The Stadacona Indians seem to have lived on terms of
something like community of goods. Their stock of
food--including great quantities of pumpkins, peas, and
corn--was more or less in common. But, beyond this and
their lodges, their earthly possessions were few. They
dressed somewhat scantily in skins, and even in the depth
of winter were so little protected from the cold as to
excite the wonder of their observers. Women whose husbands
died never remarried, but went about with their faces
smeared thick with mingled grease and soot.

One peculiar custom of the natives especially attracted
the attention of their visitors, and for the oddity of
the thing may best be recorded in Cartier's manner. It
is an early account of the use of tobacco. 'There groweth
also,' he wrote, 'a certain kind of herb, whereof in
summer they make a great provision for all the year,
making great account of it, and only men use it, and
first they cause it to be dried in the sun, then wear it
about their necks, wrapped in a little beast's skin made
like a little bag, with a hollow piece of wood or stone
like a pipe. Then when they please they make powder of
it, and then put it in one of the ends of the said cornet
or pipe, and laying a coal of fire upon it, at the other
end suck so long that they fill their bodies full of
smoke till that it cometh out of their mouth and nostrils,
even as out of the funnel of a chimney. They say that it
doth keep them warm and in health: they never go without
some of it about them. We ourselves have tried the same
smoke, and, having put it in our mouths, it seemed almost