THE ALGONQUINS, ed. Daniel Clement, Canadian Museum of Civilization
1996
This collection of eight papers begins with a brief introduction
exploring the meaning of the word Algonquin, noting the ten
communities the seven thousand Algonquins form, their reference to
themselves as Anishinabe ("people"), the relatively little research
as yet devoted to them and the hope that they will receive greater
attention.
Marc Cote's "Prehistory of Abitibe-Temiscamingue" (pp. 5-39)
mentions the age of early occupation, some five thousand years ago,
the sparsity of research to date, projectile points, the Meadowood
Phase and Eastern Laurel:
Laurel Culture emerged around 2200 B.P. on both sides of the
Canadian-American border that separates southwestern Ontario from
the states of Wisconsin and Michigan. This expression soon spread
northward, extending into Manitoba and reaching the western shore
of Lake Superior. Between 1750 and 1200 B.P., Laurel culture
attained its broadest extent, reaching Abitibi-Temicamingue.
After 1200 B.P., one notes the collapse of this phenomenon with
the result that Laurel pottery is found only in Western Ontario
and in the center of eastern Manitoba. These cultural expressions
last until about 750 B.P., in unison with Blackduck components
that gradually replace them completely. p. 21
The significance of the Ottawa River for trade and spreading of
ideas is noted. Scanty remains have been found from the Late
Woodlands, some showing Iroquoian influence. Debates flourish
concerning the friendly interaction of Algonquins and others and the
details of the arrival into Abitibi-Temiskamingue of pots seemingly
produced elsewhere.
Maurice Ratelle's "Location of the Algonquins From 1534 to 1650" as
translated by Michael J. Ustick seems to offer some difficulties.
The chapter begins with the fluctuation of habitations by wide
ranging peoples and the disappearance of settlements. Speculation
posits cooling climate, disease and war for the vanished Iroquoian
Sixteenth Century settlements in the St. Lawrence Valley. Closed
Minded ("There is no doubt" p. 43) and overly certain ("one must
conclude" p. 43) language provokes this reader to doubt Ratelle's
assertion that the Algonquin chiefs claiming hereditary right to
Montreal Island had to be descendants of Iroquoians.
There is speculation as to the presence of various peoples. The
author places the Algonquins "between Quebec and Trois Rivieres in
1603" and opines they were newcomers there. Among other things, he
records a gathering of Algonquins from the Ottawa Valley at Trois
Rivieres in 1645 and a forced temporary peace with Iroquoians. He
refers to the St. Maurice River asserting the Attikamegues are not
the modern Attikameks. There were Algonquins, he writes, visiting
Richelieu "to trade with Europeans or conduct guerilla warfare
against the Iroquois." p. 51
He mentions the Ottawa, tributaries of the Ottawa, including the
Rideau and Gatineau and the Island Algonquins, the Kichesipirini.
On the Ottawa River route, Morrison's Island was a summer
meeting-place for the Kichesipirini. This band, one of whose
chiefs bore the hereditary name of Tessouat, settled on
Morrison's Island and the vicinity (including Allumette Island)
as they came to require farmland, and gathered there in the
summer to grow corn and squash, as well as peas, recently
obtained from the French. Their hunting grounds covered the
region north of Allumette Island and certainly the downriver
watersheds of the Gatineau and Coulonge as well; their northern
limits are not clear. These were the richest and most powerful
Algonquins in this early part of the 17th Century. p. 56
Other Algonquins are discussed at the Madawaska, Muskrat Lake, the
Mattawa and in Southeastern Ontario. He notes that Algonquins hunted
according to watersheds. There is consideration of population
estimates, including 1,000 and 2,400 and 5,000, the latter felt too
high. His conclusion states that the Algonquin River was the
original name of the Ottawa River.
Jacques Frenette's "Kitigan Zihi Anishinabeg" (pp. 69-92) looks at
the River Desert Algonquins from 1850-1950. It mentions Speck's work
in the 20s, provides the etymologies Maniwaki "Land of Mary" Kitigan
Zibi Anishinabeg "Garden River People" desert (Eurocanadian for)
"cleared for farming," outlines the efforts of the Algonquins from
1783 onward to call British attention to acknowledged, though
increasingly ignored, land claim, the efforts on their behalf by
Bytown's Bishop Guigues, leading finally to the creation of the
Maniwaki reserve of 45,750 acres.
There is consideration of fluctuating band hunting territory
impacted by colonization and lumbering. Each family had ancestral
hunting lands.
Essentially, as documented by Davidson (1926:82-88) for the
Algonquins of Grand-Lac-Victoria, the size of the family hunting
territories was connected with the abundance of game. The limits
of these hunting territories corresponded with specific
geographical features (rivers, lakes and mountains). They were
well known and respected by the other Algonquin hunters, but
could be crossed in case of need. It was thus possible to hunt
moose on another family's territory if one's survival was at
stake, although trapping fur-bearing game was prohibited. p. 79
Normally balanced with nature, Algonquins hunted excessively when
confronted with Eurocanadians savaging the hunting grounds.
Beginning in 1899 band hunting territories had their fishing and
hunting rights assigned by the government to Eurocanadians. There is
a look at band economic activity as traditional trapping declined
and people became lumberjacks, guides, forest wardens, and took
various work (such as on pipelines and mink farms) in the United
States. There is the fact that only one Algonquin band has signed a
treaty giving up its land, the Pikogan band in 1906.
Pauline Joly de Lotbiniere's "Of Wampum and Little People" (pp. 93
to 121) begins with the wampum reading given by William Commanda at
the First Ministers' Conference in Ottawa in 1987. Two years later
the author sought out the Wampum Keeper in Maniwaki, where he spoke
of his ancestor Peter Tenesco and the Little People. There is
reference to the nature of oral history and then the account is
provided of the movement of the Algonquins, including their abiding
at the confluence of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence, William Commanda's
great grandfather's (Paganowatik's) possession of the wampum belts,
the earlier history of the wampum belts, including in efforts from
1781 to gain British recognition of Algonquin title to land.
Three belts were presented at the 1987 Conference on Aboriginal
Constitutional Matters. Solomon Matchewan, an elder and
traditional chief from the Algonquin community of Barriere Lake,
read the first belt-the Agreement Wampum-in Algonquin. His
reading was interpreted in English by a younger member of the
Barriere Lake community. This was followed by Commanda's
readings of the Seven Fire Wampum Belt and of the Jay Treaty
Belt. p. 100
Suggested meanings take the Agreement Wampum as referring to the
Algonquins, Iroquois and Nipissings at Lake of Two Mountains, the
Seven Fire Wampum to Algonquin participation in the Seven Nations
Confederacy and the Jay Treaty Belt to friendship from either the
Iroquois or Wabanaki. William Commanda, with shamanic assistance,
understood the Jay Treaty Belt as European acceptance of native
special status. Barriere Lake reading of the Agreement Wampum sees
it as such among French, English and Natives.
Mentioned are deterioration of hunting lands and the move to
Maniwaki (Land of Mary) in 1853, lumbering, pulp and paper at
Maniwaki, the late 1980s band population of 1,617 members, a third
residing off reserve, and Peter Tenesco's encounter with the Little
People. Suggested is that association by Tenesco with the Indian
agent and Tenesco's acceptance of the Indian Act displeased the
Little People, one of whom appeared to him only to be undeservedly
shot by Tenesco. The Little People:
are said to resemble the Algonquins in that they speak an
Algonquian language, have a similar way of life, as well as
similar customs and beliefs. They are said to reward those who
defend tradition and the well-being of the community,
particularly with regard to political and social issues affecting
the future. This is, of course, very suggestive of the manner in
which we might interpret the significance of Peter Tenesco's
encounter with the Little People. p. 111
Varying Native and Eurocanadian concepts of agreements are mentioned
the wampum belt as Native traditional recollection, Tenesco's
violation of tradition by taking the belts without being named and
by his acceptance of the Indian Act, hence the arousing of the
traditional spirits of the land and their causing the wampum belts
to be removed from him.
The passing of the belts to Barriere Lake, their use in the border
crossing struggle of the 1920s, their passing to Tuscarora, the 1969
return of the belts to Maniwaki with Algonquins joining the Six
Nations, William Commanda's nomination by dying Keeper and Barriere
traditional chief Harry Nattaway and Commanda's reception of the
belts in the presence of Natives from Canada and the United States
are told.
Daniel Clement's and Noeline Martin's "Algonquin Legends and
Customs" (pp. 123-154) begins with the impressive personality of
Juliette Gautier de la Verendrye, who collected legends in the
1940s. A professional musician, she sought French Canadian and
Native folksongs. Her archival material is outlined and some of her
informants are mentioned and identified. The paucity of other
ethnographic work and thus the significance of hers is stressed.
Some eighteen pages of legend and lore follow, including herbal and
other medicinal remedies.
Blue, black, and red were the most difficult dyes or colors to
obtain among the Indians. They were kept most preciously, and
were used only on special occasions such as ceremonial feasts.
The Indians would paint their faces and their bodies, using these
colored dyes for their secret markings. The women were entrusted
with this form of decoration, working at times an entire day on
one single body. Red and yellow ochres were also used.
The dyes were kept, some of them in small birch bark
envelope-shaped containers; others were kept in powdered form in
small buckskin pouches. The paint brushes were made of moose or
deer hair, and fastened to a small stick. Small twigs were also
used to apply the paint.
A slight coat of grease was first applied to the skin. Few
mordants were used as a fixative for the skin, grindstone being
the favorite mordant used among the Indians, or certain
astringent barks, infused. Many vegetable dyes, or mineral, have
their own mordants. Wood ashes were often used.
The women always went in search of dye plants, never the men.
p. 141
Sue N. Roark-Calnek's "A Wedding in the Bush" (pp. 155-192)
considers the August 20, 1988 wedding of Joseph Jr. Wawatie and
Marie Angele Papatie. It places this in the context of the
historical background of the Barriere Lake people and of their
continuing connection to the land.
As is general throughout the Canadian North (Honigmann 1983;
Brody 1981), the bush remains the locus of sacred knowledge
and power, and a retreat for spiritual renewal. It is also
identified with a ideal of autonomy and voluntary cooperation
in human affairs that, in Algonquin thinking, contrasts
sharply with the dependency and coercion they perceive to be
impinging upon them from the outside. p. 159
There is gender complementarity, learning of adult skills from the
age of seven, arranged marriages, acceptable (not closely related)
marriage partners and learning from older relatives.
Algonquin couples could expect to spend much of their married
life with senior relatives, at first as juniors residing and
working at least intermittently with seniors (usually parents
or parents-in-law), and later as caregivers for elderly
parents or grandparents. p. 166
Difficulties and outside influences are mentioned, then the location
of the wedding inspiring the paper, Kokomville or Grammy's Town, the
nine cabins of Lena Nottaway and her descendants, who sought the
occasion of this wedding to enhance awareness of traditional ways.
traditionally, the couple at the summer rendezvous went to an island
with a mature man and woman, each to advise the partner of his or
her gender. The groom had an axe and was to demonstrate capacity to
care for his bride. In the morning they rejoined the band, where the
chief and other tribal members ensured that any advice ungiven by
the advisers was now provided. There followed a celebratory feast
and the presenting of practical gifts to the couple. Time and
outside influences altered much of this.
The wedding inspiring this paper was well announced and some three
hundred people attended. Tents joined the cabins at Grammy's Town,
and a lodge covered with birchbark on which the groom's brother
painted traditional symbols. A dancing platform was also built.
Traditional clothing was made.
The ritual began with the groom going to fetch the bride and
returning with her in his canoe. They went to the lodge and thence
to the cabins, to drumming they, now in formal traditional attire,
proceeded from the cabins to the lodge where a Catholic priest
speaking Algonquin presided. There was an exchange of vows,
exhortations by advisers, including to the assembled guests that
they return to traditional ways, a great feast and the unwrapping of
gifts.
Partying there was with fiddle, accordion, guitar, square dancing,
step dancing, canoe races, etc. Concluding analysis there is on the
humour of incongruities, on the normal advance of the young from
dependency to mature self-sufficiency, and the efforts of
traditionalists to seek in the forest ancestral self-reliance and
spirituality.
Roger Spielmann's "Makwa Nibawaanaa" (pp. 193-210) is a largely
linguistic consideration of the telling of bear dreams.
Algonquin expository discourse is characterized by a
generic-specific (deductive) structure at the beginning of the
discourse, a related specific-generic (inductive) structure at
the end of the discourse, an appeal to personal experience and/or
the defusing of contrary opinions with an appeal to authority
within the discourse itself, and the inclusion of a final
challenge or related piece of advice along with the appeal to
authority. p. 193
There is the natural awareness of dreams, visions, etc. and the
attention paid to such communications. There is usual storytelling.
Three pages of an account in Algonquin, with English translation,
occur. This account contains an old woman's correction of a man who
was happy he dreamt of a bear. The woman says dreaming of finding
something or dreaming of something from long ago is happy and
positive, but, since bears hibernate and go without eating for a
long time, dreaming of a bear is a warning of loss. This is
examined linguistically. It is contrasted with understandings of
Odawa elders, who related that the fox, rather than the bear, is the
normal warner.
Christiane Montpetit considers "The Aboriginal Peoples of Algonquin
Origin in Val d'Or" (pp. 211-233). She mentions the contrasting
adaptation to urbanization by natives from the reserves and Metis
from towns.. She cautions that people on the reserves generally have
urban experience and that reserves themselves are experiencing some
urbanization. Also:
The urban aboriginal population is socio-economically diverse,
and can be distinguished according to cultural history, place of
origin, type of occupation and political orientation... Nor does
the urban environment automatically lead to the disappearance of
all so-called "traditional" modes: ancestral medicine (Waldram
1990) and spiritual and ceremonial practices (Einhorn 1973, Keutz
(1973) still persist. p. 213
There's a survey of the setting up of the reserves, the poor living
conditions on the reserves, the relatively low migration from the
reserves and the quick return to the reserves by those losing their
jobs in the city. Metis villages produce individuals more competent
in the dominant language, more capable of finding employment and
fitting in to mainstream society, but also skilled in traditional
activities and circles of acquaintances. They moved in great numbers
from Belleterre when the mine closed.
There's a look at Val d'Or's native population, settled and
transient, at Val d'Or's native services effectively handling needs.
There are the Wawate residences, though with waiting lists and there
are employment problems, especially with a general economic downturn
in the area. There's consideration of distances between Metis and
traditionalist Indians, who also may view the remoteness of
untraditionalist Indians.
There is a concluding statement of the Metis ease of fitting into
town and the Algonquin tie to the reserve and a quote from an
Algonquin feeling the lack of cultural and spiritual leaders both in
Val d'Or and on the reserves.
Daniel Clement and Jacques Frenette offer a thematic bibliography
(pp. 235-257) listing native bibliographies, general works,
prehistory, history, linguistics, toponymy, material culture,
organizational, religion (three articles, one ten pages long, one
eight pages long and one seven pages long), oral tradition,
ethnobotony, indigenous rights, current living conditions and audio
visual. Each paper in the book also has its own bibliography.
This volume introduces the topic and the opportunity for more
complete work.
Michael McKenny April 3-5, 2003 C.E.
Solarguard Amerindian
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