OCR Text |
Show 1 5 4 BABON LA HONTAK- NATIVE TRIBES. or towns of the Tahuglauk with great numbers of little calves, which they take in the above- mentioned mountain; and that the Tahuglauk make use of these calves for several ends; for they not only eat their flesh, but bring ' em up to labour, and make clothes, boots, & c. of their skins. They added, that it was their misfortune to be took prisoners by the Gnacsitares with war, which had lasted for eighteen years; but that they hoped a peace would be speedily concluded, upon which the prisoners would be exchanged, pursuant to the usual custom. I could pump nothing farther out of ' em, with relation to the country, commerce, and customs of that remote nation: all they could say was that the great river of that nation runs along westward, and that the toft lake into which it falls is three hundred leagues in circumference and thirty in breadth, its mouth stretching a great way to the southward." " I would have fain satisfied my curiosity, in being an eyewitness of the manners and customs of the Tahuglauk, but that being impracticable, I was forced to be instructed at secondhand by these Moseemlek slaves; who assured me upon the faith of a savage that the Tahuglauk wear their beards two fingers' breadth long; that their garments reach down to their knees; that they cover their heads with a sharp- pointed cap; that they always wear a long stick or cane in their hands, which is tipped, not unlike what we use in Europe; that they wear a sort of boot upon their legs which reach up to their knee; that their women never show themselves, which perhaps proceeds from the same principle that prevails in Italy and Spain; and in fine, that this people are always at war with the puissant nations that are seated in the neighbourhood of the lake, but withal that they never disquiet the strolling nations that fall in their way by reason of their weakness- an admirable lesson for some princes in the world, who are so much intent upon the making use of the strongest hand. This was. all I could gather upon that subject. My curiosity prompted me to desire a more particular account ;* but unluckily I wanted a good interpreter: * On that part of the map which is confessedly derived from Indian authority is the following note:-" A map drawn upon Btag- skinsby y* Gnacsitares, who gave me to know y* latitudes of all y places marked in it, by pointing to y* respective places of y heavens that one or t'other corresponded to; for by this means I could adjust y* latitude to half a degree or little more; having first received from them a computation of y* distances in fasons, each of which I compute to be three long Frenoh leagues." |