PICTOU, NOVA SCOTIA, 1st October, 1880. The Honorable The Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs, Ottawa. SIR, - Changes in the habits and circumstances of Micmac life are so slow of formation, that one finds little to report from year to year. But if a more lengthened period, a quarter of a century for instance, or even a decade, be taken at once into review, a well-defined transformation, though almost imperceptible in its progress, (45) will yet be found to have been effected. Pictou Indians can scarcely be said to-day to lead a nomadic life; and yet it is impossible to point out the precise date at which their wandering customs ceased to exist. Any person here, who has reached middle age, remembers, quite distinctly, when they subsisted exclusively on the fruits of the chase. They hunted at all seasons, and to this employment they, very rarely, added the labor of catching a few fish, and that too after the most primitive of fashions. The women indeed, plaited a few baskets, which were purchased more as toys than as articles designed to serve any useful purpose. The men rarely stayed more than a few weeks, particularly during the summer, in any one place. The tribe were thus essentially a wandering, homeless race, dependant on the chances of game and venison, and on the spear and the rifle, for means to eke out a very precarious livelihood. Wherever they chanced to alight they built wigwams, covered with birch bark, and constructed canoes largely of the same material to convey themselves and their pénates from one very temporary resting place to another. Thus lived our Indians a few years I ago, a harmless, but a useless life. To-day, however, a change forces itself on the notice of the least observant. They build permanent houses. They congregate on their reserves. They possess boats, and many of approved appliances for fishing with hook and line, and sometimes with nets. They are not unfrequently employed at full wages, on public and other works, in company with their brethren of European extraction. They have "a turn" for woodwork of any description and devote much of their time to it. The gun still hangs up over their doors, but they rarely take it down, unless an actual temptation entices them, in the shape of a flock of sea-fowl flying over their village. Unlike their brethren in some other parts of this Province, they pay little or no attention to farming, and make scarcely any preparation for winter, and, unhappily, this is the season in which their woodwork is at a discount, fishing is impossible, and their village is not accessable enough to enable them to avail themselves of other stray chances of paying labour. They had planted a few bushels of potatoes the preceding spring, and committed a small variety of other vegetable seed to the ground, but their harvest, though of much assistance during the fall and early winter months, is entirely inadequate to the demands made upon it, and before the snow disappears, they are, as a rule, absolutely destitute of food. It is the same experience every year. There is one trait in the character of our Micmacs which cannot be too highly praised. Living as they do, they frequently suffer many privations. This evening they have not to-morrow's breakfast in reserve for themselves and families, and yet a case of theft from their white neighbours, is, I believe, utterly unknown. The gradual elevation of a race with a fine characteristic like this so firmly impressed ought not to be despaired of. As to the rest the average Micmac is chaste, patient, temperate and reverential towards the aged, affectionate in his domestic relations, and charitable, when means and opportunity permit, to his less favored Indian brother. The absence of schools has been a serious privation. Very few persons can even read, not one can be regarded as a scholar. The earlier missionaries had invented a system of hieroglyphics, which they subsequently gathered into a volume, and handed to the first converts. By the good offices of a religious foreign society, a reprint was made a few years ago, and many copies of this later edition are now in circulation. The publication is in two small separate volumes, which contain the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Hail Mary, a few other simple supplications, the Ten Commandments, the principal Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical Precepts, the entire service of the Mass, the Office for the Dead, several selections from Sacred Scriptures, and a summary of Christian doctrine in catechetical form; this, I need not say, is the poor Micmacs greatest treasure on earth; father has explained to son, and son to grandson, this simple record, through two hundred and seventy consecutive years. Each Sunday evening, the head of the family, with profound reverence, takes "the book" into his hand, deciphers it from beginning to end, and then with great earnestness, impresses what he considers its most important truths on the minds of his by no means inat- (46) tentive hearers. Yet there are many drawbacks to this mode of teaching. The volumes are hieroglyphic. Their perusal imparts no conception of a written alphabet, of arithmetic, of secular history, of current events, or of literature properly so-called. The world that lies outside of personal observation is unknown to the ordinary Micmac. Last year the erection of a small, yet comfortable and sufficiently commodious school-house was begun in the Indian Village at Boat Harbor, and with the assistance received from your Department, was this year fairly finished. A young lady (Miss Jollymore) whose attainments easily procured her a first-class license at the provincial examinations, and whose many good qualities otherwise render her services as teacher particularly valuable, undertook to open school in the new building. Her labors so far, have been very successful. I base great hopes on this. Parents and children seem equally anxious to second her efforts; and, if the experiment results (and I have little doubt it will) as beneficially as we all anticipate, the advantage to the race must be signal. Were nothing to be gained but the means of passing the long winter evenings, in listening to the harmless tales of adventure in which the poor children of the forest delight, the amelioration, in the monotonous character of their existence, would be worth striving for. But I anticipate more; I look forward to the time when the young Indian may become an accountant, a clerk, perhaps the chief clerk of a business firm; for no one is more scrupulously honest in his dealings, or more attached to the employer who does fairly by him. I commend their school, the first in this district, to the favorable consideration of the Department. In treating with Indians, and especially in dispensing to them the public grants, the agent has sometimes difficulties of a peculiar nature that, perhaps, it would be well to mention here. Vouchers for the distribution of blankets in the fall, and of seed in the spring, are easy enough to be obtained. The chief, the minor captains, and the populace generally meet the agent in solemn conclave, and at an appointed time, and the allotment to each family is defined, an acknowledgment is signed of the amount received. At other seasons, however, sudden cases of illness may occur, or other emergencies may arise, which do not admit of consultation with the higher authorities of Indiandom. The agent must simply take steps to alleviate distress, so urgent in its demands as to forestall regular methods of procedure. He must make disbursements for which it is often impossible that he can at the time secure regular vouchers. A week later the recipients of Government bounty have moved away from their reserve and have settled somewhere else, and likely, as not, will be absent for six or twelve months. There can be no regular remedy: a cast-iron process will not always suffice for Micmac necessities. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, R. MACDONALD.
