Adventure and adventurers > Hudson Bay, or, Everyday life in the wilds of North America

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INDIANS AT A FORT.
retard his ultimate destruction by starvation; and un¬
less he meets with something more nourishing, it cannot
prevent it. When starving, the Indian will not hesitate
to appease the cravings of hunger by resorting to canni¬
balism ; and there were some old dames with whom I
was myself acquainted, who had at different periods
eaten several of their children. Indeed, some of them,
it was said, had also eaten their husbands !
The following anecdote, related to me by my friend
Carles, who spent many years of his life among the
North American Indians, depicts one of the worst of
these cases of cannibalism.
It was in the spring of 18— that Mr. Carles stood in
the Indian Hall of one of the far-distant posts in Atha¬
basca, conversing with a party of Chipewyan Indians,
who had just arrived with furs from their winter hunt¬
ing grounds. The large fires of wood, sparkling and
blazing cheerfully up the wide chimney, cast a bright
light round the room, and shone upon the dusky coun¬
tenances of the Chipewyans, as they sat gravely on the
floor, smoking their spwagans in silence. A dark shade
lowered upon every face, as if thoughts of an unpleasant
nature disturbed their minds; and so it was. A deed
of the most revolting description had been perpetrated
by an Indian of the Cree tribe, and they were about to
relate the story to Mr. Carles.
After a short silence, an old Indian removed his pipe,
and, looking round upon the others, as if to ask their
consent to his becoming spokesman, related the partic¬
ulars of the story, the substance of which I now give.
Towards the middle of winter, Wisagun, a Cree Indian,