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Performing Archive

List of Large Plates Supplementing Volume Eighteen

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The Chipewyan are one of several Athapascan groups occupying the territory between the Hudson bay and the Rocky mountains, from about the fifty-seventh parallel to the Arctic circle. Much of this area is barren, but the streams that feed and drain the innumerable lakes are bordered by thick groves of the slender, white boles of aspens, whose pleasant glades are favored by camps of fishermen and berrypickers. The Chipewyan dwelling, formerly made of the skins of caribou, on which animal these people principally depended for food, clothing, and shelter, was one of the few points in which their culture resembled that of the plains Indians. Their distinctive garment was a leather or fur coat with skirts cut to a point before and behind, a feature to which the appellation Wichipwayaniwuk ("they pointed fur people"), the Cree original of Chipewyan, alluded.
The Sarsi are an Athapascan tribe which prior to the nineteenth century came out of the far north, crossed the Saskatchewan, and becoming affiliated with the Algonquian confederacy of the Bloods, Blackfeet, and Piegan, became typical plainsmen, following the buffalo, engaging in horse-stealing raids, and in general adopting the religious practices of their allies. Old Sarsi, as the subject of this plate is colloquially known, was ninety-eight years of age when the photograph was made in 1925. In spite of his years, he was still agile and keen.
The Western Woods Cree, Bush Cree, Swampy Cree, or Maskegon, as they are variously known, are scattered in numerous bands through the wooded country north of the prairies between Hudson bay and the Peace river drainage. Other members of this large family inhabit the plains in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and the country from Lake Winnipeg to Lakes Mistassini and Nitchequon in the Province of Quebec. They are members of the great Algonquian stock, and are closely related to the Chippewa. Lac les Isles, locally known as Big Island lake, is in west-central Saskatchewan, near the Alberta border. The canoe is a well-made craft of birch-bark.
The Assiniboin are an offshoot of the Yanktonai Sioux, from whom they separated prior to 1640. The southern branch has long been confined on a reservation in Montana, the northern is resident in Alberta. The latter is divided into two bands, which formerly ranged respectively north and south of Bow river, from the Rocky mountains out upon the prairies. Hector is chief of the southern band of the Canadian branch known locally as Bear's Paw band.