MacDonell, John. Description of Lake Athabasca and the Chipweans, ca. 1805 and Journal of a Voyage from Lachine to Fort River Qu'Appelle, 1793. An electronic transcription. MFTP #0005

No. 3.

On the other hand how different do they believe the lot of the bad Indian, who approaches with fear and trembling to this Stony Vehicle, which is supposed by them to determine intuitively their irrevocable doom, as it mouves with its victim partly across the river, so as to tantalize him for a short time with a view of the happy Elisium on the other side; when lo all of a sudden it instantaneously sinks into the gloomy River with its wicked Load, which is never heard again; as should it not be immiediately devoured by the fishes and beasts of Prey, it is thrown out and is consumed by the Sun and Water, and once more becomes as Earth. Thus their notions of rewards, still to be conferred on a material body, without the most distant thought that they possess a Soul which can partake of either happiness or misery.

Origin, Manners, Customs, and Dress,.

The Chipweans like most other Indian nations have not the least idea of their Origin than what is involved in fabulous suppositions; they are even so stupid as not to be able to calculate time farther back than the period while their

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