The Roots, After Being Carefully
Washed, Are Boiled Gently In A Clean Copper Kettle, And A Quantity Of The
Juice Of The Moose-Berry, Strawberry, Cranberry, Or Arctic Raspberry, Is
Added Together With A Few Red Tufts Of Pistils Of The Larch.
The
porcupine quills are plunged into the liquor before it becomes quite cold
and are soon tinged of a beautiful scarlet.
The process sometimes fails
and produces only a dirty brown, a circumstance which ought probably to
be ascribed to the use of an undue quantity of acid. They dye black with
an ink made of elder bark and a little bog-iron-ore, dried and pounded,
and they have various modes of producing yellow. The deepest colour is
obtained from the dried root of a plant which from their description
appears to be cowbane (Cicuta virosa). An inferior colour is obtained
from the bruised buds of the Dutch myrtle and they have discovered
methods of dyeing with various lichens.
The quadrupeds that are hunted for food in this part of the country are
the moose and the reindeer, the former termed by the Crees mongsoa, or
moosoa, the latter attekh. The buffalo or bison (moostoosh) the red-deer
or American stag (wawaskeeshoo) the apeesee-mongsoos, or jumping deer,
the kinwaithoos, or long-tailed deer, and the apistat-chaekoos, a species
of antelope; animals that frequent the plains above the forks of the
Saskatchewan are not found in the neighbourhood of Cumberland House.
Of fur-bearing animals various kinds of foxes (makkeeshewuc) are found in
the district, distinguished by the traders under the names of black,
silver, cross, red, and blue foxes.
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