The sphagnum in which the child is laid, forms a soft elastic bed, which absorbs moisture very readily, and affords such a protection from the cold of a rigorous winter, that its place would be ill supplied by cloth.
The mothers are careful to collect a sufficient quantity in autumn for winter use; but when through accident their stock fails, they have recourse to the soft down of the typha, or reed mace, the dust of rotten wood, or even feathers, although none of these articles are so cleanly, or so easily changed as the sphagnum.
The above is a brief sketch of such parts of the manners, character and customs of the Crees, as we could collect from personal observation, or from the information of the most intelligent half-breeds we met with; and we shall merely add a few remarks on the manner in which the trade is conducted at the different inland posts of the Fur Companies.
The standard of Exchange in all mercantile transactions with the natives is a beaver skin, the relative value of which, as originally established by the traders, differs considerably from the present worth of the articles it represents; but the Indians are averse to change. Three marten, eight musk-rat, or a single lynx, or wolverene skin, are equivalent to one beaver; a silver fox, white fox, or otter, are reckoned two beavers, and a black fox, or large black bear, are equal to four; a mode of reckoning which has very little connexion with the real value of these different furs in the European market. Neither has any attention been paid to the original cost of European articles, in fixing the tariff by which they are sold to the Indians. A coarse butcher's knife is one skin, a woollen blanket or a fathom of coarse cloth, eight, and a fowling-piece fifteen. The Indians receive their principal outfit of clothing and ammunition on credit in the autumn, to be repaid by their winter hunts; the amount intrusted to each of the hunters, varying with their reputations for industry and skill, from twenty to one hundred and fifty skins. The Indians are generally anxious to pay off the debt thus incurred, but their good intentions are often frustrated by the arts of the rival traders. Each of the Companies keeps men constantly employed travelling over the country during the winter, to collect the furs from the different bands of hunters as fast as they are procured. The poor Indian endeavours to behave honestly, and when he has gathered a few skins sends notice to the post from whence he procured his supplies, but if discovered in the mean time by the opposite party, he is seldom proof against the temptation to which he is exposed. However firm he may be in his denials at first, his resolutions are enfeebled by the sight of a little rum, and when he has tasted the intoxicating beverage, they vanish like smoke, and he brings forth his store of furs, which he has carefully concealed from the scrutinizing eyes of his visitors. This mode of carrying on the trade not only causes the amount of furs, collected by either of the two Companies, to depend more upon the activity of their agents, the knowledge they possess of the motions of the Indians, and the quantity of rum they carry, than upon the liberality of the credits they give, but is also productive of an increasing deterioration of the character of the Indians, and will probably, ultimately prove destructive to the fur trade itself. Indeed the evil has already, in part, recoiled upon the traders; for the Indians, long deceived, have become deceivers in their turn, and not unfrequently after having incurred a heavy debt at one post, move off to another, to play the same game. In some cases the rival posts have entered into a mutual agreement, to trade only with the Indians they have respectively fitted out; but such treaties, being seldom rigidly adhered to, prove a fertile subject for disputes, and the differences have been more than once decided by force of arms. To carry on the contest, the two Companies are obliged to employ a great many servants, whom they maintain often with much difficulty, and always at a considerable expense[8].