Micmac Quotations

"The hunting by the Indians in old times was easy for them. They killed animals only in proportion as they had need of them. When they were tired of eating one sort, they killed some of another. If they did not wish longer to eat meat, they caught some fish. They never made an accumulation of skins of Moose, Beaver, Otter, or others, but only so far as they needed them for personal use. They left the remainder where the animals had been killed, not taking the trouble to bring them to their camps. . . ." (1672) Nicholas Denys, Description Geographical and Historical of the Coasts of North America, With the Natural History of the Country, trans. and ed. William Ganong (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1910, originally published, 1672), p. 399.

"The hunting of the Beaver is as easy in summer as it is laborious in winter, although it is equally pleasing and entertaining in both of these two seasons, because of the pleasure it is to see this animal's natural industry, which transcends the imagination of those who have never seen the surprising evidences thereof. Consequently the Indians say that the Beavers have sense, and form a separate nation; and they say they would cease to make war upon these animals if these would speak, howsoever little, in order that they might learn whether the Beavers are among their friends or their enemies." (1691) Father Chrestien Le Clercq, New Relation of Gaspesia With the Customs and Religion of the Gaspesian Indians, trans. And ed. William F. Ganong (Toronto: The Champlian Society, 1910), p. 276.

"The axes, the kettles, the knives, and everything that is [now] supplied them, is much more convenient and portable than those which they had in former times. . . . One can say that in those times the immovable kettles were the chief regulators of their lives, since they were able to live only in places where these were." (1672) Nicholas Denys, Description Geographical and Historical of the Coasts of North America, With the Natural History of the Country, trans. and ed. William Ganong (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1910, originally published, 1672), p. 400.

"European contact should thus be viewed as a trigger factor, that is, something which was not present in the Micmac ecosystem before and which initiated a concatenation of reactions leading to the replacement of the aboriginal ecosystem by another. European disease, Christianity, and the fur trade with its accompanying technology--the three often intermeshed--were responsible for the corruption of the Indian-land relationship. . . . Calvin Martin, "The European Impact on the Culture of a Northeastern Algonquin Tribe: An Ecological Interpretation," William and Mary Quarterly, 31 (January 1974), p. 26.

"[N]o one doubts that native people who spend their lives hunting, fishing, and trapping possess the ability to understand animal behavior and population dynamics. No one disputes that senior hunters have gained a detailed and sophisticated understanding (albeit cultural) of their surrounding and the animals they have pursued during their lives. When beaver hunters read population health and breeding success in minute signs like incisor marks on trees and uterine placental scars, their knowledge parallels if not exceeds that possessed by many wildlife biologists. Moreover, an ideology permeated by the hope of reciprocity deeply embedded in native social and natural relations also parallels the ideological predispositions of many Western ecologists and wildlife biologists. Although neither community is single-minded in outlook or behavior, each can usefully complement the other." Shepard Krech, III, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999), p. 209.