Innu in “Chapter 5”

They dress in skins of wild animals, in imitation of all their neighbors, peoples of the north. They live on hardly anything but fish, which they catch in great quantities because the sea there abounds in it more than any other place in the universe, and especially in seals whose meat seems very good and delicate to them. They use this fish in several ways since from its fat they make a certain oil, which being melted is converted into a reddish liquid and they drink it with their meals, as we do with wine or other beverage, or as they themselves do with water, which they call Hame. They also prepare the skin of this fish, which is large, strong, and thick, as if it were that of some large land animal. They make coats of it and other clothing in their fashion,

Source: André Thevet, "[Innu in] Chapter 5" in André Thevet’s North America: A Sixteenth-Century View, an edition-translation with notes and introduction by Roger Schlesinger and Arthur P. Stabler, (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1986), 55.

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