Food was short. To make matters worse, heavy rains were followed by
sharp frost. The snow became iced over, destroying rabbit and grouse,
which feed the large game. Radisson noticed that the Indians often
snatched food from the hands of hungry children. More starving Crees
continued to come into camp. Soon the husbands were taking the wives'
share of food, and the women were subsisting on dried pelts. The Crees
became too weak to carry their snow-shoes, or to gather wood for fire.
The cries of the dying broke the deathly stillness of the winter
forest; and the strong began to dog the footsteps of the weak. "Good
God, have mercy on these innocent people," writes Radisson; "have mercy
on us who acknowledge Thee!" Digging through the snow with their
rackets, some of the Crees got roots to eat. Others tore the bark from
trees and made a kind of soup that kept them alive. Two weeks after
the famine set in, the Indians were boiling the pulverized bones of the
waste heap. After that the only food was the buckskin that had been
tanned for clothing. "We ate it so eagerly," writes Radisson, "that
our gums did bleed. . . . We became the image of death." Before the
spring five hundred Crees had died of famine. Radisson and Groseillers
scarcely had strength to drag the dead from the tepees. The Indians
thought that Groseillers had been fed by some fiend, for his heavy,
black beard covered his thin face. Radisson they loved, because his
beardless face looked as gaunt as theirs.
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