tchewan not so many years ago. A woman and her husband were
hastening on snowshoes from their winter camp to the river, in order
to share in the usual Christmas bounty and festivities at the
Hudson's Bay Company's post. The woman was seized with incipient
labour, and darting from her husband, with whom she had been
quarrelling on the way, pushed on, and, in a frozen marsh, amongst
bulrushes, on a bitterly cold night, was delivered of a child.
Grumous as she was, she picked herself up, and, with incredible
nerve, walked ten miles to the Pas, carrying her live infant with
her, wrapped in a rabbit-skin robe.] It was not in February, but in
_Meeksuo pesim_, "The month when the eagles return"; not in August,
but in Oghpaho pesim, "The month when birds begin to fly." When
called upon they could give their Christian names and answer to
William or Magloire, to Mary or Madaline, but, in spite of priest or
parson, their home name was a Cree one. In many cases the white
forefather's name had been dropped or forgotten, and a Cree surname
had taken its place, as, for example, in the name Louis Maskegosis,
or Madeline Nooskeyah. Some of the Cree names were in their meaning
simply grotesque. Mishoostiquan meant "The man who stands with the
red hair"; Waupunekapow, "He who stands till morning." One of the
applicants was Kanawatchaguayo, or "The ghost-keeper."

[It may be mentioned here that this half-breed's "inner" name, so to
speak, meant "The Ghost-Keeper," for the name he gave, following
an Indian usage, was not the real one. Kanawatchaguayo was the one
given by the interpreter, but accompanied by the translation of
the inner name, to wit, "The Ghost-Keeper." This curious custom is
more fully referred to in a forthcoming work on Indian folk-lore,
traditions, legends, usages, methods and manner of life, etc., by
Mrs. F. H. Paget, of Ottawa. This lady is an expert Cree scholar,
and her work, which I have had the pleasure of hearing her read, is
the result of diligent research and of ample knowledge of Indian
life and character.]

But others were strikingly poetical, particularly the female
names. Payucko geesigo, "One in the Skies"; Pesawakoona kapesisk,
"The silent snow in falling forming signs or symbols"; Matyatse
wunoguayo, or rather, for this is a doubtful name, Powastia ka
nunaghquanetungh, "Listener to the unseen rapids"; Kese koo
apeoo, "She sits in heaven," were all the names of applicants
for scrips, and many others coul