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EAP1 Ecological Responsibility

Vocabulary

integrated       ecology      apprenticeship            topography            metaphysical   

resonant      archetypal   interdependence      density         profound

For Native people, knowledge of animals was important to all aspects of their lives. Learning about animals was a lifelong task integrated in every aspect of tribal life. Practical knowledge included the characteristics of animal behavior, anatomy, feeding patterns, breeding, and migration. Techniques of hunting and fishing ranged from simple to complex and required long periods of teaching and learning, but these skills were always learned in the context of detailed understanding of the natural ecology of tribal homelands.

Native hunting combined great creativity and flexibility with complex rules of conduct and acts of spiritual significance. Through long apprenticeship and experience the hunter came to know his prey, where and when to hunt, and the topography and weather conditions most appropriate for hunting. He also knew the myths, songs, rituals, and history that were woven into the context. "In Native American myth, animals were regarded as holy because they have powerful souls. And though the souls of some species, such as bears, whales and elk, may be greater, more important or more dangerous to humans than those of, say, squirrels and lemmings, all animals share an honourable status in the spiritual universe" (Lowenstein and Vitebsky 1999:69).

The first hunters developed such an intimate relationship with the animals they hunted that they truly became resonant with the very spirit and essence of the life of the animals. ... They created shrines for those animals upon which they depended for their well-being, and sculpted figures of entities that they believed allowed the game to exist. These figures were the game mothers, who in the archetypal fashion, represented Earth mothers, those first mothers, the essence of the Earth upon whom human, and all life, depended.

In an attempt to develop and maintain a balance and harmony with the relationships they felt essential among themselves, the animals they hunted, and the environment in which they lived, these ancient hunters created a role for a person who we call a "shaman" the first medicine person, first teacher, first artist, first doctor, first priest, first psychologist. Indeed, it was these archetypal figures who laid down the frameworks for establishing and maintaining a direct relationship between human beings and the animals and plants that inhabited their environments.

Those first tribes learned to build shelters from available materials, and to use, through trial and error, what grew near them for the betterment of their lives. All was undertaken with the realization that everything in nature was interrelated and that humans were indeed a part of the Earth and the Earth a part of them. In the U.S. Southwest, shelters were made from mud, stone, and wood, and clothing was made from the animals they hunted. They developed strains of corn and other foods, including squash, pumpkins, and beans, which became a dependable source of life for them and their families. They expressed themselves with natural materials around them, making baskets, pottery, and weavings decorated with plant substances and paints. They danced and sang in ceremony. Tribal arts continue today to powerfully express a people’s interdependence on their natural community and understanding of their responsibility to other life and the Earth.

As time went by people lived in communities of increasingly greater density. They built towns and cities and evolved more complex societies, but they did not forget that everything came from nature and that nature was indeed the field of their being. Rituals also became more complex, as did conceptual frameworks and applications of appropriate technologies. The metaphysical concept that guided the development of these communities focused on the idea of "natural orientation." Natural orientation began with a symbolic center and radiated out of that center to include the entire cosmos, all plants and animals, the mountains, rivers, streams, lakes, and all of those natural entities comprising the reality of the community. The concept of orientation was interpreted and expressed in numerous art forms, tools, jewelry, and architecture.

During the ten-thousand-year tradition of hunting among Indigenous tribes in Americas, songs, ceremonies, rituals, and art forms evolved that ensured the success of the hunter and the very survival of the communities and families they represented. Rituals cultivated a spiritual quality in the act of hunting. Such rituals were founded upon an intimate understanding of the behavior of the animals hunted, a respect for their life needs and for the ways those animals should be properly used and treated. These understandings formed the basis for an ecological ethic of such a depth and intimacy that it continues to have a profound impact on contemporary Indigenous people.

(Cajete, Gregory, 2000, pp. 154-157. Reprinted with permission from Clear Light Publishers.)

EAP2 Environmental Reciprocity

In 1904, Kagige Pinasi (John Pinesi)-, an Ojibwa (Anishinabe)-French man living at Fort William on the north shore of Lake Superior, told the anthropologist William Jones a story about a young woman who married a beaver. With blackened face she went to fast for a long time during a vision quest. She saw a person in human form who spoke to her. He asked her to come live with him. She did and eventually agreed to marry him. She was well provided with food and clothing and soon gave birth to four children. ¹

She soon noticed something very odd that led her to realize for the first time that she had married a beaver. From time to time the woman’s husband or children would leave with a human being who appeared outside their house. "And back home would they always return again. All sorts of things would they fetch - kettles and bowls, knives, tobacco, and all the things that are used when a beaver is eaten; such was what they brought. Continually they were adding to their great wealth." They would go to where the person lived and the person would kill the beavers. Yet the beavers were never really killed. They would come back home again with the clothes and tobacco that people gave them. The beavers were very fond of the people and would visit them often. The woman herself was forbidden to go by her husband, but this is what she heard.

Eventually the woman’s husband died and she returned to live with human beings. She lived a long time after that and often told the story of what happened while she lived with the beavers. She always told people that they should never speak ill of a beaver or they would never be able to kill any: "If any one regards a beaver with too much contempt, speaking ill of it, one simply [will] not [be able to] kill it. Just the same as the feelings of one who is disliked, so is the feeling of the beaver. And he who never speaks ill of a beaver is very much loved by it; in the same way as people often love one another, so is one held in the mind of the beaver, particularly lucky then is one at killing beavers."

Referring to stories like this one, the philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote that such accounts are a succinct record of the beliefs of the societies in which they are told. "What is transmitted through these narratives," Lyotard wrote, "is the set of pragmatic rules that constitutes the social bond." He noted that such stories "recount what could be called positive or negative apprenticeships." They tell of the success or failure of a hero, whose adventures define a society’s "criteria of competence" and delineate a range of possible actions for members of the society.²

A primary purpose of such accounts is educational. Ojibwa elders told stories like this, usually in winter, to teach young people about the world while entertaining them. ³ As such, these narratives are also a useful way for outsiders to learn about the people’s world view and understand their view of history.⁴ Kagige Pinasi may have had a variety of reasons for wishing to instruct the anthropologist William Jones by telling him this story. Jones’ biographer, Henry M. Rideout, spoke of the informant as "an old chief" and an experienced trapper who made Jones examples of animal traps. He told Jones a number of odd experiences he had had while hunting and trapping with his sons. He also recounted, for Jones’ transcription, more than fifty stories, which Jones praised for their artistry. Jones wrote that the man developed a fondness for him - the anthropologist was of Fox and British-American ancestry- and tried to convince him to "come and live here, take to myself a wife, and be one of the people." Telling Jones this story of a kind of intermarriage may have been a form of subtle encouragement. ⁵

Beyond Kagige Pinasi’s own personal motives, this story is, like all Ojibwa stories, interesting on many levels. It intructs young people, especially girls, on the importance of the vision quest, the means through which an Ojibwa person obtained a relationship with powerful beings who would be helpful to her and could chart a unique course for her life. Further, it is a basic description of and commentary on the co-operative arrangements that many Ojibwa people believed existed between different kinds of beings in the world. Ojibwa people who hunted, fished, or gathered plants had to be aware of their reciprocal obligations with the natural world and give back something to the animals, fish, or plants from which they harvested. In taking small plants in the woods, or bark from the trees, people often left a gift of tobacco. After a bear was killed, they had an elaborate ceremony of thanks and gave presents to the bear. The beaver story shows that reciprocity was necessary to keep the system operating. Without gifts and respect, animals would not be so helpful to humans. They would hold themselves back and not allow themselves to be used by people. Without gifts and respect, the system would cease to function.⁶

Ojibwa people also applied the principles of reciprocity to their dealings with people, including non-Indians. In their earliest interactions with the French and the British, the Ojibwa made use of the same gifts, ceremonies, and words that they used in dealing with animals, plants, or other beings. ⁷

The logic of approaching Europeans in this way was solid; interaction with Europeans was important because of the valuable technology they brought with them. Reciprocity was necessary to keep the system operating. Without gifts and respect, Europeans would not be so helpful to Indian people. They would withhold their technology from Indian people. Without gifts and respect, the system would cease to function.

Dealing with animals differed, of course, from dealing with Europeans. The Ojibwa quickly worked out a variety of strategies that were specific to the newcomers. For example, they gave different things. The story of the woman who married the beaver describes a reverse fur trade. In the European fur trade, Indian people gave furs in return for tools, kettles, and tobacco, but this story tells of a relationship in which people gave tools, kettles, and tobacco to beavers in return for the animals’ furs.

There is yet another striking feature of the story: it delineates an intermediary role for women in the interaction between people and animals, suggesting the role for women in the interaction between the Ojibwa and Europeans. This story is not an origin tale. ⁸ It does not describe the beginnings of the reciprocal arrangement between people and animals. For the people in the story, the relationship was a well established, functioning system. Yet the story explains the system and how it works through the experiences of a woman. If the story was intended to teach, in Lyotard’s words, "positive or negative apprenticeships" there was clearly a special message in it for young women about what was possible. Women, it would appear, in this case through a marriage relationship. This power had implications for the workings of the fur trade.

(White, Bruce M., 2000, pp. 178-181. Reprinted with permission from University of Saskatchewan Extension Press.)

EAP3 The Ritual of the Hunt

The life-sustaining activities associated with the hunt were naturally the source of considerable ceremony and ritual in hunting societies. Medicine People with the capacity to "see" and locate game were revered by community members. Understandably, expert hunters gained considerable social respect for their abilities to provide for all communal members. Meditation, prayer and preparation of the hunter’s apparel initiated the meticulous hunting ritual. Even today, archaeologists marvel at the craftsmanship and loving artistry of these hunter’s arrowheads and wonderfully constructed spear points. The tracking of animals took place in solemn grace and in a heightened state of hunting alertness. Silence, itself a spirit of the forest, became part of the hunter’s enhanced state of awareness of nature’s wonderment. Whether in the ritual of the hunt or quiet of the warrior’s spirit, the power of Inkonze is demonstrated by the following Zen-like teaching from an Dene Apache Elder:

In this state, the slightest movement - broken twigs or distant rustling of leaves - betrayed the presence of game. The hunter’s keen senses and calm mind became his allies while his impatience or carelessness invited failure. The hunter and prey became interlocked in an exquisite chess game across a checked landscape of lakes and darkened forests. The prey’s ingenuity was revealed to the hunter, which solidified a lasting bond of respect.

In the world of Inkonze, the greatest peril of life was the recognition that the hunt, in its essence, was a hunt for souls. Therefore, great respect was accorded to the animal spirits who offered themselves in sacrifice to the hunter. A hunter’s skills were exemplified by his quiet determination and ability to bring about a quick and painless death. The moment of the kill was marked by the experience of unity between the hunter, his prey, and the surrounding natural universe. A respectful offering and prayer of thanks followed a successful hunt, and great care was taken not to offend the animal’s spirit. The respect for animals who gave themselves to the people continued through the food preparation process. Today, Aboriginal Elders lament the approach of civilization which threatens their people’s ancient connection to their hunting traditions:

All animals that lived with the Dene in their Northern climates had specific symbolic significance which was communicated within The People’s Traditions:

Wolves and the Supernatural

Caribou and the Gift of Life

The plentiful caribou gave themselves to the hunter in great numbers and were considered sacred in Chipewayan tradition. However, the spirit of the caribou demanded respect, and to hit the caribou with sticks, chase them, or otherwise mistreat them would bring to an end the great autumn and summer migrations which appeared on the horizon like a magical gift from the Creator. ...

(Coutu, Phillip R. and Lorraine Hoffman-Mercredi, 1999, Reprinted with permission from Thunderwoman Ethnographics.)

EAP4 Diverse Economies

Vocabulary

archaeological   equestrian    sophisticated  enticing       foresight

adept                  illusion         pasturage     cultivation      aggregations

lithics                  advent         tentative      biased            ideological   

exploited            enlightened   benevolent    dialects         impelled      

variability          adaptations   fluctuated      rapport         rendezvous

Archaeological research, oral histories, and documentation indicate that Assiniboine, Cree, Blackfoot (which include the Blood, Siksika, and Peigan), Gros Ventures, Kutenai, Shoshoni, Crow, and possibly the Tsuu T’ina (Sarcee) were living on the northernmost stretches of the Great Plains that became Western Canada around A.D. 1500. Not all of these people remained residents of the Canadian portion of the Great Plains after Europeans arrived. The Shoshoni and Crow retreated south by the late eighteenth century, and all of the Kutenai lived on the west side of the Rockies by the early nineteenth century.

All of these Plains people shared to some extent a pattern of culture and economy. They developed a lifestyle that was well suited to the predominantly flat, treeless landscape, and to the climate of extremes and uncertainties. The key to survival in this environment was mobility and flexibility. Plains people exploited the seasonal diversity of their environment by moving their settlements from habitat to habitat, to find the greatest natural food supply. All aspects of life hinged on this mobility; their tipis, for example, were easily taken apart and moved, and their other property was kept to a strict minimum so that they could be unencumbered.

The buffalo was the foundation of the Plains economy, providing people with not only a crucial source of protein and vitamins, but many other necessities, including shelter, clothing, bedding, containers, tools, and fuel. To rely on one staple resource alone, however, was risky in the Plains environment, as there were periodic shortages of buffalo, and Plains people drew on a wide variety of other animals and plants. It was mainly the gathering and preserving work of women, based on their intimate understanding of the environment, that varied the subsistence base and contributed to ‘risk reduction.’

The most popular image of the ‘Plains Indian’ is that of a male warrior or hunter on horseback, but the phase of equestrian culture on the Great Plains was brief, and especially so for the people of the Northern Plains. Horses, introduced through the Spanish to the south, did not reach the people of what became Canada until the mid-eighteenth century and did not begin to transform Northern Plains culture until the early years of the 1800s. For millennia the people travelled on foot. A variety of sophisticated methods were used in hunting buffalo, including the buffalo jump (driving the herd off a cliff) and the buffalo pound (enticing a herd into a corral or surround). Each of these hunting methods took planning, foresight and preparation, knowledge of the buffalo and of the terrain, as well as flexibility, and sensitivity to the shifting conditions. Each involved complex strategies, weeks of work, and specialists adept at driving animals in the right direction, and at the right speed, as well as spiritual and ritual specialists. Drive lines might extend for several miles back from the pound or the jump. Both methods involved the use of illusion - in the case of the buffalo jump, the animals had to be prevented from perceiving the drop ahead, and in the case of the pound, they had to be fooled into thinking that they were surrounded by a solid wall. Some researchers have suggested that the use of enclosures and drive lines, Aboriginal people may be said to have practised a form of animal husbandry, or domestication. As well, they used fire to help create rich pasturage to increase the health of the buffalo herds.

Archaeological evidence confirms that the people of the Northern Plains practised some agriculture well before contact with Europeans. On the Great Plains of North America, agriculture was far more ancient an indigenous tradition than equestrian culture. Intensive cultivation of plants spread north into Minnesota and the Dakotas in the period approximately between A.D. 900 and 1000, and continued well into the nineteenth century. Along the Upper Missouri, the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara maintained a flourishing agricultural economy developed over seven centuries.

They grew corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, pumpkins, and tobacco. People of the Northern Plains such as the Plains Cree had extensive trade contacts with the agricultural village people of the Plains. Archaeological excavations near the present-day town of Lockport, north of Winnipeg, on the Red River, have unearthed evidence of agricultural activities, approximately 400 years before the arrival of the Selkirk settlers from Scotland, usually heralded as the West’s first farmers. About a dozen hoes made from bison scapula, deep storage pits, charred corn kernels, and ceramic vessels were found at the site, which was clearly carefully selected by these farmers for its light soil, and east-bank location to maximize exposure to the hot afternoon sun. The Blackfoot of the Northern Plains grew tobacco in the years before the product acquired from European traders replaced the home-grown variety. Each spring an elaborate tobacco-planting ceremony was conducted, and there were 230 songs associated with this ceremony. Tsuu T’ina elder Eagle Ribs described in 1904 how tobacco was planted, and how the ceremony linked to the sacred origin of the beaver bundle, a collection of symbolic objects that was the focus of central rituals.

Aboriginal life on the Plains followed a pattern of concentration and dispersal that to a great extent paralleled that of the buffalo, but people did not ‘follow’ the buffalo; rather, they specialized in seeking out good habitats. In midsummer, people from many social units, or bands - aggregations formed around a prominent extended family - gathered in large numbers on the open plains. These encampments were possible because of the plentiful food source nearby, and they were vital to the maintenance of a sense of community among the various Plains groups of Blackfoot, Cree, and Assiniboine. The annual meeting of diverse bands functioned in the same way as a trade fair, or town, except that the site could change from year to year. Visiting, trading, sports competitions, and marriages took place, and disputes were settled. Trade and military strategy was discussed by leaders. Elders knowledgeable in the history and cultural values of the people held training programs. This was also when the Sun Dance was held, the central ceremony of Plains people, during which the spirit powers were asked to bless the people. This ceremony played a vital role in sustaining and reinforcing the culture and society of the people.

These large encampments lasted only a few weeks, then people began to move in smaller groups towards their wintering territory, in the parkland, river valleys, foothills, or outliers. As winter progressed, congregations broke up into smaller and smaller groups, although efficient communication systems were kept up between the groups on issues such as the availability and location of buffalo. Camp movements were determined in part by the buffalo, but also by considerations such as the ripeness and location of saskatoon berries, the prairie turnip, and other fruits and tubers. Plains people were much more than buffalo hunters. They used plants for vegetable foods, but also for medicines, for ceremonies, in the production of dyes and perfumes, in the manufacture of weapons and toys, and for construction materials. It has been estimated that about 185 plant species were used by the Blackfoot. Women’s gathering work was vital; survival of the group depended upon the efforts of women as well as men. Women also were vital to the communal hunt - they butchered, and then dried the meat. Recent archaeological work has suggested that there has been a tendency to overemphasize the importance of the buffalo hunt, and consequently the male hunter, because it is the material culture of the buffalo hunt, the lithics, or projectile points, that remain preserved, while material culture associated with women’s work - their digging sticks, basketry, and leather works - do not last as long in the earth.

These Aboriginal societies are generally thought to have had egalitarian gender relations before the advent of European influence. When collective hunting methods dominated, women’s economic contribution was vital - they had access to resources, and power to distribute the products of their labour, and thus were not subordinate to men. With the advent of the horse, and the European fur/robe trade, the male segment of society may have benefited, with women’s influence suffering as a consequence. These are tentative conclusions however. The documentary evidence on women was overwhelmingly produced by European males, who had little appreciation of their roles and ranges of activities. They tended to be surprised at the amount of physical labour that Aboriginal women performed, and often concluded that they were little better than slaves or beasts of burden. At times, however, European observers commented on the amount of power and influence women appeared to exercise - over their husbands, for example. Yet we have to ask: did these observers fail to understand the lives and roles of women, were their views biased by the ideological boundaries of their own concept of proper roles for women (and men), or did their observations to some extent actually reflect the work and status of Aboriginal women? Were these men observing societies that had already been transformed by the impact of European contact? Promoting the idea that women were exploited in Aboriginal society made Europeans seem so much more enlightened and benevolent.

The people that lived in the boreal forest region of what became the three Prairie provinces at roughly the time of European contact likely included Cree, Ojibway (Anishnabe), Chipewayan, Slavey, and Beaver. Within each of these groups there are further subdivisions, dialectically and geographically. The Western Cree of the boreal forest, for example, are made up of the Swampy, Rocky, and Woods Cree. The Cree and Ojibway must share a common ancestry as both speak Algonquian languages, while the others spoke dialects of Athapaskan. As was the case for the Plains environment, the uniformity of the subarctic terrain and resources impelled similar, although not precisely the same, adaptations. It must be kept in mind, however, that there was local variability, and distinctive cultural and religious patterns as well as social traditions. Here, too, moving from one seasonal camp to another was a key to survival where resources were so dispersed, game populations fluctuated, and extreme climatic conditions were unpredictable. Human population levels in the boreal forest were always low, and most people lived in small, extended- family groups.

Large game, especially caribou and moose, provided the foundation for life. Big game was hunted with bows and arrows almost exclusively by males travelling in small parties. Fishing was a seasonal pursuit, using weirs, nets, hooks, or spears. Subarctic hunters widely shared certain spiritual beliefs. They believed that the success of a hunt was to a large degree dependent on the prey’s willingness to support the life of the hunter, and his dependants, and they sought rapport with the spirits of the animals. It was believed that there was an owner, or keeper, of all animals and plants, and that only through permission of the owners would an individual animal be killed or plant harvested. Women used traps and snares for smaller game, and the gathered berries, roots, bulbs, and young shoots. As on the Plains, the people of the boreal forest took steps to manage and maintain their environment and their game. Through the selective use of small and carefully located fires, they hastened new growth in the spring, which attracted game and fostered the growth of desired plants such as blueberries and raspberries.

People of the boreal forest were not able to congregate on the same scale as the Plains people in midsummer, or for as long. Yet some bands did meet together during the warmer days and weeks at fishing camps, or other rendezvous sites, before heading in the direction of autumn and winter seasonal camps. The rendezvous was characterized by days or weeks of intense social interaction, much of it focused upon trade, social events, and ceremonies. Central religious ceremonies were held at his time, such as the Midewiwin of the Ojibway, and the shaking-tent ceremony shared by many Algonquian groups. Archaeological work at ancient rendezvous sites on the southern edge of the boreal forest reveal that there was considerable interaction, including exchange of ideas and materials, between the occupants of the Plains and the forest people. The influence of Plains cultures, for example, is seen in the pottery of the forest people, and similarly Plains pottery reflects forest influences, including fabric, and net-impressed vessel exteriors. Archaeological sites in the aspen-parkland belt reflect a general mixing and melding of influences of both the Plains and the forest, and attest to the social and economic flexibility of pre-contact populations in responding to local ecological and social situations.

(Carter, Sarah, 1999, pp. 24-28, 29-30, 50-54. Reprinted with permission from the University of Toronto Press.)

EAP4 Crossword Diverse Economies

EAP4 Crossword Answer Key

EAP5 Cree Economies

Vocabulary

epochs      utilitarian      integrity      intrusion      obliterate

resilience   universal      commodity       appendages      entrepreneurial

In this period (1790 - 1870) the Cree people became a nation of the plains amid other tribal nations identifying their interests and employing the tools of trade, diplomacy and war to serve them. Their history is in fact distinguished by this national development, by epochs of defined economic interests and by utilitarian trade and military systems. Far from being the romantic and wild raiders of the plains, the Cree and other natives of the plains were engaged in a set of well-structured, inter-tribal relationships which were designed to ensure their security, to assist them in meeting the challenges of plains existence and to facilitate the acquisition of the good things of their world. Acquisition was a mainspring of their existence, and thus plains tribes were aggressive and fiercely competitive in inter-communal and inter-personal relations. Their history has a hard shell of war and sharp bargaining. But it also has a softer interior. To have was to share. Sharing, an economic necessity in the Woodland Cree environment was a well-rewarded virtue in the Plains Cree world of buffalo plenty. Within the circle of tents that marked a band at rest was a system of redistribution which blunted the material consequences of an individual’s failure in trade or the hunt, the inescapable consequence of war and old age.

By 1870 the Cree had been on the plains for nearly one hundred years; a hundred years before that they had their first contact with Europeans. If these two centuries disclose anything about the Cree, it is that they were able to maintain an independence and integrity in the face of influence by European and also Indian rivals. Certainly, after contact the Cree changed; they became musket-carrying trappers and traders, and they moved from the woodland to the plains. This change in environment caused them to abandon the canoe in favour of the horse, the bark-covered lodge for the leather tent, and the family beaver hunt in favour of the cooperative buffalo hunt. Yet these changes did not destroy the core of the Cree nation; the ability to make and execute decisions about their interests was not, and could not have been, destroyed by new European tools or by environment-induced changes in material culture.

These Cree, both in their woodland phase and in the plains existence, participated in self-interested economic and political alliances, some of which had begun prior to contact. These alliances established the military and trade patterns which in turn determined the inland flow of European goods. Initially, the Cree and their Assiniboine allies in the southeastern and northwestern plains occupied a powerful middleman position. The coming fur traders and the intrusion of European goods into native trade systems could not easily obliterate this pattern. The Mandan-Hidatsa trade empire admirably displayed the resilience of native value systems within which eagle feathers were valued as highly as guns were. There is little doubt that firearms secured great military victories for the armed over the unarmed. Nonetheless, as was demonstrated by the results of the Blackfoot-Cree alliance against the Snake, Flathead and Kootenay or by the Mandan-Hidatsa-Cree alliance against the Sioux, the new weapons were used in traditional patterns rather than creating new ones. When the distribution of firearms became universal, however, their effects were limited simply to determining the length of casualty lists. The new military power that the gun traditionally represents was used by the Cree to support their trade alliances rather than to score military victories for their own sake. Cree tribal war, which became a marked trait in their plains life and which had, always, an economic purpose, continued throughout their history.

The Plains Cree were living in a world where native people predominated. The traditional institutions of the Cree were not undermined by their relations with Europeans. Cree leaders displayed a well-developed ability to analyze their current economic and military problems and to mobilize their forces, whether they were military, economic or diplomatic, to solve these problems in a manner they hoped would be beneficial to their people. In this framework the European trader became an important, although not always determining, variable within plains politics. The horse wars most precisely demonstrate this, since the motive for war, the underlying purpose of military and trade patterns between 1810 and 1850, was a commodity not controlled, nor even highly valued, by the European trader. Likewise, Cree participation in the most sophisticated Indian trade system, the Mandan-Hidatsa empire, was not directed solely toward improving their position in the fur trade but toward acquiring horses. The Plains Cree lived for themselves, not as European-organized appendages of an alien trade system.

By 1870 the Plains Cree had experienced a succession of military and trade crises, the breakdown of the Blackfoot and Mandan-Hidatsa alliances being the most important. Each time, the Cree reorganized their system of alliances, as in their bargain with the Crow and with the Flathead-Kootenay forces, in an attempt to recapture lost military and trade advantages. They developed a solid diplomatic tradition, and in their long warfare with the Blackfoot, they also developed a fine military record. Their flexible band system and the status system, with its focus on generosity and valour, produced an inner strength which allowed for the absorption of the shocks of epidemics and defeats and guaranteed the much-needed martial and entrepreneurial spirit.

(Milloy, John S., 1988, pp. xiv, 119-120. Reprinted with permission from The University of Manitoba Press.)

EAP6 Horses

Vocabulary

crystallized      evolution      superficial      modifications

prototype      polygyny      polarized

The bison-hunting way of life on the Plains, which today is considered traditional, crystallized between 1600 and 1750, depending on locality; in southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba it seems to have developed during the first half of the eighteenth century. It was, of course, based on horses, which not only altered the hunt, transportation, and warfare, but also, and perhaps most importantly, trade routes. Interestingly, horses did not generally become a source of subsistence in themselves, as they had in Asia.² However, to view the changes that did occur as simply superficial, as some have done, is to misunderstand the process of cultural evolution. Technologies change faster that institutions, and institutions change faster that ideologies. In less than two centuries on the northwestern Plains, the horse in conjunction with the fur trade had heavily altered the principal institutions of Plains Amerindian society; given more time, more profound ideological modifications would probably have been effected as well.³

On the southern Plains, Indians owned horses by 1630 and may well have had some as early as 1600. Athapaskan-speaking Apache were raiding on horseback by mid-seventeenth century,⁶ indeed, they evolved Amerindian techniques for mounted warfare and also had become the prototype of the mounted buffalo hunter. The new character of the buffalo hunt influenced some parklands farming peoples, such as the Cheyenne and some branches of the Sioux, to abandon agriculture for the excitement of the chase. Horse stealing became a favourite activity and was an accepted way of acquiring animals; around 1800, some Blackfoot, raiding on the northern Plains, were reported to be riding horses with Spanish brands. Bison herds appear to have reached their great numbers not long before the arrival of Europeans.

With horses, running buffalo became universally favoured as a hunting technique, although surrounds also increased, as they were now more efficient. The earliest description we have of a surround is from Henry Lelsey in 1691:

Jumps began to fall into disuse between 1840 and 1850; the last known use was by the Blackfoot in 1873. ¹¹ Pounds, preferred for fall and winter, continued to be used until the end of the herds. Another effect of the horse was to eliminate women from direct participation in buffalo drives, turning their attention exclusively to the preparation of hides and meat. The robe trade placed a premium on their services, greatly encouraging polygyny. ¹²

Apart from its usefulness for hunting and transport, the horse both extended and altered trade routes. Consequently it became a symbol of wealth in its own right and, as always with growth of affluence, polarized economic status both between individuals and between tribes. For example, in 1833 a Peigan chief, Sackomaph, was reported to own between 4,000 and 5,000 horses, 150 of which were sacrificed upon his death. On a more modest scale, trader Alexander Henry the Younger (fl. 1791-1814) reported in 1809 the individual Siksika of Painted Feather’s band owned as many as fifty horses and that among the Peigan the number belonging to an individual could reach 300. ¹³ Prices apparently varied considerably. Henry at one point observed that a common pack horse could not be obtained from the Gros Ventres for less than a gun, a fathom of HBC stroud (a kind of cloth), and 200 balls of powder; among the Siksika, however, such a horse could be obtained for a "carrot" of tobacco, about three pounds. ¹⁴ Among tribes, the Assiniboine and the Plain Cree had fewer horses than the Blackfoot. That may have encouraged them to develop their skills as horse raiders; David Thompson described a spectacular raid in which a band of Assiniboines disguised as antelopes made off with fifty horses from Rocky Mountain House.¹⁵ Such raids were carried out against the enemy and thus were an act of war, not theft.¹⁶

While they were still allies, the Blackfoot had obtained their first European trade items through the Assiniboine and Cree network rather than directly from the Europeans. The Blackfoot never took to trading with Europeans as had the Cree and Assiniboine. Not only were their needs being served adequately through the Native networks, they would have faced opposition from the Cree and Assiniboine if they had tried to penetrate their hunting territory.... Both Cree and Assiniboine vigorously protected their trading positions. Besides, the demands of the fur trade conflicted with those of buffalo hunting. Late fall and early winter was the best season for trapping furs, as pelts were then in their prime; it was also the best time for killing bison and preparing winter provisions. From the social aspect, trapping was a family affair, whereas buffalo hunting involved the whole community. Of the Blackfoot confederates, the Peigan had the most beaver in their territory and consequently became the most active as trappers; the others, as well as the allies, became provisioners for the trade rather than trappers for furs. This independence of the Blackfoot and Gros Ventre spurred the Hudson’s Bay Company to establish the inland posts of Cumberland House (The Pas) in 1774 and Hudson House (west of Prince Albert) in 1779. By the time the Nor’Westers built Fort Augustus on the North Saskatchewan in 1795 and the Hudson’s Bay Company countered with Fort Edmonton that same year, Blackfoot territory was ringed with trading posts. ⁴¹ It was not until 1799, when Nor’Westers build the first Rocky Mountain House, that was established within the Blackfoot sphere of control.

(Dickason, Patricia Olive, 1992, pp. 192, 194, 196. Excerpts. Reprinted with permission from Oxford University Press Canada.)

EAP7 Aboriginal Fur Trade

If Aboriginal people were mentioned at all in older accounts of the fur trade, they were invariably described as having played minor and subordinate roles, and becoming quickly and hopelessly dependent upon European technology and supplies. Proving no longer able to provide for themselves, they would have starved without the Europeans’ assistance, for which they begged. In his 1958 History of the Hudson’s Bay Company, E.E. Rich noted ‘the marked tendency for Indians to become dependent on the traders, and the danger threatening the trader and the Indian alike if shipping failed and they became completely dependent on the resources of the country.’ It (sic) fact it was the English who were in danger of starvation without the fish, caribou, and geese supplied to them by Cree hunters. There is no evidence that Cree hunters were reduced to relying on the English - the HBC did not ship food to the bay. Rich’s assumptions appear to have been based on a low estimation of hunting and gathering societies widely shared in the non-Aboriginal community. Rich also stressed that Aboriginal people did not respond to the economic forces at work in the fur trade in the way that economists would have expected, as they did not appear to him to show an interest in profits.

This picture changed dramatically through studies published in the 1970s and 1980s by a new generation of historians, as well as geographers, anthropologists, and scholars from other disciplines. They shared the idea that the fur trade was much more than a business enterprise - it was a ‘socio-cultural complex’ that lasted 200 years, characterized by social interaction between European and Aboriginal peoples, producing an indigenous society. The Europeans had to learn about and adapt to Aboriginal cultures, languages, and lifeways. Long before the arrival of Europeans, Aboriginal people had traded furs and many other goods over geographically immense networks, and Europeans were obliged to adapt to these networks.

The exacting demands and high standards caused European traders to improve the quality of their trade goods. Europeans were forced to bargain within Aboriginal terms of reference, and were obliged to develop the concept of the ‘made beaver’ (MB) as Aboriginal businessmen wished to bargain over amounts, not official standards. (The ‘made beaver’ was equivalent to the value of a prime beaver skin, and the prices of all trade goods, other furs, and country produce were expressed in terms of MB.) The trading companies also had to learn to give gifts as a central part of the trading process. The economic behaviour of Aboriginal people was not sharply different from the profit-driven and market-oriented behaviour of Europeans.

The Cree and Assiniboine were ‘ecologically flexible,’ with an ability to adapt to different habitat zones, and to incorporate new ideas, methods, and technology, all of which allowed them to make rapid adjustments to the changing economic systems. Before the establishment of the HBC, both groups were drawn eastward as trappers in the French-Ottawa system of trade. After 1670, these allied groups quickly assumed the role of middlemen in the HBC trade. They pushed their trapping and trading area northwest with the assistance of European arms. There is an unresolved debate about whether the Cree, and in particular Plains Cree, were situated in the present-day Prairie provinces well before the European fur trade. According to Ray the Assiniboine had an original homeland along the Rainy River east of Lake of the Woods, while the Cree were a woodland people, living around and east of Lake Nipigon.

The story of the French and English battling for control of the trade is but one part of the picture. Various Aboriginal groups also competed with each other. In the early eighteenth century, a great variety of people visited York Factory, the leading centre of trade for the Western interior, but the various Cree and Assiniboine bands increasingly took over control of the inland trade of York Factory. They created a trading blockade, with a virtual monopoly on trade during most of the eighteenth century. They held the upper hand in this trade, and to a considerable extent dictated the terms of trade. The Cree and Assiniboine traded with interior groups, including the Blackfoot and Mandan, and, as they determined the kind and numbers of goods to be made available to them, they ‘largely regulated the rate of material culture change, and to a considerable extent they also influenced its direction.’ As the French traders moved further inland, a pattern evolved of the Assiniboine and Cree trading with both, taking a somewhat different array of goods from each.

In the late eighteenth century, the Cree and Assiniboine began to shift southward as a result of changing economic orientation. When the HBC started to establish inland posts, the middleman role of these groups was undermined, as Europeans could make contact directly with the trapping bands. When the fur trade rapidly spread far and wide in Western Canada in the period from 1763 to 1821, the fur companies encountered supply problems for their increasingly lengthy transportation routes. To ensure adequate provisions, trading houses were established in the parkland and Plains belts to receive and store pemmican, dried meat and grease.

The former Aboriginal middlemen began to serve as provisioners for trading companies, focusing their activities on the Plains resources, and on the buffalo in particular. By the mid-eighteenth century, horses were in use on the Plains and parklands. The Cree and Assiniboine shifted their primary focus from the exchange of furs to the bartering of dried meat. They frequently exerted their economic power and exploited the vulnerability of the Europeans at these posts. The provisioners often burned the prairies around the posts in late autumn to prevent the bison from approaching them during the winter.

By the end of the period of competition in 1821, in many sections of central and southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan the supply of fur-bearing animals had been depleted. Intensive hunting pressure was a main cause, but in the early nineteenth century disease also greatly reduced the number of beaver. Big-game populations of the eastern forest also dwindled. There was an increase in the consumption of alcohol and tobacco during the era of intense competition in the interior, as lavish gift-giving was undertaken to entice trade. These as well as other trade commodities were now much more accessible at all the new posts.

The Cree and Assiniboine who made the transition to a grassland economy and the buffalo hunt retained an independence from European technologies. They did not, for example, rely upon firearms for hunting buffalo. Guns often required repairs, and the flintlock was not well suited to the cold weather of the Western interior. In contrast, for the people of the forest, participation in the fur trade led to a growing dependence on the trading companies. The required a variety of metal goods, consumed more ammunition, and placed a higher value on cloth and blankets than the groups living in the parklands and grasslands.

(Carter, Sarah, 1999, pp. 50-54. Reprinted with permission from The University of Toronto Press.)

EAP8 Aboriginal Commerce

Vocabulary

intertribally      precursor      kaleidoscope      prestige      malevolent

phenomena      equilibrium      manifestations

The bison hunt provided the basis for cultural patterns.⁴⁶ ... Both drives and jumps were practiced, depending on the conformity of the land; the greatest number of jump sites have been found in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, whereas pounds were more commonly used on the Plains. ... where sites have been found at Oxbow and Long Creek in Saskatchewan. In Canada, most drive sites have been found in that province, as well as in Alberta.

These forms of hunting called for a high degree of co-operation and organization, not only within bands but also between them and sometimes intertribally. Impounding, or coralling, was the more complex method, and has been described by archeologist Thomas F. Kehoe as a form of food production rather than hunting - a precursor, if not an early form, of domestication.⁴⁷ One of the earliest of the jump sites was Head-Smashed-In in southern Alberta, more than

5,000 years old; it would continue to be used until the 1870s. This was an enormous site, so big that its use was an intertribal affair. Recent archeology has revealed thirty different mazeways along which the buffalo were driven and up to 20,000 cairns that guided the direction of the stampeding herds.⁴⁸ Whatever the type of communal hunting, strict regulation was involved; when several tribal nations congregated for such a hunt, regulations were enforced by organized camp police. Penalties could include the destruction of the offender’s dwelling and personal belongings. ⁴⁹ In contrast, when herds were small and scattered, individuals could hunt as they pleased. In general, campsites were located on lookouts; some of them found in Alberta include several hundred tipi rings, indicating use over a considerable length of time. It has been estimated that there may be more than a million such rings scattered throughout Alberta. ⁵⁰ Medicine wheels, important for hunting rites, ringed the bison’s northern summer range; some were in use for at least 5,000 years.⁵¹ At the time of European arrival on the east coast, the use of bison jumps and drives was, if anything, increasing.

It has been suggested that Head-Smashed-In was a trading centre, providing bison materials such as pemmican and hides in return for dried maize, artifacts, and possibly tobacco. ⁵²

Uneven distribution of resources ensured that all of these people traded; indeed, the rich kaleidoscope of Amerindian cultures could hardly have been possible without such an integrative institution. Alliances and good relations were important in these exchanges, rather than just economic considerations. As Jesuit Paul Le Jeune (1591-1664) would observe in the St. Lawrence Valley: "Besides having some kind of Laws maintained among themselves, there is also a certain order established as regards foreign nations."...

While the value of goods was certainly appreciated, and Amerindians had a good eye for quality, as European traders would later find out, prestige was more important than the accumulation of wealth as such. Acquiring prestige called for generosity, among other virtues. Goods were accumulated to be given away on ceremonial occasions, such as the pot-latch on the west coast; trade was a principal means of acquiring the needed goods. Gift exchanges - "I give to you that you may give to me" ⁵⁴ - were a social and diplomatic obligation; gifts were presented when people visited each other, on special occasions, such as marriage and name-giving, or for obtaining the return of prisoners of war. Above all gifts were essential for sealing agreements and alliances with other peoples. Without gifts, negotiations were not even possible; among other things they wiped away tears, appeased anger, aroused nations to war, concluded peace treaties, delivered prisoners, raised the dead.⁵⁵ Gifts were metaphors for words; and treaties, once agreed on, were not regarded as self-sustaining. To be kept alive, they needed to be fed every once in a while by ceremonial exchanges. Later, during the colonial wars, periodic gift distributions would be essential in maintaining alliances that proved so useful to the colonizing powers; this would be the only pay the allies received for their services as guerrillas.

Although local conditions and subsistence bases ensured that the peoples spread across Canada led different lives within distinctive cultural frameworks at various levels of complexity, yet they all practiced severe self-discipline to stand alone

in an uncertain world, along with the acquisition of as much personal power as possible. ⁶⁴ Humour was highly valued, and they thoroughly approved of anything that provoked laughter... They also knew how to keep their spirits up in the face of starvation. As his Montagnais host told Le Jeune, "keep thy soul from being sad, otherwise thou wilt be sick; see how we do not cease to laugh, although we have little to eat."⁶⁶

They all observed the law of hospitality, the violation of which was considered a crime; ⁶⁷ and they all shared the concept of the unity of the universe, although filled with powers of various types and importance. Hospitality could be carried to the point of self-impoverishment, which did not strike Europeans as a virtue when they encountered it.

The unity of the universe meant that all living beings were related - indeed, were "people," some of whom were human - and had minds, as anthropologist Jay Miller put it. ⁶⁹ So did some objects that the Western world considers to be inanimate; for instance, certain stones, under certain conditions, could be alive or inhabited by minds. ⁷⁰ This belief in the unity of all living things is central to Amerindian and Inuit myths, despite a large and complicated cast of characters who experience an endless series of adventures.⁷¹ Of utmost importance was harmony, the maintenance of which was by no means automatic, as the demands of life could make it necessary to break the rules; hence the importance in Native legend and myth of trickster, who could be an individual but who could also be an aspect of the Creator or world force. As well, peaceful co-operation could be shattered by violent confrontations with malevolent, destructive powers.

Recent studies have emphasized the solid basis of these mythologies in natural phenomena. Amerindians and Inuit perceived the universe as an intricate meshing of personalized powers great and small, beneficial and dangerous, whose equilibrium was based on reciprocity. While humans could not control the system, they could influence particular manifestations through alliances with spiritual powers, combined with their knowledge of how these powers worked. Such alliances had to be approached judiciously, as some spirits were more powerful than others, just as some were beneficent and others malevolent; every force had a counterforce. Things were not always what they seemed at first sight; as with stones, even apparently inanimate objects could have unexpected hidden attributes. Keeping the cosmos in tune and staying in tune with the cosmos called for ceremonials, rituals, and taboos that had to be properly observed or performed if they were to be effective. Attention to detail could be so close that a missed step in a dance would result in chastisement. Even the construction of dwellings and layout of villages and encampments (not to mention the cities and temple complexes to the south) reflected this sense of spiritual order, with its emphasis on centres rather than boundaries.

Some (but not all) tribes recognized an all-powerful spirit, but the important ones to deal with were those who were directly connected with needs such as food, health, and fertility; also important were those connected with warfare. A person’s lot in life was determined by the spirits - or animal powers - who volunteered to be his helpers, which he acquired during a vision quest. This was undertaken at puberty, with attendant purification rites involving prayer and fasting, among other things. Purification to gain spirit power (but not actual helpers) could be undertaken at other times as well; it is thought that much of the rock art that is found across Canada is associated with these occasions. Not surprisingly, the most respected leaders were also shamans (medicine men, sometimes women), individuals who had special abilities for communicating with the non-material world and whose principal duties were to prevent and cure disease.

It was no accident that Canada’s stereotypical fur trade developed in the northern forests. Apart from the availability of the highest-quality furs, the generalized nature of the hunting demanded by boreal forest ecology was the most adaptable to the needs of the trade. More specialized hunters, such as those who harvested the bison herds of the Plains or the caribou herds of the Arctic, had much less incentive to participate because of the difference between their type of hunting and that required for furs. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the gun was of more use to the boreal forest hunter than it was to hunters of the Plains bison or the Barren Grounds caribou. Much depended on particular circumstances and the quality of guns and ammunition.¹³ Samuel Hearne (1745-92) found northern Amerindians using guns in combination with bows and arrows in communal deer hunts.¹⁴ Limitations of the gun curtailed its early acceptance: its uncertain performance in damp or cold weather, its noisiness when it did perform, its weight, insecure supply of ammunition, and the difficulties of maintenance and repair. Similarly, metal traps were not initially seen as particularly useful, as traditional hunting methods easily procured all that was needed - a situation that continued well into the twentieth century.¹⁵

Both guns and metal traps had added handicaps - cost and foreign production. Still, the restricted herding or solitary habits of boreal forest big game favoured the use of the gun, particularly as the weapon itself improved.

Guns were adopted faster than steel traps, which Natives at first tended to acquire for the metal, which they reshaped into useful objects such as chisels and blades of various types. ¹⁶

The HBC sought at first to keep contacts between company "servants" and Amerindians to a minimum, only to what was absolutely needed for trade. This, of course, turned out to be impossible; for one thing, women played a pivotal role in both trade and Amerindian society generally. This is illustrated by the story of Thanadelthur (d.1717), a remarkable Chipewyan woman who had been captured by the Cree, escaped with another woman, and survived a year in the bush searching for York Factory, which she had heard about but had only a vague idea as to its location. Her companion died, and shortly afterward Thanadelthur was found by a party from York Factory. Taken to the post, she soon became invaluable as an interpreter and in persuading her fellow tribesmen to come to the fort to trade, despite the presence of their traditional enemies, the Cree.³²

An unexpected side effect of the Company’s minimum contact policy was the restriction of its access to the interior because its men were inexperienced in this type of travel. No European at that time could make such a journey without Amerindians acting as guides and hunters. ³³ It was not until the HBC relaxed its rule, at least tacitly, that exploration of the interior became feasible. Thompson admired the skill of the Indians in this regard, "in being able to guide himself through the darkest pine forests to exactly the place he intended to go, his keen, constant attention on everything; the removal of the smallest stone, the bent or broken twig; a slight mark on the ground, all spoke plain language to him."³⁴

Even in trade, the HBC did not enjoy the control it would have liked. The Natives were not slow in playing off the English against the French, and they were quite as adept as Europeans in recognizing a better deal, but the goods they accumulated were for redistribution to satisfy social obligations and to acquire prestige rather than for exclusive personal use. They were not business men in the same sense as the Europeans; for one thing, they were not guided to the same extent by supply and demand in setting their prices. ³⁸ The English soon discovered, in the wake of the French, that such attitudes indicated neither lack of a sense of value nor of entrepreneurial enterprise; Indian traders were as eager as anyone to set themselves up in business. They were not deterred by distance, and thought nothing of undertaking long journeys to obtain better prices.³⁹ Capitalizing on English/French rivalry, they would persuade hunters on their way to bayside posts to part with their best furs and then shop around for the best deal available.

Even though socially Amerindians and traders mixed "unexpectedly well,"⁴⁵ they continued in their separate ways despite the close co-operation needed for the trade and the prosperity it brought to both sides. Trader Daniel Harmon (1778-1843) sadly observed that the only basis for friendship in the Northwest was the desire of Indians for European goods and the whites’ eagerness for the Natives’ furs.⁴⁶ A particular area of difficulty was reciprocity and the obligations it entailed. Ignoring accepted standards of behaviour could cause resentment and lead to trouble.

(Dickason, Patricia Olive, 1992, pp. 76- 77, 79- 81, 139- 141, 143- 144, 145- 146. Reprinted with permission from Oxford University Press Canada.)

EAP9 Hunting Buffalo (Napeskis)

When a large herd of buffalo came over a nearby hill shortly after dinner the hunters "prepared to run them." Napeskis, whom the earl described as a "very bold intelligent young man," asked if he could ride Southesk’s unruly horse named Black. Although Black was a fine-looking animal with above average speed, the horse had given Southesk considerable trouble during the trip west and practically all references to him included words like unruly, troublesome, impetuous, unmanageable, and violent.¹⁰

A skillfull horseman, Napeskis rode Black easily as he accompanied Southesk to the hollow where the hunters were gathering. Instead of using bows and arrows, the weapons usually preferred for hunting buffalo, he was armed with a muzzleloader.¹¹ After waiting for half an hour, the signal was given and the men raced towards the buffalo. Napeskis, his mouth full of bullets, took the lead, moving quickly to the front of the other hunters. By instinct, honed by years of practice, he kept the muzzle of his gun in an upright position to keep the powder and bullet lying on top of the powder from dislodging.* As he drew alongside a fat cow, the young hunter - in one quick smooth motion- tilted the gun downward, aimed, and fired before the bullet and powder had a chance to dislodge. His aim was true, the cow dropped to the ground. Napeskis threw down a personal article to mark his kill and then he rejoined the chase. Still riding quickly, he reloaded his gun. He poured a "chance handful" of gun powder down the barrel, spit a bullet in on top of the powder, and struck the stock against his heel to send it "all home." Then, keeping the muzzle upright, Napeskis went after another cow.¹²

Some of the other hunters likely used bows and arrows because they were easier to use on the run than guns.¹³ According to one source, "the arrows were carried in a quiver on the back, in such a position that the bearer, by throwing his right hand just over the left shoulder, could grasp an arrow. The drawing of an arrow, the fitting of the bowstring and the discharging are three movements merged into one, so perfect is their continuity." Skilled hunters often shot an arrow right through the body of the buffalo.¹⁴

Meanwhile Southesk was left trying to catch up to the other hunters. When he finally closed the gap he found the "buffalo were now running around... in every quarter, the herd for the most part broken into small lots separated by trifling intervals from one another." This fast paced hunt, conducted by experienced Indian hunters, differed considerably from Southesks’s earlier ventures at hunting buffalo for sport. By himself, he had hunted at his own pace, often chasing a heard for several miles before getting a chance to shoot. "No one, til he tried it," Southesk commented later, "can fancy how hard it is to shoot a galloping buffalo from a galloping horse."¹⁵

Early in the run Southesk had met Napeskis, who by now was coming from the opposite direction. Laughingly, Ahtahkakoop’s youngest brother held up two fingers to show that he had killed a pair of cows. He was very clever at signs. We had previously passed a peculiar-looking skull with slight and much-curved horns, placed by itself on the ground, and no sooner did I notice it, than he made me understand that this was not the head of a bull, but of an ox- a variety of somewhat rare occurrence; that he shot it himself; and that it had stood half as high again as a male of the ordinary description. ¹⁶

The bulls, Southesk said, could have been shot "right and left by dozens." But it was cows they were after. The earl wrote later that he found the cows difficult to distinguish from the young bulls and exceedingly difficult to catch. And so it was only after he had raced after a small herd for more than two miles that the earl finally managed to wound a cow. Bichon tripped. The man and his horse tumbled to the ground, and the cow escaped. In this way, Southesk’s hunt ended. Napeskis and the others, in the meantime, had completed a successful hunt.

Then the women’s work began as they went onto the hunting grounds to butcher the animals. Since each of the hunters had left identifying markers beside the buffalo he had killed, the women and older girls readily found their animals. Skinning and butchering was heavy work, requiring the efforts of more than one person for each animal. With the immense carcass on its back and the head turned sideways to prop the animal up, the women removed the hide from one side. Then they tilted the massive head to the opposite side and skinned the rest of the animal. The meat was cut into manageable pieces and piled on the spread-out hide along with the tongue. Then the women cut off the ribs and dislocated and removed the limbs.

*According to trader Isaac Cowie, flintlock muzzleloaders came in three lengths with 3 ½ feet being the longest and 2 ½ feet the shortest. The 2 ½ foot length was the most common and the Indian warriors generally shortened the barrel even further to make it lighter to carry and easier to conceal. (Cowie, The Company of Adventurers, pp. 197-98)

They also extracted the long sinews from the backbone and shoulders. The marrowbones were added to the pile of meat before the hide was wrapped around the entire mass. The internal organs were packaged separately. All of this, with considerable effort, was loaded onto carts and then the women and girls moved onto the next animal. What little remained was left for the wolves and dogs.¹⁷

Still, the work was not done. The weather was hot and the women and girls had to move quickly to preserve the hides and meat after they returned to the camp. Some pegged the heavy hides to the ground and carefully scraped off the fat and tissue. This had to be done as soon as possible after the buffalo was killed. Otherwise the hide would harden and make tanning difficult.

Other women cut the blocks of meat into thin sheets using a spiral motion. The strips of meat were then hung on racks to dry. Women and girls also processed the two kinds of fat that were obtained from the buffalo. Marrow fat came from the large bones. These bones were split, pounded into splinters, and boiled in water until the marrow fat floated to the top. The fat was skimmed off and kept until it was needed. The women rendered the hard fat from the shoulder and rump in metal pots suspended on tripods over the fires.¹⁸ Or sometimes, particularly if there was a shortage of pots, the women and their helpers put large pieces of fat near the fire and collected the drippings in a hide container.

Then some of this harvest from the buffalo was made into pemmican, the nutritious, lightweight food that was so valued by the traders and by their own people. The women and their helpers pounded the dried meat into a shredded mass with stone hammers. Then, with one pouring and the other mixing, the women combined the melted fat with the meat. Sometimes they used marrow fat to produce a fancier type of pemmican. And often, to make it even tastier and more nutritious, handfuls of dried saskatoons or other berries were added. Melted hard fat was used for the rest of the pemmican.

When the women had finished mixing the pemmican, they packed it into rawhide bags. They put left over rendered fat into separate bags. If any marrow fat remained it was stored in buffalo paunches. The rest of the meat, as it was dried, was tied into bales and put into rawhide sacks.¹⁹

The women chatted and laughed as they worked, thankful that their husbands had more than one wife to share the work. Nearby, joints of buffalo meat roasted on spits over the fires outside the tipis, and under the coals, Indian turnips baked.

(Christensen, Deanna, 2000, pp. 87-91. Reprinted with permission from Ahtahkakoop Publishing.)

EAP10 Metis Buffalo Hunt

Vocabulary

haphazard      tolerant      legitimate      doctrine      manifest destiny

divinely ordained   annexation   monopoly      commissariat   capitulate

inundated      annihilated   massacred      formidable   inevitable

peripheral      curtailing   chic         agitating   precarious

odium         apparatus   inculcated

The Metis buffalo hunt was no haphazard affair. It was a complex, democratically run business. The first act of business for the hundreds of people involved in the buffalo hunt was the election of officers for the hunt. Ten captains were elected by the men of the camp. One of these was named as the leader of the hunt. Each captain commanded at least 10 "soldiers" who assisted with the maintenance of discipline and order.

Although the Metis were a friendly and tolerant people, discipline on the hunt could be severe. The rules were few in number, but they had to be obeyed. These rules became known as "the law of the prairie," and they were the basis of 19^th century Metis law. These regulations, established in 1840, were recorded:

1. No buffalo to be run on the Sabbath Day.
2. No party to fork off or lag, or go before, without permission.
3. No person or party to run buffalo before the general order.
4. Every captain, with his men, in turn to patrol camp and keep guard.
5. For the first trespass against these laws, offender is to have his saddle and bridle cut up.
6. For the second offence, his coat is to be taken off his back and be cut up.
7. For the third offence, the offender is to be flogged.
8. Any person convicted of theft, even to the value of a sinew, to be brought to the middle of the camp, and the crier is to call out his or her name three times, adding the word "Thief" each time. ⁴²

The Metis did not often break these laws. They were too widely accepted as legitimate laws that were necessary for group survival. But, unfortunately, Metis survival depended upon many other forces in the New World, some of which were beyond their control. One such force was developing in the USA.

South of the 49^th parallel, the United States of America began to look hungrily at the Canadian North West. The doctrine of manifest destiny held that American territorial expansion was not only inevitable, but was divinely ordained. The term "manifest destiny" was first used in 1845 by a fiery American journalist named John O’Sullivan, when he wrote an editorial supporting the annexation of Texas. The phrase was soon picked up by American territorial expansion. By the end of the 19^th century, the doctrine was used as justification for the acquisition of colonies in the Caribbean, and for the conquest of British North America north of the 49^th parallel.

Governor Simpson was aware of American ambitions for territorial expansion into HBC country. In 1846, he used the fear of American invasion to lend strength to his demands for British troops, needed to protect the Company’s monopoly from the internal inroads of the free trade movement.⁴³ Nevertheless, his efforts to obtain troops from England failed in the end, and Simpson was forced to rely upon the local population for defense. But the French Metis buffalo hunters were the only commissariat in Rupert’s Land, and they were no friend of the HBC. But neither were they loyal to the aggressive young republic south of the 49^th parallel.

The Metis had a political interest in keeping Canada separate from the USA. The republic to the south had never been kind to the native population. Following the American Civil War (April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865), the government had turned its modern war machine against the Indians of the West. Those who did not capitulate and settle on reserves were annihilated. The California Indians were inundated by a flood of Europeans during the California gold rush of 1848.

The same process was occurring across the American prairie West through agricultural settlement. During the decade of the 1850’s, 150,000 settlers poured into the Dakota and Minnesota territories adjacent to the Red River settlement. This rapid settlement led to a war with the powerful Sioux nation. In 1863 the American General Sibley’s troops defeated Little Crow of the Santee Sioux, but not before hundreds of Indians and settlers had died violently. In 1864 the Cheyenne and Arapaho were defeated at Sand Creek, and the Indian populations were massacred. This defeat resulted in a change in battle tactics for the Plains Indians. They no longer sought to confront the US forces in head-on warfare. Instead, the Indians employed hit-and-run guerilla tactics. Although this was a far more effective style of warfare for them, it was not sufficient to enable them to defend themselves against the formidable forces of the American state.

The gatling gun (a large, hand-cranked machine gun capable of intense rapid fire) was invented for, and brought to bear on, the Indians of the American West. Despite the brilliant guerilla tactics employed by such leaders as Geronimo of the Apache, and Red Cloud and Sitting Bull of the Plains Sioux, the firepower of the Americans made Indian defeat inevitable.

The Americans had a conscious policy involving the destruction of the buffalo herds so as to bring about the destruction of the entire political economy of the Plains Indians whose lives and culture had long depended upon them. ⁴⁴ Clearly, there was no place in such a society for Metis fur traders and buffalo hunters. For better or worse their destiny was to remain tied to that of the HBC and the Canadian nation.

Throughout the 1830’s HBC profits had remained high. Control over the vast supply of furs in America enabled the world market to a large extent and thus ensure high profits for its shareholders. Of course, a total world-wide monopoly of the fur trade could not be obtained, since the British Empire of the day did not control the entire world. Some peripheral fur production still remained in Finland and other out-of-the-way regions American competition, however, was reduced by an "arrangement" involving the bribery of an official of the American Fur Company: the HBC paid the president of the Company - a man referred to as Mr. Crooks - l300 annually for his part in curtailing his company’s operations north and west of Lake Superior.⁴⁵

Just as the HBC was not able to establish a perfect monopoly in the marketplace, so too it was never able to achieve perfect control over the supply of furs in North America. The Metis free trade movement prevented such control and it remained, therefore, a significant historical force in the Canadian West throughout the middle of the 19^th century.

So long as the HBC controlled the lion’s share of the supply, it could and did manipulate the market to its own advantage. Control over the supply enabled the HBC to be always in the winning position in the supply-demand cycle. But the free trade movement, via St. Paul, threatened the HBC control of the marketplace. After the Sayer trial of 1849, sufficient quantities of fur were reaching the free market to interfere with HBC control over prices.

By 1849, a combination of events was jeopardizing HBC profits in Rupert’s Land. Styles were changing in Europe. Furs were no longer as important as symbols of wealth among the chic members of the middle classes. Furthermore, fur resources, particularly beaver, were nearing depletion. Beaver had been over-trapped for a century or more.

Since the fur trade was becoming unprofitable, the HBC could not hope to retain social control over the inhabitants of Rupert’s Land for much longer without a large, expensive military force stationed in the colony. To add to the Company’s political problems, other business interests in the Canadian East were agitating for the annexation of Rupert’s Land so that they could begin investing in a new agricultural colony in the western regions of the territory.

Simpson could see as early as 1848 that time was running out for the HBC in Rupert’s Land. The following communication from Donald Ross, chief factor of Norway House, summed up the HBC’s dilemma:

By 1856 profits had dropped further, and the agitation in the Canadian East had grown. The West was now needed for investment and settlement purposes by the Canadian merchants and industrialists of Montreal and Toronto. These groups now clamouring for the annexation of Rupert’s Land. Simpson outlined his response to all this agitation in a letter to his friend, John Shepherd:

Clearly, Simpson recognized that the Company could no longer control the Metis. A state apparatus fully equipped with a military force would be needed for that. If the Company was going to continue in the fur trade, Canada would have to oppress the Metis for the HBC.

In the meantime, the Metis continued to develop as an independent nation in the West. Indeed, the free trade struggle had inculcated a sense of nationalism among the French Metis. They saw themselves as a "nation" even though they had not established national institutions. Indeed, the Metis concept of nationhood was not fully formed, but the free trade movement had created the economic basis for Metis nationhood, complete with the emergence of a small Metis middle class.

(McLean, Don, 1987, pp. 67- 71. Reprinted with permission from the Gabriel Dumont Institute.)

EAP11 The Buffalo

EAP12 Contributions Made by Metis People

We often do not notice that we are continually surrounded by the symbols of Metis culture and heritage. Across the greater Metis Homeland there are many enduring emblematic reminders of the Metis historical presence: the Montana buffalo skull logo, the buffalo on Manitoba’s Coat of Arms and on the seal of the Manitoba Federation; the blue Metis infinity flag; the fiddle and sash; the ubiquitous Red River Cart; and the numerous streets named after Metis patriots in cities and towns from Kansas City to Winnipeg, Edmonton to Yellowknife. The Michif language is still regularly spoken in four states and five Canadian provinces.

The ancestors of today’s Metis Nation were the children of the unions between North American Aboriginal mothers and European fathers. They developed into a distinct people with a group consciousness necessary to promote their collective causes. A Metis was not a French-Canadian, nor a Canadian, nor a Scot. Neither were they First Nations or Inuit. They created for themselves and future generations a unique culture, a group identity and declared themselves a "New Nation." The Metis forged treaties and declared a Bill of Rights that marked this identity as a "New Nation."

Often known as founders of the fur-trade, the Metis of what was to become the Canadian and American Northwest participated as trappers, guides, interpreters, factors, dock and warehouse workers, voyageurs, coureurs de bois, canoe and York boat operators, couriers of the first postal services, and Red River cart teamsters. The Metis were essential in commercializing both the fur trade with the invention of the York boat, and the buffalo hunt with the invention of the Red River cart. The were also instrumental in making fishing a year round commercial industry with the ingenious ‘jigger’ that was used to set nets under the ice.

Before cattle were abundant enough to become a food staple, Metis hunted buffalo to make pemmican. Wild berries and wild vegetables were gathered and sold along with the pemmican which was used to feed the outlying communities and trading posts.

Metis buffalo hunts were of colossal size. In 1865, Alexander Ross, a settler in Red River, reported in detail on an expedition which left the Red River Settlement on June 15, 1840. When the role was called at Pembina, 1, 630 people were present with 1, 210 Red River carts. In 1854, Pére Belcourt reported that there were about 2, 000 Metis living at Pembina. When these people joined others from the Assiniboia District they would mount hunting expeditions with as many as 5,000 Metis and Indians. These parties travelled an extensive route, some as far as the Missouri River to just below Fort Mandan.

The Metis assisted new settlers in adapting to the harsh conditions of this country. In 1820, Metis cattleman Alexis Bailly drove a herd of cattle from Prairiedu Cheien, in what is now Minnesota, to the Selkirk Settlement. Due to Alexis’ entrepreneurial venture, a freighting road was opened between the two communities by 1823. A number of Metis families in Selkirk and Pembina districts began raising oxen to haul Red River carts. Later, it was Metis cattlemen who would provision the influx of prospectors and miners during the gold rush era in Canada and the United States.

Metis men worked as farmers, breeding horses and cattle, clearing land and planting crops while Metis women taught newly arrived Euro-Canadian and European women to prepare and preserve wild game and other foods which were needed to survive the harsh winters.

The York boat, based on an Orckney Islands influenced design, was invented by the Metis for use on larger bodies of water. These large flat-bottomed boats were up to 13 meters long, could hold up to six tons of cargo, and employed a crew of eight men. In addition to their superior capacity, these boats required less maintenance. Both oars and a square sail powered them.

The Metis were responsible for the development of the versatile Red River cart used to transport goods over both land and water. Today, the Red River cart is one of the best-known symbols of Metis culture. The cart, drawn by either an ox or a horse, was used to transport meat, buffalo hides, pemmican, trade items and personal belongings to and from the bison hunt and centres of trade in the United States. The cart could carry 300 to 400 kilograms of freight. It was made entirely of wood with two large rawhide covered wheels, 1.5 meters in diameter. The versatility of the cart was unmatched. When crossing water, the wheels were removed and lashed to the bottom to form a raft without having to unload any freight. In winter, the frame could be used as a sled pulled by a horse.

Before the establishment of a police force in the west, the Metis organized themselves in a military style that proved useful in regulating the bison hunt and in the creation of border patrols. In fact, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride may have been inspired by the Metis practice of exercising their horses to the music of the jig and square dance. In the evenings, after buffalo hunts, the Metis exercised their horses to music in the fashion of the square dance while the fiddler played quadrilles. Skilled horsemanship developed with the buffalo hunt and was easily adapted for bronco busting, calf roping and range riding. These skills were put to good use, as the Metis were instrumental in the growth and prosperity of ranching in the West.

An unknown militia member attending Treaty Negotiations at Kipahikanihk in 1874 has elegantly described Metis horsemanship:

The Metis were widely employed as interpreters, as they were valued for their language skills and multilingual ability. The Metis developed their own unique language, which, like their heritage, was a combination of both European, and Indigenous cultures. This language, called Michif, is a mixture of French and Plains Cree and today is still spoken by many of the Metis. Similarly, the Metis created their own syncretic form of music by combining Celtic folk-style with beats and cadences characteristic of Cree and Ojibwa songs.

The Metis have militarily served Canada in many international conflicts with many being decorated for their bravery. The first was with the battle of the Nile Expedition in 1884-85; followed by the Boer War; the First and Second World Wars; and the Korean War. One example, Henry Nor’West was a lance-corporal with the 50^th Canadian Infantry Battalion. He was a sharpshooter who was officially credited with 115 fatal shots and was awarded the Military Medal with double bar. Nor’West was later kiddled by a sniper’s bullet himself. Today, Metis people continue to serve with distinction in the Canadian Forces and the Armed Forces Reserves.

Early in the development of the Northwest, many Métis participated in industry, trade and commerce at all levels. Many participated in industry, trade and commerce at all levels. Many became involved with mainstream politics in a variety of capacities. The Metis have a long history of participation in the legal, medical and education professions, since they were often formally educated through the encouragement and influence of their European fathers and the clergy who served their communities.

The Metis were instrumental in the entry of Manitoba into Confederation and prepared the way for the Minnesota, Dakota and Montana territories to enter the American union.

Today, Metis are involved in all facets of Canadian and American society and continue to contribute to the building of these nations.

(Barkwell, Lawrence J., Leah Dorion and Darren R. Prefontaine, 2000, pp. 1-2. Reprinted with permission from Pemmican Publications.)

EAP13 Economic Disruption

Vocabulary

deprivation      autonomy      impeded   infrastructure      dispossessing

dislocating      marginal      vulnerable   tenuous         arrogated

As the settler economy developed and the fur trade declined, Aboriginal economies were disrupted to the point where extreme economic deprivation became a fact of life. The pattern of disruption varied from one part of the country to another and from one Aboriginal group to another. Métis people on the prairies, for example, saw the competitiveness of their overland hauling routes undermined by railroads and steam boats. The buffalo were devastated by the mid-1880s, damaging the livelihood of Métis and Indian communities. Incoming settlers added to the pressure on the natural resource base, depleting the furbearing animals in the woodland areas and overfishing lakes and streams.

Both before and after Confederation, Indian people living on reserves faced the imposition of laws enacted under the provision of the Constitution Act, 1867 making "Indians, and Land reserved for the Indians" subject to exclusive federal jurisdiction. The new government of Canada arrogated to itself responsibility for virtually all aspects of Indian life. Although the treaty process continued the formality of nation-to-nation dealings, other developments, such as the continued creation of reserves, military actions in the west, and legislative enactments, had the effect of breaking Aboriginal nations apart. Under the terms of the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869, ¹⁰ traditional Indian governments were replaced by elected chiefs and councillors, and virtually all decisions required the approval of a federally appointed Indian agent and/or the minister responsible for Indian affairs. While many reserves, especially those in more remote locations, managed to retain much of their autonomy and decision-making procedures into the early decades of the twentieth century, the imposition of external control gradually prevailed in all reserve locations. Often the attempt to replace traditional governing structures with new ones created internal divisions that have lasted to the present day, and ensuing disruptions interfered with the socio-economic development of communities for decades. ¹¹ The various laws also contained provisions restricting mobility and the ownership of property and other measures that have impeded economic development.

Throughout the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth, Indian agents made significant attempts to persuade Indian people to become farmers. Whether it was the Mi’kmaq people on the east coast, Peigan and Métis people on the plains, or the nations of the west coast, the goal was to have Indian and Métis peoples ‘settle down’ and make the transition to the settlers’ way of life.

The Peigans who did not pursue the last [buffalo] herds were encouraged to go to their new reserve in 1879, where a farm instructor was appointed to teach them agriculture. By the end of the year about 50 acres of land had been broken and seeded.

By the spring of 1880, it was apparent that the Peigans’ old way of life had come to an end. The buffalo were gone, the days of wandering were over, and they now had to find new ways of making a living. Canadian Government policy at that time approved the issuing of rations as a temporary measure, but dictated that the Indians become self-supporting as soon as possible. For most reserves, the government was convinced that the Indians should be taught farming regardless of the location, fertility of soil or climate. As part of this policy, the decision was made to transform the Peigan into farmers.

The Indians were anxious to find a new source of livelihood and willingly turned to the soil... Crops of potatoes, turnips, barely and oats were planted, and by the end of 1880 the Agent observed that several one-time warriors were "cross-ploughing with their own horses the pieces of land which were broken for them last summer." Indians also went to the nearby Porcupine Hills and brought out timber for log houses to replace their worn teepees.

As part of its treaty obligations, the government issued 198 cows, as well as calves and bulls to the Peigans, but initially these were kept together as a single band herd on the north end of the reserve. Farming was given top priority and initial results were so encouraging that in 1881 the Inspector of Agencies said, "These Indians are very well-to-do and will, in my opinion, be the first of the Southern Plain Indians to become self-supporting. They are rich in horses, and having received their stock cattle from the Government, are rich in them too".¹²

For the most part (and the Peigan case eventually proved to be no exception) these efforts were not successful, in part because government policies did not provide sufficient resources - land, equipment or seed - to permit success. Periods of drought, overproduction and low prices also did not help matters. The problem was more than neglect or climate, however; it was also a matter of conflict with non-Indian farmers, who often persuaded government to sell off productive Indian lands, place restrictions on the sale of produce, and limit Indian use of new technologies to increase productivity.

In many cases, therefore, the agricultural strategy failed. Elias reports that the Dakota people at the turn of the century pursued a variety of economic activities, ranging from continued engagement in traditional hunting and gathering activities to commercial grain production, ranching and wage labour. ¹³ Carter reports that during the late nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, Indian people in the Treaty 6 and 7 areas of Saskatchewan were becoming farmers.¹⁴ They steadily increased the number of acres under cultivation and were able to grow enough food for the own subsistence and sale in local markets. Between 1899 and 1929, income from agriculture was the most important source of income for Indian families in these areas.

During the late settler period, as Canada industrialized, Aboriginal people in many parts of the country began to participate in the market economy. For the most part their participation was on the margins and generally in manual occupations. But despite marginality, Aboriginal people coped with the changes occurring around them and again developed a measure of self-sufficiency, although at quite low levels of income. There is evidence of participation in the new industries springing up, of people working their own farms or as hired hands on others, of seasonal participation in construction of housing and community infrastructure. Some were able to establish businesses in areas such as the crafts industry, and others sought their fortunes by moving to areas where jobs were available, including the United States...

There is some evidence, therefore, that Aboriginal people were successfully making the transition from a traditional to a ‘modern’ economy. These documented examples tend to be overlooked by those who conclude that Aboriginal people were unable to make the transition, that they were prevented from gaining positions in the wider economy because of racism, or that they were unwilling to venture beyond the safe haven provided by reserves.

The period of dependency began in the middle part of this century (depending on the location, sometime between 1930 and 1960) and continues, for the most part, today. Its roots were in the dislocation and dispossession created by the settler economy, which left Aboriginal people in a decidedly marginal and vulnerable economic position. It was entrenched further by the great depression of the 1930s and by federal and provincial policies adopted in response to economic distress and economic opportunity.

Although Aboriginal people were beginning to participate in the market economy, this participation was tenuous. With the depression, many jobs and businesses disappeared, and Aboriginal participation in the labour force declined. Labour shortages resulting from the Second World War made it possible for Aboriginal people temporarily to increase their role in the economy and to join the armed forces, but the end of the war and the return of the veterans again displaced Aboriginal people.

One factor standing in the way of providing assistance was the view that Aboriginal people, and especially Indian people, were a federal responsibility. Local municipalities and provinces did not see themselves as having any responsibility to assist local Indian populations, especially those living on reserves. First Nations were seen as being outside local society, a point of view that continues to some extent today. ¹⁵ Local services were often not available, banks were reluctant to do business with people on reserves without federal government guarantees on loans, and businesses saw the reserve community primarily as a market for their goods and services, without the reciprocal obligation to provide employment or other types of community support....

In analyzing the roots of dependency that grew in this period, the policies and practices of governments and the private sector regarding lands and resources must be examined. Especially in the more northerly areas of the provinces and in the territories, major resource companies, encouraged by governments, routinely established operations in areas where Aboriginal people were trying to continue a traditional lifestyle.

Mining, forestry, oil and gas and similar projects were highly disruptive of Aboriginal land use and harvesting patterns. ¹⁷ Provincial and federal governments applied all manner of regulation - to preserve fish and game, to register traplines, to control access to Crown lands. In the process they either ignored Aboriginal and treaty rights or chose to interpret them as narrowly as possible, until court decisions forced them to adopt a broader interpretation.

(Canada. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Vol. 2. Part 2,- Restructuring the Relationship. pp. 785-790. Reproduced with the permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, 2002, and Courtesy of the Privy Council Office.)

EAP14 Imported Diseases

Vocabulary

epidemic      proliferation      contagion      quarantine      pestilence

malnutrition      vociferous      championed      undermine

Increasing pressure on the buffalo resource, compounded by losses resulting from epidemic diseases, threatened the Plains way of life. ... The proliferation of trading posts and the development of a transport system to supply them and export returns provided local Aboriginal people with markets for provisions and seasonal employment opportunities. In addition to the rise and collapse of the commercial and subsistence buffalo hunt, other developments adversely affected the lives of First Nations... beginning in the late eighteenth century. The increasing frequency of epidemic diseases was one of the most disastrous. Unfortunately, the trading system facilitated the spread of European diseases.

The first major epidemic of record took place in 1780-81, when a devastating outbreak of smallpox swept the area, decimating all the nations in the western interior. Additional epidemics of this deadly scourge took place before treaty making commenced in Saskatchewan. One took place during the autumn and winter of 1837-38. The quick response to the first news of the outbreak by Dr William Todd, who was in charge of Fort Pelly, saved most of the Cree and others who lived to the north of the Qu’Appelle valley. In keeping with the practice of sharing medicines... Todd shared his powers by teaching local Cree healers how to vaccinate their people. He attributed the success of the program partly to their efforts. The Assiniboine who lived in southern Saskatchewan chose not to take part in the vaccination scheme and were devastated. ...

On the eve of the treaty-making era in Saskatchewan, smallpox swept the prairies once more. The outbreak began in the late summer of 1870 and extended at least until mid-winter in most districts. Again, the Plains Cree of the Saskatchewan district were hit very hard. On 12 September 1870 Father Albert Lacombe wrote from his mission to [of] the Cree at St Paul to Bishop Taché in Winnipeg, saying that " I am alone with Indians disheartened and terrified to such a degree that they hardly dare approach even their own relations." Lacombe added: "Poor Indians; what a pitiful sight they offered and still offer, as a great number still labour under this painful disease. Every one implored my aid and charity. Some for medicine, others for the benefit of the last Sacrements ... This dreadful epidemic has taken all compassion from the hearths of the Indians. These lepers of a new kind are removed at a distance from the others and sheltered under branches. There they witness the decomposition and putrification of their bodies several days before death." ⁹

HBC district manager W. J. Christie reported that the epidemic had erupted in the Fort Carlton area by early autumn and had already killed many people. By the time the epidemic had run its course, it had "swept away one-third of the population of the Saskatchewan district.¹⁰ According to Christie, "Every precaution shall be taken in Spring to prevent the spread of the epidemic from infected articles."¹¹

The government of Manitoba and the appointed governing council for the North-West Territory made a concerted effort to deal with the 1870 smallpox crisis through the actions of the board of health and by legislation. Collectively, the government’s initiatives aimed to check the spread of smallpox by banning the shipment of buffalo robes and other articles that could carry the contagion. The government set up hospitals and quarantine areas, and it sent medicine and doctors. Unfortunately the worst phases of the pestilence had already passed by the time the government was able to act.

Other scourges, most notably measles and influenza, spread through the area with increasing frequency in the nineteenth century, often taking a heavy toll. High mortality rates were the direct effect of the disease and the indirect consequence of malnutrition, because hunters were too sick to pursue their quarry or reach trading posts for relief. The collapse of the HBC robe and hide returns in the Saskatchewan district in 1871, for instance, was caused by the smallpox epidemic mentioned above. Many White observers commented on the terrible suffering that Plains nations had to endure as a result of these outbreaks.

By the 1870’s, significant buffalo hunting was largely restricted to the prairies around the Cypress Hills.¹² Significant trade in buffalo robes had ended by 1880. As the ranges contracted toward the Cypress Hills, clashes between First Nations escalated as they competed for the dwindling resource that had defined their essence since time immemorial.

Significantly, even though many aspects