at length acquiesced, and the "rights of woman" were thenceforward recognized and established on the banks of the great Slave Lake.

In one of his winter journeys through the snow, attended by a party of Indians and sledge drawn by dogs, Mgr. Faraud was arrested by a low moaning sound which proceeded from a little girl lying under a hollow tree covered with icicles. Her hands and feet were already frostbitten, but she was still sufficiently conscious to tell him that her parents had left her there to die. It is a common practice with the savages to make away with any member of the family who is likely to become a burden to them. The priest put the child on the sledge, carried her home, and, with proper treatment, care, and food, she recovered. She was instructed and baptized, receiving the name of Mary. This child became the priest's consolation and joy, {570} a visible angel in his house, gay and happy, and a source of happiness and edification to others. She was one of those chosen souls on whom G.o.d showers his choicest favors, and whom he calls to a close familiarity with himself. But after a time the priest was obliged to leave on a distant mission, having been called to spend the winter with a tribe who wished to embrace Christianity, and whose territory lay at a distance of several hundreds of miles. What was to be done with Mary? To accompany him was impossible--to remain behind was to starve. There was at that time, among his savage catechnmens, an old man and his wife whose baptism he had deferred till the following spring. This seemed to be the only solution of the difficulty. They had no children of their own; they would take charge of Mary, and bring her safe back to "the man of prayer" in the spring. Bitter was the parting between little Mary and the priest; but there was the hope of an early meeting in the following spring. The spring came, and the priest returned; but the old savages and Mary came not. For weeks the priest expected them, and then started to seek their dwelling, about fifty miles distant from his own. He found their house empty, and the man could nowhere be discovered. But in searching for him through the forest, he descried an old woman gathering fuel. It was his wife.

Where was Mary? The old woman made evasive replies until the sternness of the priest's manner terrified her into confession. "The winter had been severe"--"they had run short of provisions"--"and--and--" in short, _they had eaten her_.

But if the difficulties, disappointments, and sufferings of the missioner in these American deserts are great, requiring in him great virtue and an apostolic spirit, his consolations are great also. The grace of G.o.d is always given in proportion to his servants' need; and in this virgin soil, where spurious forms of Christianity are as yet unknown, the effects it produces are at time astounding. The missioner is alternately tempted to elation and despair. He must know, to use the words of the Apostle, "how to be brought low, and how to abound."

Monseigneur Faraud has now returned to his diocese to reap the harvest of the good seed which he has sown, and to carry a Christian civilization to the savages of the extreme north of America. He has left his volume behind him to invite our prayers for his success, and to remind those generous souls who are inspired to undertake the work of evangelizing the heathen, that in his portion of the Lord's field "the harvest is great and the laborers few."

MISCELLANY.

_The Zoological Position of the Dodo_.--At a meeting of the Zoological Society on the 9th of January last, Professor Owen read a paper on the osteology of the Dodo, the great extinct bird of the Mauritius. Our readers will remember that this bird has given rise to a good deal of discussion from time to time as to its true affinities.

When Professor Owen was Curator of the Royal College of Surgeons'

Museum, he cla.s.sed the Dodo along with the Raptorial birds. This arrangement led to the production of the huge volume of Messrs.

Strickland and Melville, in which it was very ably demonstrated that the bird belongs to the _Columbae_ or pigeon group. It is highly creditable therefore to Professor Owen that upon a careful examination of the specimens of the dodo's bones which have lately come under his observation, he has consented to the view long ago expressed by Dr.

Melville. {571} The materials upon which Professor Owen's paper was based consisted of about one hundred different bones belonging to various parts of the skeleton, which had been recently discovered by Mr. George Clark, of Maheberg, Mauritius, in an alluvial deposit in that island. After an exhaustive examination of these remains, which embraced nearly every part of the skeleton, Professor Owen came to the conclusion that previous authorities had been correct in referring the dodo to the Columbine order, the variations presented, though considerable, being mainly such as might be referable to the adaptation of the dodo to a terrestrial life, and different food and habits.--_Popular Science Review_.