When all things are prepared, the Indians take their station on some eminence commanding a prospect of this path, and the moment any deer are seen going that way the whole encampment steal under cover of the woods till they get behind them. They then show themselves in the open ground, and drawing up in the form of a crescent advance.-Page 121. 1772.] THELEWEY-AZA-WETH. 121 sometimes extend two or three miles. Between these rows of brushwood runs the path frequented by the deer. When all things are prepared, the Indians take their station on some eminence commanding a prospect of this path, and the moment any deer are seen going that way, the whole encampment men, women, and children-steal under cover of the woods till they get behind them. They then show themselves in the open ground, and, drawing up in the form of a crescent, advance with shouts. The deer finding themselves pursued, and at the same time imagining the rows of brushy poles to be people stationed to prevent their passing on either side, run straight forward till they get into the pound. The Indians instantly close in, block up the entrance, and whilst the women and children run round the outside to prevent them from breaking or leaping the fence, the men enter with their spears and bows, and speedily despatch such as are caught in the snares or are running loose.* M'Lean, a gentleman who spent twenty-five years in the Hudson's Bay territories, assures us that, on one occasion, he and a party of men entrapped and slaughtered in this way a herd of three hundred deer in two hours. On the 8th of April they reached an island in a small lake named Thelewey-aza-weth, and pitched their tent; and as the deer were numerous, and the party, which had been joined by various wandering Indians, now amounted to seventy persons, they determined to remain for some time, and make preparations for their enterprise in the ensuing summer. They were busily employed during their intervals from hunting, in providing staves of birch about one and a quarter inch square and seven or eight feet long, which served for tent-poles all the summer, and * Hearne's Journey, p. 78-80. |