Hypocarnivory

The Indians seldom live to a ripe old age. It is their custom to bury the dead and erect a circle of tall pointed poles about the grave. If the death takes place in the winter-time, the corpse is preserved in a wooden coffin, and later, when the frost has gone out of the ground, the relatives provide it with burial, even though they must make a long and arduous journey for this purpose. 

Formerly the aged and others unfitted to make the long journeys were left behind in the wilderness. This custom is no longer adhered to. Even so, it is as pathetic today as before for an Indian to become old and infirm. By and large, he receives full sympathy from the others, but he who must remain at home with the womenfolk, whilst the hunters are afield after the caribou, no longer enjoys the respect of his fellows, and this is indeed a bitter fate for men who rank the honor of the hunter above all else in life. 

In olden times the Indians were susceptible to various illnesses; amongst these may be mentioned the plague of boils. The malady still occurs, although to a lesser extent. The boils often appear on the hips and buttocks and I have seen them as large as clenched fists. It takes quite a long time to effect a cure. 

The ancient illnesses are of little significance contrasted with the diseases derived from the white race. Thus tuberculosis has wreaked havoc with the Indians east of Great Slave Lake. Spasmodic epidemics of " flu " have broken out in their ranks and have brought death to many. Venereal diseases, on the other hand, are anything but common. In an earlier portion of this book I have spoken of the epidemics of coughing which break out in the spring of the year and often continue all through the summer months, disappearing as soon as cold weather sets in. These colds can hardly be due to infection from the outside, since they afflict even the Indians living in entirely isolated regions. 

Like other primitive peoples, the Indians are lacking in physical resistance to the diseases of the white race. There are other factors, too, which play a definite part in the spreading of disease: the habit of spitting incessantly and the general uncleanliness of the Indians, to which may be added their spirit of resignation when illness begins to assume serious proportions. On the whole, the people east of Great Slave Lake have fared better than the tribes which, to a varying degree, have given up a healthy tepee-life and the food which the wilderness provides, in exchange for a life indoors and a diet of flour. 

Ever since ancient times the Indians have had their own medicines prepared from weeds, roots, and bark, often administered to the accompaniment of certain rites. From an old Indian I once received the information that he knew about thirty different kinds of medicines, amongst these a poison which could kill a human being in the course of five minutes. Further than this he would say nothing, for an Indian guards his medical knowledge with the most scrupulous secrecy. How great a part mystic rites and possible frauds play in the cure it is, consequently, difficult to determine. One matter of significance in this connection is worth mentioning, however: the Indian is a most apt subject for all forms of suggestion. 

In spite of the fact that the materia medico, of the Indians is so frequently cluttered up with superstition, there are reasons to suppose that a number of their medicines have various effects. It is a known fact, for example, that they have a practical means of abortion. For diarrhoea they use dried rushes. For urinary ailments they drink a broth made from the inner red bark of the willow. For scurvy they boil the needles of the dwarf spruce in water for a short time and drink the liquid. By boiling the inner bark of the larch they obtain an antiseptic, which is then placed upon the ailing part as hot as the patient can stand it. It seems not only to kill infection, but also to cause the wound to heal more rapidly than otherwise. For frost-bite they use the inner bark of the pine. This they chew into a pulp, which they then plaster over the frozen part. May I add that, after writing the above, I allowed an Indian to doctor one of my great toes which had become frozen, but that the inflammation had gone so far that perhaps the treatment of my medicine-man was not wholly to blame? In any event, the result was that Williams of the Royal Mounted Police was obliged to cut away a goodly portion of my toe.

This year there are two fur-traders in Snowdrift. From the very first, their stores are packed to the doors with Indians. Some are leaning over the counters, others are lying down on the floor, with sacks under their heads. Otter-, fox-, beaver-, marten-, mink-, and muskrat-skins find their way over the counter until there is a mighty mound of pelts. In front of each Indian there collects an evermounting pile of conglomerate trash and fripperies, until the last skin has been handed over. Whatever they may chance to desire must be theirs; otherwise they will tear up the store and make away with its entire contents. Autumn is still far distant, but no red hunter ever stops for an instant to think that he may be flat broke when the time comes for him to buy his winter gear. It is summer now, and a checkered shirt he must have, and red silk handkerchiefs he must have, and candied fruits and a huge pile of sugar he must have, as well. Later on he will somehow find a way.

Chief Marlo has not cut his hair like the others, for he is a member of the old school. Black and straight, it falls down over his shoulders. How old he is, not even he himself knows. " When I little, big battle, Dead Men's Island," he says. Now he is too feeble to join in the hunt. He remains indoors most of the time, smoking his pipe and giving advice. In a face of wrinkled parchment shine a pair of fun-loving eyes, and it may well be, as it is said, that he can still draw as fine a bead on a fleeing caribou as anyone. 

Each evening when the sun is setting over Great Slave Lake, Mario emerges from his tent and totters down to the beach. There he sits for a long time. On one occasion I sit down beside him. Not a word has passed between us when he nods toward the sun, just as it is slowly slipping down into the water in an orgy of red, and " Who you think make sun? " he asks. 

" Who do you think? " I parry. 

"Jesus — mebbe so," he says hesitantly. Just how sincerely he believes this to be true is pretty hard to know, for he immediately begins talking about how the sun, from the very first, has been the all-powerful god of the Indians. He flings out his arms to it and says: " First all water, then sun." 

But when Marlo begins to talk about his people, he is bitter and terse: "My rich country. Caribou, musk-ox, fish, much food. Before, Indians all over. Great hunters. White man come, Indians die, all-a time die." He points off toward the north where the woods melt like a bluish mist into the distance behind which lie the Barren Lands, and then he quietly adds: "When caribou come from Land without Trees, Indians choose new chief." 

I object by saying that he certainly has a number of years left to live. But Marlo shakes his head conclusively, as though he is positive of his statement. "When caribou come," he repeats, knocks the ashes from his pipe, and totters back up to his tepee.

Suddenly I heard a shot and at the same moment I saw Antoine fly like the wind over to something in the snow and madly pounce upon it. Now what under Heaven! Up on top of the esker, whom should I see but Jonas, standing there, his crutch in one hand, his gun in the other. With a long and difficult shot he had felled the hare at the very moment Antoine had chased it from cover. How Jonas had ever managed to come out to this place of ours was a puzzle to me, until I saw his tracks in the snow. From the tent to the top of the esker I discovered a deep furrow carved through the yard-deep snow. That plucky little devil, he had dragged himself along on his belly! 

Twilight had begun to fall and we turned back to the tent, where we prepared the hare and waited for the caribou-hunters to return. Later in the evening they appeared. The result of their hunt was one ptarmigan. So, after all, we had a Christmas Eve spread and this fact gave us much pleasure. With painful care we divided the food equally amongst ourselves and swallowed, as it were, all but the skin and the feathers. But Christmas Eve was no grand affair for the dogs. 

Next morning, when we were ready to strike camp, Johnny found that he had lost all but one of his dogs. He had been careless enough to allow them to run loose during the night, and now they were unquestionably roaming the wastes in search of some game of their own. The chances that they would find their way back to the tent were certainly not great, but we decided to wait over a day, in any event, to see if they might not turn up. Johnny scraped up sticks of wood from near and far and made a little fire up on a hilltop so that the dogs might catch scent of the smoke. There he sat, half-frozen, all day long and half the night, in his endeavor to keep his fire burning. Along toward morning the dogs, tired and footsore, came trotting into camp. 

Before we again broke camp, Antoine had a surprise for us. He dragged out a caribou stomach half-filled with blood and inner organs, which he had hidden away during an earlier hunt. He could not have given us a handsomer Christmas present. It was frozen as hard as a rock, but we chopped it up into fine bits with the ax and threw these into the large pot, which we then filled half-full of snow-water. The result was a greenish mess, but we drank it down greedily. Scraps of the skin of the stomach were dealt out equally and these we chewed carefully and swallowed bite by bite. 

This proved to be our last meal for some time. We continued east for three days without food. A couple of times we experimented with some black lichens thoroughly boiled in water. They didn't taste at all bad, but they were not in the least degree filling. Aside from this it was tea, morning, noon, and night. We made enormous quantities of it and drank it scalding hot. 

None of us were particularly spry as we tramped along on our snowshoes. It was a question of sparing the dogs as much as possible, so it was a rare occasion indeed when we could hop onto the load and ride. Gradually our gnawing hunger gave way to a feeling of general flaccidity. We felt the cold keenly at night, and in the daytime it was just as bad, for the icy snow of the Barrens would find its way in through the minutest rift in our clothing. The cold remained constant day after day and I am sure the temperature never rose above 40° below zero. 

Nevertheless, the hardships which we ourselves endured were nothing compared with those which afflicted the dogs. It was a week now since they had eaten anything resembling a square meal, though they worked faithfully in the traces from morning till night, none the less. Their tails drooped and there was no longer the old pulling-power in their gait, but they moved along somehow. It is unbelievable what these dogs of the Northland can endure in the way of toil and deprivation, and inspiring is their patient willingness to work until their last ounce of strength is gone and they drop in the traces. 

We crossed the divide, a conspicuous elevation in the terrain off to the northwest, and thereafter all the streams flowed east towards Hudson Bay. The third day after our meal of frozen caribou stomach we sighted some stunted spruces along a river course in a small valley. There we pitched our tent and held a general council to decide on the best course for us to pursue. Even the Indians could see that it would be dangerous to continue on our present course. Not a fresh caribou trail to be seen, and the wastes to the east of us gave promise of nothing. Hence we agreed to turn due south on the following morning. Everything considered, that must be the direction in which the caribou were holding themselves; hunting was the one matter which concerned us now. Along the way, too, we might cross the sled-trail of some white trapper who had a cabin somewhere along the edge of the forest. The Indians had heard about this cabin, but none knew its exact location. 

I should like to mention in this place that not once, either then or on later occasions when we were suffering from hunger, did I ever hear the Indians mention the possibility of eating the dogs. This was due to an old superstition to the effect that dogs are cannibalistic and therefore unclean, a belief I shall treat later. It has happened on occasion that white trappers have eaten their dogs, but amongst Indians I have never heard of such an occurence.

Once again we resumed our journey southward. It was extremely difficult going, no less because of the cold, which was so intense that one could not remain still an instant without beginning to grow stiff. We floundered along for quite some time, ever on the look-out for the caribou herd and the white trappers' cabin. About us lay the snow-fields devoid of any sign of life, and we encountered one disappointment after another. We did manage to shoot a pair of lone caribou, but their meat did not go far with our hungry band. At length we were snowed in tight for two days during a blizzard; then it was that our spirits reached their lowest ebb. 

But at last one evening, just as we were on the point of pitching camp, Isep discovered the faint trail of a toboggan in the snow. We did not dare risk the possibility that drift snow might obliterate the trail, so, after a brief halt, we loaded all our stuff back on the sleds and continued on our way throughout a long moonlight night, with frequent rests out of deference to the dogs, which every now and then would drop in the traces. Countless times we lost the trail. Then we would spread in formation out over the plain and would search high and low, now and then creeping about on all fours as we felt in the snow for signs of the trail. Thus we proceeded until sunrise, when we glimpsed the forest's first outposts — rows of dwarf spruce growing in the lee of each elevation. In a snug hollow we built ourselves a mighty fire, poured scalding tea into ourselves, and continued to follow the sled-trail down the length of a long, narrow lake. Just as we were rounding a jut of land, we spied smoke curling up from a clump of spruce, and a log cabin cosily situated in amongst the trees. 

Jonas was the first to pull up in front of the door. Two dumfounded trappers came forward, wondering for all they were worth who in blazes had managed to find his way out into this part of the country. Their amazement hardly diminished when they saw a tattered Indian limp out of the sled with his crutch, lay his hand on his belly and say: "Long time, misu dowte (Long time, no food)." This mixture of English, Cree, and his own Chipewyan language was the very best that Jonas could do in the way of speaking a foreign language. 

Hospitality is the law of the land, but to provide for a starving band like ourselves was a problem in itself. Old McKay and Clark didn't know what they could find to offer us, for they had barely enough to scrape through the rest of the winter themselves. Mac presented me with a large slab of dried back-fat left over from the autumn hunt; this slab was two inches thick. I shall never forget him for that. I was tempted sorely to swallow the whole thing down just as fast as ever I could, but luckily I had common sense enough to refrain from doing that. I cut it up into small bits and stuffed my pockets with these, went about like a living warehouse and nibbled fat for over a week. The dogs also received their share, and it was amazing how this braced them up. To get along on little and to recuperate quickly are second nature to these animals. 

We learned that the caribou had gone on strike in this part of the country as well. After the autumn trek had passed in October, the herds had become sparse and few in number. McKay and Clark had been forced to use all their time hunting food for themselves and their dogs. Trapping had had to go by the board. Thus they had wasted a year, and no combination of toil and saving had amounted to anything. To begin with, there had been their autumn journey through the wilderness from Fitzgerald, following a canoe route of nearly four hundred and fifty miles, with fifty portages; then there had been their daily struggle for food through a long winter of cold and storm in the Barren Lands. After all this they would find themselves poorer than they were the day they had set out through the wilderness and would have to go in debt to " Hudson Bay " in order to buy their next year's equipment. But, even so, Clark and old Mac had nothing but good humor to express. Good luck or bad — why, great Heaven, it is the gamble that makes the life of a trapper such an interesting adventure! One must always take the bitter with the sweet. 

We remained with our hosts for three days, then set out in a northwesterly direction and kept going until we crossed the trail we had made on the way out. Thereafter we made for the camp of the Caribou-Eaters at the rapid pace always chosen by Indian hunters when they are returning home to their wives and children. We drove as often at night as during the day and, in the darkness, took many rash chances as we traveled over steep rough country or over river rapids where the ice gave way beneath us and the water splashed about our carioles. Crossing the larger lakes, we would lie in our sleds and sleep. We did not once pitch our tent; instead, we slept beside an open camp-fire wherever possible and then only long enough to allow the dogs to recover their strength. 

After we had been driving for three days, we encountered the main body of the caribou! Herds numbering thousands came grazing along toward the east. It was indeed ironical to see the plains now literally alive with the very hosts we had talked of and dreamed of so many times on the way out, when the plains had lain cold and lifeless. And bitter was the thought that, had we made our journey but a few weeks later, we should have lived on the fat of the land and, in addition to this, reaped a golden harvest of white-fox pelts on the banks of the Thelon.