away in the East.  Take those recorded by Mrs. Jameson ["Winter Studies and Summer Rambles,” 1835.] during her visit to Mrs. McMurray and the Schoolcrafts, on the Island of Mackinac, over seventy years ago:  Oba baumwawa geezegoquay, “The Sounds which the stars make rushing through the skies”; Zaga see goquay, “Sunbeams breaking through a cloud”; Wahsagewanoquay, “Woman of the bright foam.”  The people so far apart, yet their home names so similarly figurative!  The education of the Red Indian lies in his intimate contact with nature in all her phases—­a good education truly, which serves him well.  But, awe-struck always by the mysterious beauty of the world around him, his mind reflects it instinctively in his Nature-worship and his system of names.

In speaking of the “Lakers” I refer, of course, to the primitive people of the region, and not to half-breed incomers from Manitoba or elsewhere.  There were a few patriarchal families into which all the others seemed to dovetail in some shape or form.  The Nooskeyah family was one of these, also the Gladu, the Cowitoreille, [A corruption, no doubt, of “Courtoreille.”] and the Calahaisen.  The collateral branches of these families constituted the main portion of the native population, and yet inbreeding did not seem to have deteriorated the stock, for a healthier-looking lot of young men, women and children it would be hard to find, or one more free from scrofula.  There were instances, too, among these people, of extreme old age; one in particular which from confirmatory evidence, particularly the declarations of descendants, seemed quite authentic.  This was a woman called Catherine Bisson—­the daughter of Baptiste Bisson and an Indian woman called Iskwao—­who was born on New Year’s Day, 1793, at Lesser Slave Lake, and had spent all her life there since.  She had a numerous progeny which she bore to Kisiskakapo, “The man who stands still.”  She was now blind, and was partly led, partly carried into our tent—­a small, thin, wizened woman, with keen features and a tongue as keen, which cackled and joked at a great rate with the crowd around her.  It was almost awesome to look at this weird piece of antiquity, who was born in the Reign of Terror, and was a young woman before the war of 1812.  She was quite lively yet, so far as her wits went, and seemed likely to go on living. [This very old woman died, I believe, at Lesser Slave Lake only last spring (1908).  The date of her birth was correct, and we had good reason to believe it, she must have been far over 100 years old when she died.]

There were many good points in the disposition of the “Lakers” generally, both young and old.  Their kindness and courtesy to strangers and to each other was marked, and profanity was unknown.  Indeed, if one heard bad language at all it was from the lips of some Yankee or Canadian teamster, airing his superior knowledge of the world amongst the natives.