their native
vegetables. They dye their porcupine quills a beautiful scarlet, with
the roots of two species of bed-straw (galium tinctorium, and boreale)
which they indiscriminately term _sawoyan_. The roots, after being
carefully washed are boiled gently in a clean copper kettle, and a
quantity of the juice of the moose-berry, strawberry, cranberry, or
arctic raspberry, is added together with a few red tufts of pistils of
the larch. The porcupine quills are plunged into the liquor before it
becomes quite cold, and are soon tinged of a beautiful scarlet. The
process sometimes fails, and produces only a dirty brown, a circumstance
which ought probably to be ascribed to the use of an undue quantity of
acid. They dye black with an ink made of elder bark, and a little
bog-iron-ore, dried and pounded, and they have various modes of
producing yellow. The deepest colour is obtained from the dried root of
a plant, which from their description appears to be the cow-bane
(_cicuta virosa_.) An inferior colour is obtained from the bruised buds
of the Dutch myrtle, and they have discovered methods of dyeing with
various lichens.

The quadrupeds that are hunted for food in this part of the country,
are the moose and the rein-deer, the former termed by the Crees,
_mongsoa_, or _moosoa_; the latter _attekh_. The buffalo or bison,
(_moostoosh_,) the red-deer or American-stag, (_wawaskeeshoo_,) the
_apeesee-mongsoos_, or jumping deer, the _kinwaithoos_, or long-tailed
deer, and the _apistatchaekoos_, a species of antelope; animals that
frequent the plains above the forks of the Saskatchawan, are not found
in the neighbourhood of Cumberland House.

Of fur-bearing animals, various kinds of foxes (_makkeeshewuc_,) are
found in the district, distinguished by the traders under the names of
_black_, _silver_, _cross_, _red_, and _blue_ foxes. The two former are
considered by the Indians to be the same kind, varying accidentally in
the colour of the pelt. The black foxes are very rare, and fetch a high
price. The cross and red foxes differ from each other only in colour,
being of the same shape and size. Their shades of colour are not
disposed in any determinate manner, some individuals approaching in that
respect very nearly to the silver fox, others exhibiting every link of
the chain down to a nearly uniform deep or orange-yellow, the
distinguishing colour of a pure red fox. It is reported both by Indians
and traders, that all the varietie