Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/537

 CREDITOR

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CREE

goldsmith Crcdi, from whom he took his name, and then of the sculjitor Verrocchio, having as fellow- ]Hiliils Porufcino and Leonardo da Vinci. To the latter paintcrLorenzoaftachedhimself in termsof friendship, and he copied the manner of Leonardo with great suc- cess. When Verrocchio went to Venice to cast the bronze equestrian st.atue of Colleoni, he left to Lorenzo the entire administration of all his affairs, and in his will charged him to complete the statue, which he had been unable to finish, adding the following re- mark: "Because he has the ability to finish it prop- erly". Leonardo was, however, instructed by the Vene- tians to complete the figure. Di Credi was a devout follower of Savonarola and a :nan of deeplj- religious character. He was an eminent jiortrait-painter, and his religious pictures were in great demand for the churches and convents of Florence and the neighboiu'- hood. Oneof the finest is at Pistoja, originally painted for t he hospital of t he Ceppo. The portrait of Verrocchio is at Florence. Otherexamplesareat Berlin, Dresden, London, Paris, Rome. andTurin. They are all remark- al>le for their magnificence of colour, exquisite compo- sition, but extraordinary rigidity of drapery, the folds having the appearance of metal work in many cases and revealing the original training as a goldsmith which the artist received. He died at the age of seventy-eight in his own house in Florence, near Santa Maria Nuova, and was. buried in San Pietro Maggiore. A little while before his death he be- queathed to the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova a farm which he had purchasetl at Casciano. He was said to have been a very slow painter, but took iiiunrnse pains in the execution of all he did, pre- jiarrd and ground all his own colours, and finished his paintings with exquisite refinement and care.

\' \sAni, Vile dei piltori (JooO) : Bottari. \otr alle vite deipil- Inn I Kome. 1707-72); Idem, Z,<;"fr,/'i7/„riWi.- 1 Rome. 1754-59); luKst. Dialnphi (Lucca, 1754); unpuMi^hf.l mss. of Oretti at nnloKnn; BnwN, Did. of Painlrr.s „nil A'/iyr.nrrs (New York, London, 1903); Burlington Fine Ahts Club, Catalogues. George Charles Williamson.

Creditor. See Debt.

Cree (a contraction of Crlstino or Kenisteno, their Ojibwa name, of uncertain meaning; they com- monly call themselves .simply Evthinyuwuk, men), till! largest and most important Indian tribe of Can- ada, and one of the largest north of Mexico. They are a i)art of the great Algonquian stock and closely related to their .soiithern neiglibours, the Ojibwa, al- though only remotely cognate to the Blackfeet, farther to the west, laitil confined to reservations their various bands held most of the extensive territory about Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba, the lower Red and Siuskatchewan rivers, and eastward to the coun- try of the Maskegon alxiut Hudson Bay. from whom they are hardly to be distinguished. Most of their former territory is now included in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Assiniboia, and Saskatche- wan. Their chief alliance was with the Assiniboin; their wars were with the Siou.\, Blackfeet, and north- em Tinneh tribes. With both French and English they have generally been on friendly terms. When first known to the Jesuit missionaries, about the year 16.'), the Cree lived farther to the south-ea-st, but, on obtaining fire-arms from the English trading-posts established on Hudson Bay some twenty years later, they imsh.ed out into the open jilains in [lursuit of the bultalo. They drove the Blackfeet before them, and at the same time began a war of invasion and extermi- nation against the weaker Tinneh tribes, ;i.s far even as th(' M.iekenzi(? River and the Hocky Mountains. A great sniall-pox epideniie in 1781 so far reduced their numbers that they retired .south of Churchill Rtver, which has since remained the extreme limit of their claims in that direction.

In physique and intelligence the Cree do not differ markedly from the general Indian type, but are per-

haps slightly below the general "plains" standard. Mackenzie, who knew them before they had been greatly modified by contact with the whites, describes them (1790) as naturally generous, good-temiiered, and honest. Their primitive weapons and utensils were fashioned from stone, bone, and horn. They used the canoe of birch-bark and the tipi of buffalo skins. They had no agriculture or pottery art, but their women were expert skin-dressers and workers in pore\i]nne quills. For their food they depended upon fishing, hunting, and the gathering of wild roots and fruits. Wild plums and cherries were pounded, dried, and preserved in rawhide bags or boxes. Buf- falo meat was cut into strips, and dried in the sun for immediate use, or was pounded, covered with melted grease, and kejjt in skin bags as pemmican for winter. Two pounds of this was a sufficient day's ration for a man. Their clothing was of dressed skins; theirorna- mentation and style of hair-cut varied in different bands. Their dead were buried in the ground under a mound of stones, instead of being placed upon scaf- folds or in the branches of trees, as was done by the Sioux and others. In accord with general Indian custom, the personal belongings of the deceased were buried with him or destroyed near the grave. Polyg- amy was common, and a man might marry two sisters at once from the same family. There was no trace of the clan system, as known among the eastern and southern tribes. They sacrificed to a number of gods, their principal myths centring about a super- natural hero called Wisukatcak. They were also great believers in conjurations and witchcraft, and had an influential order of priesthood in four degrees. Their great religious ceremony was the annual Sun Dance. Their two main divisions were distinguished as Wood and Plain Cree, each of which was again subdivided into bands differentiated by slight peculiarities of dialect and custom. With these were sometimes in- cluded the Maskegon, under the name of Swampy Cree. On account of the wide extent of their former range the early estimates of Cree pojndation vary greatly. They number now about 15,000, of whom nearly two-thirds are located upon reservations in Manitoba.

The earliest missionaries in the Cree country were the French Jesuits, who aceomiianied the commander Verendrye in his explorations of the Saskatchewan and Missouri River region from 1731 to 1742. Chief among these were Fathers Nicholas Gonnor, Charles Mesaiger, and Jean Aulneau. No attempt was made at this time to found permanent mission settlements, and the work thus begun was allowed to lajwe in con- sequence of the withdrawal of the French from Can- ada until after the establishment of the Red River colony by Lord Selkirk. In 181S Fathers Joseph Norbert Provencher and Severe Dumoulin established the first regular mission station at Saint Boniface, opposite the present city of Wiiuii)ieg. In 1S22 Father Provencher was made bishop, wit h jurisdict ion over all of Rupert's Land and the Northwest Territories, and at once proceeded to organize a systematic mission work throughout the whole vast region. Upon his death in l.S.'jU he was succeeded by tlie noted Oblate FatherAIexanderTache.whohad come out eight years before. Among other distinguished workers in the same field, all Oblates, may be noted F.ather Albert Lacombe, author of a monumental grammar and dic- tionary of the Cree language, besides a number of re- ligious and other translations; Father Valentin V6gr6- ville, founder of five missions, and author of a manu- script grannnar and dictionary of the language; Father Jean Thibault; and Father Emile Petitot, better known for his great work among the remote Tinneh and Eskimo tribes. The Fathers were assisted by .sisters of the Order of Gray Nuns. Prof estant work was begun by the Episcopalian Rev. John West, as chaplain for the Hudson's Bay Comjiany in 1820, the