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Wentzel who resided for many years in that quarter. The Thlingchadinneh or Dog-Ribs or as they are sometimes termed after the Crees, who formerly warred against them, Slaves, inhabit the country to the westward of the Copper Indians as far as Mackenzie's River.
The Strong-bows resemble the Dog-Ribs somewhat in their disposition; but when they meet they assume a considerable degree of superiority over the latter who meekly submit to the haughtiness of their neighbours.
To the credit of humanity be it recorded that they received the gift with marked dislike, although they were too polite to absolutely refuse it. Slaves though one section of them were in name, they were not slaves to tobacco; and the other section being Dog-ribs, had, we presume, too little of Adam's rib in them to find pleasure in smoke.
Having deposited the canoe among a few dwarf birch bushes they commenced their march, carrying their tents, blankets, cooking utensils, and a part of the dried meat. St. Germain however had previously delineated with charcoal a man and a house on a piece of bark which he placed over the canoe and the few things that were left to point out to the Dog-Ribs that they belonged to white people.
The Strong-bows and Rocky Mountain Indians have a tradition in common with the Dog-Ribs that they came originally from the westward, from a level country where there was no winter, which produced trees and large fruits now unknown to them. It was inhabited also by many strange animals, amongst which there was a small one whose visage bore a striking resemblance to the human countenance.
One of our interpreters was immediately despatched with an Indian to endeavour to trace out the Dog-Ribs, whom he supposed might be concealed in the neighbourhood from their dread of the Copper Indians; although we had no doubt of their coming to us were they aware of our being here.
A party who had been sent to Akaitcho returned bringing three hundred and seventy pounds of dried meat and two hundred and twenty pounds of suet, together with the unpleasant information that a still larger quantity of the latter article had been found and carried off, as he supposed, by some Dog-Ribs who had passed that way.
Upon a narrow strait, between two tempestuous and stormy seas, lived the young man Chappewee, whose father, the old man Chappewee, was the first of men. The old man Chappewee, the first of men, when he first landed on the earth, near where the present Dog-ribs have their hunting-grounds, found the world a beautiful world, well stocked with food, and abounding with pleasant things.
I have been informed that all the Indians who trade at the different posts in the north-west parts of America imagine that their forefathers came from the east, except the Dog-Ribs who reside between the Copper Indian Islands and the Mackenzie's River and who deduce their origin from the west, which is the more remarkable as they speak a dialect of the Chipewyan language.
They hold women in the same low estimation as the Chipewyans do, looking upon them as a kind of property which the stronger may take from the weaker whenever there is just reason for quarrelling, if the parties are of their own nation, or whenever they meet if the weaker party are Dog-Ribs or other strangers.
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