Читать книгу A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner. U.S. Interpreter at the Saut de Ste. Marie онлайн

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When we came to Rainy Lake, we had ten packs of beaver of forty skins each. Net-no-kwa sold some other peltries for rum, and was drunk for a day or two. We here met some of the trader’s canoes on their way to Red River; and Wa-me-gon-a-biew, who was now eighteen years old, being unwilling to return to Lake Huron, determined to go back to the north with the trader’s people. The old woman said much to dissuade him, but he jumped into one of the canoes as they were about to start off, and although, at the request of the old woman, they endeavoured to drive him out, he would not leave the canoe. Net-no-kwa was much distressed, but could not make up her mind to lose her only son; she determined on returning with him.

The packs of beaver she would not leave with the traders, not having sufficient confidence in their honesty. We therefore took them to a remote place in the woods, where we made a sunjegwun, or deposite, in the usual manner. We then returned to the Lake of the Woods. From this lake the Indians have a road to go to Red River which the white men never follow; this is by the way of the Muskeek, or swamp carrying place. We went up a river which the Indians call Muskeego-ne-gum-me-we-see-bee, or Swamp River, for several days; we then dragged our canoes across a swamp for one day. This swamp is only of moss and some small bushes on the top of the water, so that it quakes to a great distance as people walk over it. Then we put our canoes into a small stream, which they called Begwionusk, from the begwionusk, or cow parsley, which grows upon it: this we descended into a small Sahgiegun,[15] called by the same name. This pond has no more than two or three feet of water, and great part of it is not one foot deep; but at this time its surface was covered with ducks, geese, swans, and other birds. Here we remained a long time, and made four packs of beaver skins. When the leaves began to fall, Sag-git-to died. We were now quite alone, no Indians or white men being within four or five days’ journey from us. Here we had packs to deposit, as we were about to leave the country; and the ground being too swampy to admit of burying them in the usual manner, we made a sunjegwun of logs, so tight that a mouse could not enter it, in which we left all our packs and other property which we could not carry. If any of the Indians of this distant region had found it in our absence, they would not have broken it up; and we did not fear that the traders would penetrate to so poor and solitary a place. Indians who live remote from the whites have not learned to value their peltries so highly that they will be guilty of stealing them from each other, and at the time of which I speak, and in the country were I was, I have often known a hunter leave his traps for many days in the woods without visiting them or feeling any anxiety about their safety. It would often happen, that one man having finished his hunt, and left his traps behind him, another would say to him, “I am going to hunt in such a direction, where are your traps?” When he has used them, another, and sometimes four or five, take them in succession; but in the end, they are sure to return to the right owner.