have mingled freely with the Indians of the Stadacona
settlement, especially during the month which yet remained before the
rigour of winter locked their ships in snow and ice. Cartier, being of
an observing and accurate turn of mind, has left in his narrative some
interesting notes upon the life and ideas of the savages. They had, he
said, no belief in a true God. Their deity, Cudragny, was supposed to
tell them the weather, and, if angry, to throw dust into their eyes.
They thought that, when they died, they would go to the stars, and
after that, little by little, sink with the stars to earth again, to
where the happy hunting grounds lie on the far horizon of the world. To
correct their ignorance, Cartier told them of the true God and of the
verities of the Christian faith. In the end the savages begged that he
would baptize them, and on at least one occasion a great flock of them
came to him, hoping to be received into the faith. But Cartier, as he
says, having nobody with him 'who could teach them our belief and
religion,' and doubting, also, the sincerity of their sudden
conversion, put them off with the promise that at his next coming he
would bring priests and holy oil and cause them to be baptized.

The Stadacona Indians seem to have lived on terms of something like
community of goods. Their stock of food--including great quantities of
pumpkins, peas, and corn--was more or less in common. But, beyond this
and their lodges, their earthly possessions were few. They dressed
somewhat scantily in skins, and even in the depth of winter were so
little protected from the cold as to excite the wonder of their
observers. Women whose husbands died never remarried, but went about
with their faces smeared thick with mingled grease and soot.

One peculiar custom of the natives especially attracted the attention
of their visitors, and for the oddity of the thing may best be recorded
in Cartier's manner. It is an early account of the use of tobacco.
'There groweth also,' he wrote, 'a certain kind of herb, whereof in
summer they make a great provision for all the year, making great
account of it, and only men use it, and first they cause it to be dried
in the sun, then wear it about their necks, wrapped in a little beast's
skin made like a little bag, with a hollow piece of wood or stone like
a pipe. Then when they please they make powder of it, and then put it
in one of the ends of the said cornet or pipe, and laying a coal of