The vanquished, however, generally challenge their adversaries to renew the game the next day, which is seldom refused.
The game then becomes more important, as the honour of the whole village is at stake, and it is carried on with redoubled impetuosity, every object which might impede them in their career is knocked down and trodden under foot without mercy, and before the game is decided, it is a common thing to see numbers sprawling on the ground with wounded legs and broken heads, yet this never creates any disputes or ill-will after the play is decided" (Alexander Henry, sen.).
It has been computed that in the middle of the eighteenth century the Amerindian population of the vast territories now known as the Dominion of Canada numbered about 300,000.

It now stands at an approximate 110,000.

The chief diminution has taken place in Newfoundland, Lower and Upper Canada, New Brunswick, Assiniboia, and British Columbia.

There may even have been an increase in the north and north-west.

The first great blow to the Amerindians of these regions was the smallpox epidemic of 1780.