INDIANS AND ESKIMOS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 258, 1 November 1932, Page 11

INDIANS AND ESKIMOS

CENSUS IN CANADA. GOVERNMENT’S PATERNAL CARE. VANCOUVER, Sept. 28. The Indians of Canada number 122,000, according to the 1931 census, having increased by 14,000, or 13 per cent., during the decade. About 54,000 are Roman Catholics, 43,000 Anglican, the remainder, apart from 5000 who aro still regarded as non-Christian, belonging to other denominations. Indians, although minors under the law, may be enfranchised and acquire the full status of citizenship. In the older provinces, where they have been longer in contact with civilisation, many are being enfranchised, but the Government of Canada, whose wards they are, exercises great discretion in this regard, as by becoming citizens, Indians lose the special protection attached to their wardship. There are 116 Indian agencies scattered over the Dominion, each caring for one to 30 bands, on adequate reserves, where they receive cash grants, per capita annuities, and are taught agriculture, stock raising, hunting and trapping. Their children are educated in special schools. The capital of the Indian Trust Fund is £2,800,000. Parliament votes annually about £1,000,000 for administration, and statutory annuities amounting to £50,000 a year. Indian schools number 352, including 80 residential schools with an aggregate enrolment of 16,415 pupils. A sum of £540,000 is annually voted for Indian education.

The Indians continue to make remarkable economic progress. The land they cultivated increased from 173,000 acres in 1916 to 237,000 in 1931. Their livestock number 39,000 horses and 50,000 cattle. The total income of the Indians is £1,600,000, an increase of 26 per cent, in 15 years. Their income is made up as follows:—Farm products, £340,000; beef, £76,000; wages earned, £460,000; land rentals, £17,500; fishing, £192,000; hunting and trapping, £220,000; timber and annuities, £160,000; other industries, £130,000.

Unlike the Indians, who are scattered throughout the Dominion, the Eskimos are limited to the North-west territories, chiefly the northern fringe of the mainland and Arctic archipelago. Tho Eskimo is a nomad, but lives for the most part along the Arctic littoral, not wandering far inland, since he subsists largely on marine mammals and fish. They number 7103. at the latest estimate, located as follows:—Baffin Island, 1513; Hudson Bay, 3202; Central Arctic, 438; Western Arctic, 1650; Yukon Territory, 300. The continued happy condition of the race commemorates the tireless interest in their welfare of the North-west Mon nt cd Police.