> IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) ^^ ^/ >-<^ 11.25 IM lit Ht u 0%^ Photografiiic .Sciences Corporation \ ^v SJ <^ 33 WiST MAIN STREiT WIBSTIR, Al.Y. I4SM f;'.4)ll72-4S03 ^ ^\^\ '<^ .^^ ^ ' v > ^i;4 " Ir; >^'-^ ^\:^'^ MIS! Vol. Inl to go wl of Iluds been tli happy i the lett< excepti( have ne Itt( our fiel lonely now. we jou the no: manufs us in tl us stoo gteeref] gone f Indian to do. our an hung < teen d to thai in our W the Ci tion. confli( THE Missionary Review of the World. Vol. XVIII. No. 7 —Old Series. — JULY. — Vol. VIII. No. l.—Xew Seriet. LIFE AMONG THE RED MEN OF AMERICA. ■ / ■■'■ >^ ff^v' '.>■ ,,, * '^ ' • • • 1 ' ;'A ;'■■ I.'... ■ * P -•.' ■■'■ '• .. BY REV. EDOEKTON R. YOUNG, TORONTO, CANADA. In 1 868, when pastor of a church in Hamilton, Canada, I was asked to go with my young wife as a missionary to the red Indians, northwest of Hudson Bay, north of Manitoba. It was a strange call ; we had not been tliinking of the Indian work, or the foreign field, and were very liappy in our home work. ]>nt wc made it a subject of prayer. We laid the letter before the Lord, and though all our friends, with one or two exceptions, opposed us, yet as («od seemed to call us, we went, and we have never regretted it to this day. It took us two months and nineteen days of hard travelling to reach our field. You can go around the world in that time now. It was a lonely far-off place, more inaccessible even than the heart of Africa is now. We travelled as f;vr as wc could by steamboats atd railroads, then we journeyed for thirty days with horses over the prairies and plains of the north, and then for the last fourteen days we want in a little skiff manufactured by the Indians and manned by them. The place assigned us in the skiff was a bit of a slab seat near the stern of the boat. Behind us stood a big Indian with an oar reaching out behind, with which he steered, and before us were our stalwart Indian oarsmen. When we had gone about forty miles from Fort Garry toward the north, we saw the Indians turning toward the shore, and we wondered what they were going to do. We soon found out. They took on another passenger, which to our amazement proved to be a great, big, lively, struggling ox. Ilis head hung over one side of the boat and his tail over the other, and for four- teen days in the month of July my wife and I had to sit in that skiff close to that live ox. But we were full of life and anticipation, and enthusiastic in our work, and these little things didn't trouble us much. We reached our destination at last. We were first stationed among the Cree Indians, four hundred miles from the merest vestige of civiliza- tion. We had a good chance of testing the Indians. You know the very conflicting opinions about the red men. After studying them for many % '■■■ ) •.■*,y.-r/ ■- JL' ^2.J.L. '.■^.jl-'Jir m LIFE AMONG THE KBD MEN OF AHBIIICA. [July years, my opinion is that tlicy are just about like tlic rest of poor liuman- ity. They need the Gospel, and the blessed Gospel is just the thing for them. We had a little log-house, in which to live. A gentleman wouldn't keep a decent horse in it, but it was the best the country afforded ; the Indians were living in wigwams, and wo wore glad to ha"e that log- house. We thought the best thing was to come thoroughly in touch with our people, so we gathered them together, and stood before them with our Bibles, and said, " Now, look at us. We have not come here to buy your silver foxes, your beavers, your otters, your minks, or your martens ; we have not come to make a fortune in the fur trade, but we have come with this book to do you good, and to help you to a better life, that you may be happier here and happier beyond. We know you are sinners, and that you have your fiiults, and need the Gospel, but we are goin^,- to trust you as well as help you." We knew the majority of white people think that the Indians are thievish, dishonorable, and unreliable. We do not believe that. So we decided to trust them. We took the fastenings off all the windows, and the bolt off of the door, and the keys out of every drawer and chest, and threw them away, and from that day to this we have never fastened a window or locked a dt)or in an Indian country ; wo have never had anything worth six])enco stolen from us by the Indians. Th . is our experience among the Indians, when putting them on tlieir honor and treating them fairly. We mas,tercd the language as quickly as possible, because I b( iieve in all missionaries being able to look into the eyes of the people and tell them the truth in their own language. We worked and toil»,d among them, and we had at first the effects of the work of some blessed men who had been before us, and before we had been there live yeari, in addition to what had been done, we had gathered a congregation of from eight to ten hundred Christian Indians, who used to pack our church ever}* Sab- bath, although some of them had to come from their hunting-grounds fifty or sixty miles distant, on Saturday, to be present, and on Monday they would walk back to their distant hunting-grounds. We had the Bible translated into their language by Mr. Evans, one c: our missionaries, not printed in the letters of the alphabet, but in syllabic characters. These characters are so easily acquired that in a few weeks an Indian can learn to read the Word of God. It is a marvellous invention, and as a result of it in some of the missions 90 per cent of the people are reading the Word of God in their own tongue. Often have I oeen made ashamed of the littleness of my love by the devotion of these Indians and by their love for the Bible. Let me give you an incident. One of our Indians with his son came away down from the distant hunting-grounds to fish on the shores of our great lakes. We catch our winter's supply there in October and November. My good wife and I have lived chiefly on fish twenty-one times a week, for six months, fish and salt with a cup of tea, at .times no bread or vegetables at all. We Uve six months on fish, and 1895.] LIFE AMONG THK RED MEN OF AMERICA. 483 the other six months on reindeer and muskrats, gulls and owls, anything we can get, sometimes glad to have two tiieals a day. I have been in your penitentiaries — not unwillingly — and I have seen the food provided for the worst criminals. My wife and I would have been glad to liave had anything approaching what you give to your murderers and house- breakers. I have been for three days without a mouthful. To go on with my story. This man and his son came down to fish, and they made splendid fisheries, put up the whitcfish on a staging where the foxes and wolves could not reach them, and one night the father said, " My son, wo leave to-morrow morning early ; put the book of heaven in your pack ; we go back one hundred and forty miles to our distant hunting-ground to join the mother and the others in the wigwam home." So the young man put his Bible in his pack that they might take it home. Later on, along came an uncle and said to the young man, " Nephew, lend me the book of heaven that I may read a little ; I have loaned mine. " So the pack was opened and the BiMe was taken out, and the man read for a time and then threw the Bible back among the blankets and went out. The next morning the father and son started very early on their homeward journey. They strapped on their snowshocs and walked seventy miles, dug a hole in the snow at night, where they cooked some rabbits, and had prayers and lay flown and slept. The next morning bright and early after prayers they pushed on and made seventy miles more and reached home. That night the father said to his son, " Give me the book of heaven that the mother and the rest may read the Word and have prayers." As the son opened the [)ack, he said, " Uncle asked for the book two nights ago and it was not put back." The father was disappointed, but said little. The next morning he rose early, put a few cooked rabbits in his pack and away he started. lie walked that day seventy miles and reached the camp where he and his son had stopped two nights before. The next day he had made the other seventy miles and reached the lake and found his Bible in his brother's wigwam. The next morning ho started again, and walking in the two days one hundred and forty miles, was back home once more. That Indian walked on snowshoes two hundred and eighty miles through the wild forest of the Northwest to regain his copy of the Word of God ! Would we do that much to regain our Bibles ? O the power of the Gospel ! It can go down very low and reach men deeply sunken in sin and can save them grandly, and make them devout students and great lovers of the Blessed Book, The worst class we had were the conjurers and medicine men. Some of these men hated us, and often used to put our lives in jeopardy because they knew that if we succeeded it was the end of their reign. But the Gospel reached even some of them. These northern Indians are hunters. They roam over a vast country in search of game, and the missionary must follow them. My mission- field was about five hundred and fifty miles long and three hundred wide, ir.abjg 484 LIFn AMONfl TUB IlED MBN UF AMERICA. [July and over it I tnivi'lliMl in Hurninor in a lurch (;)inoi', and in the winter with dogH. I am soiiu^tiuios called a '• D.D.," and 1 Bay if it means anytliing it is " Dojj-drivcr. " I travelled many niilos each winter with the dof^H, and thus reached hands who had never seen a missionary. I wish you might look in with me upon a company of Indians who havo never seen that l>ook before, who have never heard that 1 Messed Name. It is a blessed work, this prearhing C^hrist to a people for the first time. After five years amoni; the ('ree Indians wo went among the Saultcaux. It is so hard to get volunteers for this Indian missionary work ! Wo Imd made our log-house among the Crees quite comfortable and cheerful, but the Saulteaux were calling for a missi«)nary. I used to visit them once in summer with my birch canoe, and once in winter with the dogs, but there was such a long interval between these visits that when I went back to them I sometimes found that some who had become Christians were grow- ing cold, for lack of instruction, and so they pleaded for a missionary to live among them. They cou'd not get one, as none would volunteer for such a work. At length I got a dear young minister so far interested that he said, "I know a very nice girl, and if you and your good wife will give us your home among the Crecs and go among the wild Saulteaux, we will take your place am b woman. Those women are the most modest, timid, and retiring; people yoii ever saw. I>iit here was one; who came in witli her liead up and looking at us as tiiough slio was sizing us up. Her actions wore different from the other womei:. This we learned after was because t»f her posi- tion. She was u cliieftainess. Her father was a great chief, and her iiusband had Itiren a great t^hief, and wlien he died she ruled her people. She was a clever woman. She lived far in the interior, and she liad heard of the paleface and his wife, who, with their wunderfid Hook, had come to live down there among the Saulteaux. She did not believe what she Iieard, and had actually come nuiiiy days' journey to find out whether what .she had heanl from the hunters about the Book and the Great Spirit was true. I found that of all the incpiirers that I ever liad, she was the most insatiable in her curiosity and in her desire to learn. She would talk morning, noon, and night. Nor could we seem to satisfy her curi- osity. She stayed with us about two weeks. Before she went away. I said to her, '* Now, you are going back home, and I want to say some things to you. Christians keep one day in seven, wliich is God's day. We do not attend to worldly matters on that day, but we worship God. I want you to be a Christian in everything, so you must keep this Sabbath day. I am going to give you this big sheet of paper to help you. " 1 gave her a big sheet of foolscap and a long pencil, and said : ** When you g«it home begin and make six small marks | | | | | I • Those are your days in which to hunt and fish. Attend to your matters with the tribe, your duties as chieftainess on these six days, and then for the seventh day make a big mark, , and leave the gun and the rifle quiet in the wig- wam, no hunting or fishing on that day. Work hard on Saturday to get enough food for the Sunday. On that day think about the Great Spirit, and pray to your loving Father, who sees you wherever you are." When she pleaded with me to come and preach to her tribe, I said, *' When the eagle moon is filling out, listen for the ringing of tlie mis- sionary's sledge- bells ; then I will go and see you." My prograiTime of work was so great that six months passed away before I could vi^.it her people. When the eagle moon came I harnessed my dogs and took my guide and dog-drivers, and away we went. It took us twelve or fourteen days to get there. We often had to travel altogether by night on account of the dazzling rays of the sun on the snow, which cause suow-blindncss, a very painful disease. We journeyed on amid many dangers and adventures, but at last we reached our destina- tion. The la.st six miles we had to cross a frozen lake. As we dashed out of the forest, there, on the other shore, was her village. Sharp eyes were on the lookout for us. We were not more than half-way across before they detected our coming, and had dinner prepared when we arrived. Ookeinasquasis, the chieftainess, had some frozen heads of reindeer on the staging ready for us. These are one of the greatest deli- cacies which the Indians can offer as food. She put some of these heads 488 LIFE AMONG THK RED MEN OF AMEBICA. [July of reindeer on the firo to singe the hair off, and then and there she went at them with licr bij; axe and cliopped them in chunks and put thoiu in a , big Indian kettle on the fire. So wlien our dog trains dashed into her village our dinner was boiling. Soap out there is three dollars and a half a bar, and thoy don't put much on their faces, and as they don't know much about shaking hands, every man, woman, and child tried to see who would be the first to kiss us ! I cut short this ordeal and liurried into the wigwam. You never saw a woman so happy as was the chicftainess. She exclaimed, among many other things, " Oh, to think the man with the Book has come to my people !" A level place was prepared for the dinner. In the centre was piled up these chunks of reindeer heads and in a circle around was placed a number of tin cups full of black tea, of which I had given her a pack- age. She put me on her left and her principal chief was on her right. Some more of lier prominent people and my drivers and guides were also there. There was not a plate or a fork or a knife visible. As soon as we sat down, the men took out their hunting-knives and at once reached ' forward for a chunk of meat. " Wait," said I, "we are going to be Christians ; Christians thank the Great Spirit for His gifts ; Christians ask a blessing over their food. Shut your eyes and I will ask a blessing ; we will thank the Great Spirit for what we are going to eat and drink." They shut their eyes and I asked a blessing, and, being the first, I made it like a little prayer, and said Amen, and opened my eyes. But every eye was shut. I said, '* Open your eyes." So they opened their eyes. " When I say amen at the end, although that is not all it means, it means that we have come to the end. Now, eat your dinner." Every fellow leaned forward and grabbed a chunk of meat and took it up in his dirty hands, and cut it with his big hunting-knife with which they fought bears and skinned their game. Some, more hungry than others, would take a piece in their mouth and saw off a little piece at a time. I looked over the pile and saw a piece that had a projecting bone on it. I took hold of that bone as a handle, and, taking out my hunting-knife, began my dinner. How happy my friend the chieftainess was ! She reached forward with her great, dirty hands, and, grabbing a great juicy, splendid piece of meat she went at it witli great vigor. Then she slapped it down on the ground, and, after drinking a cup of tea, she grabbed it off of the ground again and vigorously ate from it, all the time talking, with hi^.r mouth, full or empty. Again she threw the piece of meat down, and reaching down in the bosom of her dress she drew out a greasy, dirty paper, saying, ** Oh, missionary, I want you to see how I have tried to keep the record of the praying day." It was a dirty, greasy paper now, and I hardly recognized it as the clean one I had given her. With much interest I looked it over, and found that during all those six months she had kept the record faithfully. Here it was the right day for all those six months. Of course I was very much delighted. She said, " Some days a boy • • J.< M t ■ ^^ V S T^nrv^r-x^mfm sm 180S.] LIFE AMONG TIIR HRD tlEN OF AMKIIICA. MH I I /.'I ih would como in ami say, ' TIhto is a fine reindeer out in the valley, I am sure you can shoot it.' JJut 1 said, ' No, no, it is tlio prayiiij; day, and I cannot shoot on the prayinj; day.' But 1 think of the (Iroat Spirit, my, Father, and try to pray and talk to Ilini and have Ilim talk to me." She was so happy, as I said kind and encouraging words to lier. Soon sho folded the paper up and jammed it down in the bosom of lier dress, and then she grabbed up her chunk of meat and chewed some juooca of it, while I was nil»!»ling daintily at my bit. Then sho looked at mine and looked at hers, and said, " Your j)iece of meat is not a very tine one ; mine is a splendid piece ;" and before I knew what she was going to do sho swapped pieces. T ditl not practice any hypocrisy. I knew the motive that had prompted licr giving me lier piece was that it was better than mine, and so I took her piece and from it I Hnished my dinner, and I thanked her for doing it, because in exchanging pieces sho had done what is considered one of the greatest acts of kindness an Indian can do — that is, if he sees he has something better than yours, to exchange with you. We had a service in the afternoon that lasted until supper-time, and another in the evening that lasted until midnight, and twenty. two of us lay down in that wigwam, all with our feet to the fire and our heads to the side of the wigwam, (iod has now given us that people for Christ. Every one of them professes to lovo Ilim, and there is not a conjurer or a medicine man among them. I had occasional visits from Roman Catholic priests. I never quarrel with them, but I keep my eyes open, and the fish that I have landed I try to get into my basket and have stay there. The priests used to como and visit the Indians, and I was courteous and friendly, but when they had gone away I would say to my people, *' What did these long-coated gen- tlemen say ?" " Oh, they said a lot of beautiful things to us about the mother of our Lord, and how nice it would be to get her to intercede with her Son for us." Hero was my argument to them : I would say, " Sup- pose that the governor-general of our couatry should come out hero and be in my house as a guest, and ho should send out word, * Now, Indians, if you have any petition or favor to ask, come and see me, and I will gladly listen to your prayer and do all I can for you. ' Suppose that John Company (the name the Indians give the Hudson Bay Company) should say, * Now if you Indians want to have any talk with the governor, tell us, and we will go and speak for you.* What, would you say when the governor himself had invited you to come right to his presence ? You would say to John Company, ' Mind your own business, we are going to the governor.' Now listen, in this book Jesus Christ says, * Ilim that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out ; whosoever will may come ; and I if I be lifted up will draw all men unto Me.' I would not say a word against the mother of our Lord, she was a glorious and blessed woman, but when the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, says, ' Come unto Me,' what is the use of having the mother as your mouthpiece when you can ^ '..'HlffJ' LIFK AMONO TUB RED MEN OK AMEKICA. IJuiy go yourself straight to tlio Son ?" So wlion those priests oaino nroiiiHl again and tlioiijj^lit they wore going to f coop in u groat lot of my converts, they found the Indians were oilish, aid they waiiti'd to know what was the matter, and the Indians said, " Veil, it is just this, if you long-coated gcntlunion wish to go and say your prayers through the intercession of tho old lady go and do it, we arc going straight lo the Son every time." The result was that I never lost an Indian convert in any of our missions. These priests are very zealous and worthy of imitation, as to courage and enterprise and push, and their determination to succeed. In one Indian village was a French priest, an earnest worker in his way and very zealous for the ceremonies of the church, especially as regards Friday. The Indians were told never to cat meat ou Friday ; they were to cat fish only. That was all right f(tr six months of the year, when they had any quantity of fish, but the other six months, when the ice was often ten feet thick, it was rather difliciilt to get tho required food. One Friday this priest went into one of tho wigwams, and found one oi his best Indians, as he had supposed, eating a great piece of venison. The priest, with all the excitability of the Frenchman, fiew around and said, "Didn't I tell you never to eat moat on Friday ?" Tho Indi;in carved off another piece and said, *' Him no moat, him fish." The priest said, '* Can't I believe my eyes ? You are eating venison." " Ilim no venison, him fish." The priest was very much annoyed and said, * ' Are you crazy or am I crazy ? I say that is venison." *' llim no venison, him fish." ** How do you know it is ?" said tho priest. Tho Indian replied, " You came to me awhile ago and said, * I want you to be one of my people.' I said, * What do you want to do ? ' * Why, to baptize you. ' I said, ' What is that you tell me ? What will you pay me ? ' We talked about it and you decided to give me a new shirt if you would baptize me. I said, ' Go ahead ;' so you took the water and went through your prayers and bap- tized me, and you said, ' I change you, you not Ookoosketoos any more, you Peter.' So I am Peter ever since. Friday come, and I have no fish, and I feel pretty hungry, and I don't want to go all day without anytliing to eat, so thinks I, I will fix him, and I get some water and take up that nice piece of venison and I say, * you venison are you, I fix you ; ' and I put water on him and baptize him, and make him fish, and I cat him." So he went ou, and had a good time. One of the saddest things in reference to our North American Indians of this far north was the cruel way in which they treated women. The men in their pagan state were naturally tyrants. They had such false ideas. They thought if a man was kind to his mother, or his wife, or his sister, or his daughter, there was something wei k about him, that he was not a big Indian, a strong, great warrior, so they crushed out all kindly feeling. They were fond of the little boys, but the poor little girls had a hard time of it. A man could cuff his wife's ears because the little baby a few hours old was a girl, and not a boy ; and all through life that feel- Wl tM li ^^w^n^rm 1805.] LIFE AMONO TIIIC KM) MKN OV AMERICA. 489 • » Ui (W i4l ingof contempt for womanhood was mHnifcsUid. I Imvn soi'd a hij; Indian with a ritlo on his shoulder como marching into the enranipmont. J It; would look around until over yonder he would see liin wife, perhapH chop- ping wood, an "i ho would say, " Get up, you dog of a wife, and go along the trail and you will see where I have shot a deer, liring it in quick, 1 want my dinner." Then lie would send a club at her with such fury, that if she had not dodged it her brains would have been dashed out. Away she would go and stagger home with that groat deer on her back. Then she would take her scalping-knife ai:d go to work and skin that deer, and cut out a lot of venison and boil it and put it before her husband. He would invito half a do/.cn <