The Perishing Tribes of Canada
The Indian and Eskimo tribes in Canada, now numbering some 20,000, are rapidly perishing. The testimony given a year ago before a committee of the Canada Senate, ascribes the result to the advent of the whites. Since guns have taken the place of the bow and arrow and lance, the slaughter of reindeer, moose, and wood buffalo has been far in excess of the native needs, and this game, on which they are chiefly dependent for food, is failing them. There are now believed to be only a few hundred buffalo in the Peace River country, where a few years ago these wild animals, somewhat larger than our prairie bison, roamed in thousands. Many of the natives near the mission stations now live in badly ventilated huts, and these sorry substitutes for the buffalo skin tents of earlier days have increased the death rate. It is stated that no epidemics were known to prevail among these natives until measles and smallpox were introduced by whites from Manitoba, and that other diseases resulting from their intercourse with white men are producing fearful ravages, equalling in extent the mortality which from the same cause, according to Mr. McInnes, is killing off the entire native population, of British Columbia.—Christian at Work.