ROMANCE OF FUR

Evening Star, Issue 21748, 16 June 1934, Page 24

ROMANCE OF FUR

HOW A GREAT TRADE BEGAN The great fur trade of America and Canada probably began with the exchange of a beaver-pelt for a codfisher’s knife. Among the Red men, says Miss Constance Lindsay Skinner, in ‘ Beaver, Kings, and Cabins,’ the knife was supreme:—“Deprive the silent-footed hunter of all but knife and fire and he could still live. . . . The Indians, watching the fishermen split the cod, were impressed at once by the superiority of the white man’s knife; a keen blade, flexible yet strong, which could be sharpened easily on another, or on a stone. This tool, they saw, would ease the labour of its possessor and give him power and distinction among his tribesmen.- An early trader writes, ‘ the savages offered their best furs for our knives.’ ’ ’ The codfish trade resulted from John Cabot’s accidental discovery of Newfoundland when he was seeking a short cut to China. “ To Hym that founde the new He—£lo ” ; so ran an item in the careful accounts of King Henry VII. The “ He ” was Newfoundland, and " Hym that founde ” it was Cabot, the Bristol adventurer. And after cod came fur. PURITAN AND CAVALIER. England and France fought for the spoils that were once the Indian’s alone. Much blood was shed, red man’s and white man’s as well as that of beaver, marten, otter, fox, mink, skunk, wolverene, lynx, wolf, bear.. Some of the pelts changed their names before they reached London;— “ Black marten ” became, in time, “ Hudson Bay sable,” and the humble muskrat, who left the Indian traps not much esteemed, emerged from the London dye-pot a “ Hudson seal.” “ Black beavers ” were very rare and im-

mensely valuable; a dozen in one season was a good catch. Brown beaver was the staple of the fur trade; and for the hat trade the best paying fur was beaver, which the Indians had worn—for instance, their large winter blankets—and which had become well greased and glossy. Beaver for hat alone, says Miss Skinner, brought fortunes to fur dealers and hatters. In the Stuart period the staid Puritan and the dashing Cavalier had one thing at least in common—beaver hats. _ The Puritan wore his' plain, wide of brim, the crown .a foot tall; the Cavalier, copying the king, preferred his low of crown, sweeping of brim, and handsomely plumed.

“ THE ENGLISH CHIKKASAH.” The fur trade was responsible for some picturesque characters. One of these was James Adair, “ the English Chikkasah,” who traded with Cherokee and Chickasaw Indians in the early eighteenth century and married an Indian girl—“ as great a princess,” he himself wrote, “as ever lived among the ancient Peruvians.” He waged bitter warfare against the French. One day he was caught by a band of Choctaws under French officers:— “ The Frenchmen stripped him of his clothes and weapons and confined him with . . . ‘ double Gentries ’ to watch him, intending to send him to Mobile to be hanged; ‘ but I doubted not of being able to extricate myself some way or other.’ Someone mus’t have been tempted to carelessness at the last moment. An hour before Adair was to be put into the boat, he was off naked and weaponless, dashing at top speed through the woods with the officers, * double Gentries,’ and a pack of French Choctaws after him; ‘but ipy usual good fortune enabled me to leave them far enough behind.’ This is a vigorous, outdoor book about a subject unfamiliar to most of us. It is illustrated with some pleasant woodcuts.—‘ John o’ London’s Weekly.’