The Drama of the Forests | Page 7

in the following ways: From the juice of boiled cranberries they derive a magenta dye. From alder bark, boiled, beaten, and strained, they get a dark, slate-coloured blue which is mixed with rabbits' gall to make it adhere. The juice of bearberries gives them a bright red. From gunpowder and water they obtain a fine black, and from coal tar a stain for work of the coarsest kind. They rely chiefly, however, upon the red, blue, green, and yellow ochres found in many parts of the country. These, when applied to the decoration of canoes, they mix with fish oil; but for general purposes the earths are baked and used in the form of powder.
From scenes such as I have described the summer traveller obtains his impression of the forest Indians. Too often their life and character are judged by such scenes, as if these truly represented their whole existence. In reality, this is but their holiday season which they are spending upon their tribal summer camping ground. It is only upon their hunting grounds that one may fairly study the Indians; so, presently, we shall follow them there. And when one experiences the wild, free life the Indian lives--hampered by no household goods or other property that he cannot at a moment's notice dump into his canoe and carry with him to the ends of the earth if he chooses--one not only envies him, but ceases to wonder which of the two is the greater philosopher--the white man or the red; for the poor old white man is so overwhelmed with absurd conventions and encumbering property that he can rarely do what his heart dictates.
FAMILY HUNTING GROUNDS
Don't let us decide just yet, however, whether the Indian derives more pleasure from life than does the white man, at least, not until we return from our voyage of pleasure and investigation; but before we leave Fort Consolation it is well to know that the hunting grounds in possession of the Indian tribes that live in the Great Northern Forest have been for centuries divided and subdivided and allotted, either by bargain or by battle, to the main families of each band. In many cases the same hunting grounds have remained in the undisputed possession of the same families for generations. Family hunting grounds are usually delimited by natural boundaries, such as hills, valleys, rivers, and lakes. The allotments of land generally take the form of wedge-shaped tracts radiating from common centres. From the intersection of these converging boundary lines the common centres become the hubs of the various districts. These district centres mark convenient summer camping grounds for the reunion of families after their arduous labour during the long winter hunting season. The tribal summer camping grounds, therefore, are not only situated on the natural highways of the country--the principal rivers and lakes--but also indicate excellent fishing stations. There, too, the Indians have their burial grounds.
Often these camping grounds are the summer headquarters for from three to eight main families; and each main family may contain from five or six to fifty or sixty hunting men. Inter-marriage between families of two districts gives the man the right to hunt on the land of his wife's family as long as he "sits on the brush" with her--is wedded to her--but the children do not inherit that right; it dies with the father. An Indian usually lives upon his own land, but makes frequent excursions to the land of his wife's family.
In the past, the side boundaries of hunting grounds have been the cause of many family feuds, and the outer boundaries have furnished the occasion for many tribal wars. The past and the present headquarters camping grounds of the Strong Woods Indians--as the inhabitants of the Great Northern Forest are generally called--lie about one hundred and fifty miles apart.
The natural overland highways throughout the country, especially those intersecting the watercourses and now used as the roadbeds for our great transcontinental railways, were not originally discovered by man at all. The credit is due to the big game of the wilderness; for the animals were not only the first to find them, but also the first to use them. The Indian simply followed the animals, and the trader followed the Indian, and the official "explorer" followed the trader, and the engineer followed the "explorer," and the railroad contractor followed the engineer. It was the buffalo, the deer, the bear, and the wolf who were our original transcontinental path-finders, or rather pathmakers. Then, too, the praise bestowed upon the pioneer fur traders for the excellent judgment shown in choosing the sites upon which trading posts have been established throughout Canada, has not been deserved; the credit is really due to the Indians. The fur traders erected their posts or forts upon the tribal camping