Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/340

 REVIEWS.

The Beothucks or Red Indians, the Aboriginal Inhabit- ants OF Newfoundland. By James P. Howley, F.G.S. 4to. Cambridge: University Press. 1915.

The Boethuck are one of the puzzles of anthropology. They seem to have been the original inhabitants of the island of Newfoundland. A numerous people they could never have been. Relentless warfare was waged upon them, on the one side by the Micmacs, an intrusive Algonkin people from the mainland of America, and on the other side by the intrusive British and French hunters and fishers. The result was that they were utterly destroyed, unless (which seems improbable) a few of them succeeded in escaping across the Strait of Belle Isle to Labrador, and there merged in the Alontagnais or Nascapi. The last-known survivor (like that of the Tasmanians at the other end of the world, a woman) died in captivity in 1829. Previous to her death the conscience of the colony had been aroused to the iniquity of the endless massacres, and in some measure to the interest attaching to this friendless and on the whole inoffensive folk. A Beothuck Institution had been estab- lished for their protection. Expeditions had been sent in search of the survivors ; but in vain. No trace of them could be recovered. A few graves have been found from time to time; but beyond their contents hardly any material object remains to tell us what manner of people they were.

The earliest expedition, it is true, met with some of them in 1 810. It was under the command of Captain David Buchan, R.N. At first it promised success ; but, owing to a misunderstand- ing and some mismanagement, it failed. From the leader's