Note 216 — Chapter II · HUNTERS AND FISHERS.

1º Abundance of food. Le Jeune, speaking of the Montagnais, says: “The savages are almost always hungry”216. The Chepewyans “are not remarkable for their activity as hunters, owing to the ease with which they snare deer and spear fish”217. Among the Kutchins a good hunter can always, except in very unfavourable circumstances, procure sufficient food218. The Beaver Indians, according to Mackenzie, seemed to live in a state of comparative comfort219. The Comanches in the summer, when the buffaloes remove to the North, often suffer from want of food220. Lewis and Clark tell us, that the Shoshones “suffer the extremes of want; for two-thirds of the year they are forced to live in the mountains, passing whole weeks without meat, and with nothing to eat but a few fish and roots”221. Grinnell, speaking of the inland Indians in general, remarks: “The life of the Indian was in some respects a hard one, for the question of food was an ever-present anxiety with him”222.