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Indigenous Traces on Basque Sites: Direct Contact Or Later Reoccupation? Vincent Delmas

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Indigenous Traces on Basque Sites: Direct Contact Or Later Reoccupation? Vincent Delmas Document généré le 28 sept. 2021 12:30 Newfoundland and Labrador Studies Indigenous Traces on Basque Sites: Direct Contact or Later Reoccupation? Vincent Delmas Volume 33, numéro 1, 2018 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1055864ar DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/1055864ar Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) Faculty of Arts, Memorial University ISSN 1719-1726 (imprimé) 1715-1430 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer cet article Delmas, V. (2018). Indigenous Traces on Basque Sites: Direct Contact or Later Reoccupation? Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, 33(1). https://doi.org/10.7202/1055864ar All Rights Reserved ©, 2018 Newfoundland and Labrador Studies Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ Indigenous Traces on Basque Sites: Direct Contact or Later Reoccupation? Vincent Delmas Archaeologists studying the contact period, especially in the region of the lower Great Lakes but also in the St. Lawrence Valley, have tended to assume a possible Basque origin for early European trade goods found in Indigenous contexts, such as glass beads, iron tools, and copper utensils (Trigger, 1976: 269; Fitzgerald, 1990: 9–10, 76, 547; Fitzgerald et al., 1993: 44; Turgeon, 1990; Bradley, 2007: 22–23; Moussette and Waselkov, 2013: 147–48, 160–63; Birch and Wil- liamson, 2013: 147–49). While a recent review of trade beads sug- gested that Basques were not important suppliers of these objects often associated with European–Indigenous trade (Delmas, 2016), they may have transmitted iron tools and copper utensils to Indige- nous peoples. Debate on possible contact between Basques and the local inhabitants carried into the study of Inuit, Iroquoian, and pre- sumed Innu materials found during the excavation of Basque sites, from Labrador to the mouth of the Saguenay River. The archaeolo- gists of these sites in the 1980s and 1990s regularly concluded that these contexts and materials could not be interpreted as signs of direct contact, based on stratigraphic uncertainty but also because simultaneous presence did not fit with the accepted dates of Basque occupations, Inuit presence in the Strait of Belle Isle, and Iroquoian “disappearance” from the St. Lawrence Valley. Also, as Brad Loewen has remarked, evidence of early contact between Indigenous peo- ples and Europeans sometimes became lost in “a no-man’s-land . 20 newfoundland and labrador studies, 31, 1 (2018) 1719-1726 Indigenous Traces on Basque Sites reproduced by divisions between prehistoric and historical approaches in archaeology” (Loewen, 2016: 4–5). Since the 1990s, the accepted dates of Inuit, Iroquoian, and Basque cultural watersheds have been revised or questioned, allowing for a significantly wider “window” of possible contact. However, the archaeological data have not been reconsidered and, if fact, to our knowledge there has been no over- all review of the evidence of Indigenous presence on Basque sites. Based on a review of field reports and collections, this paper’s goal is to briefly present the relevant data and summarize the archaeolo- gists’ views at the time, and especially to analyze the archaeological instances that may indicate direct or close contact between Basques and Indigenous peoples. The lack of clear archaeological support has not impeded histor- ical research on relations between Basques and the local inhabitants. The ethnolinguist Peter Bakker mentions Basque relations with two Algonquian tribes — the Innu in southern Labrador and the lower North Shore, and the Mi’kmaq in Gaspésie and Nova Scotia (Bakker, 1989: 117). These long-standing relations led to linguistic borrowings and the creation and use of a rudimentary trade pidgin. Marc Lescar- bot mentioned this language in 1609, as did Samuel de Champlain in 1611–13. The Basque-based pidgin was also mentioned in Acadia by the Jesuits Pierre Biard in 1616 and Paul Le Jeune in 1632–41 (Bakker, 1989: 120–26, 132–35). Bakker and collaborators show that the Basque-based pidgin was understood, used, and augmented by French fishers and traders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centu- ries. In 1694, Louis Jolliet explored the Labrador coast and met Inuit who hailed him in a pidgin that combined Basque, French, and Inuk- titut (Bakker, 1996: 262, 272–73; Dorais, 1996: 311–16; Bakker and Johansen, 2005: 1–10). These linguistic data echo other records and archaeological findings showing that the Inuit advanced to southern Labrador and northern Newfoundland in the sixteenth century, where they maintained ambivalent relations with European fishers and trad- ers until the eighteenth century (Stopp, 2002). Pope has documented a “guerrilla war” between Bretons and Inuit, while Stopp has suggested newfoundland and labrador studies, 31, 1 (2018) 21 1719-1726 Delmas that archaeological data include much evidence of exchange, and Loe- wen has proposed phases of cordial relations between Basques and In- uit (Pope, 2015: 15–36; Stopp, 2002: 84–89; Loewen, 2017: 176–79; Castro, this volume). The archaeologist Charles Martijn has suggested that the Basques had a “privileged partnership” with the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, who disappeared in the last quarter of the sixteenth century (Martijn, 1969, 1990). This sedentary population based between Lake Ontario and Quebec City was largely agricultural, although its most easterly members also sealed and fished in seasonal camps in the St. Law- rence Estuary as far east as Tadoussac and Gaspé (Plourde, 2012: 3–6). They even appear in the Strait of Belle Isle in 1542. Clemente de Odeliça, a Basque fisher from Hondarribia (Gipuzkoa), reported meeting a group from Kanata and their chief in Gran Baya (Martijn et al., 2003: 192–93). Several Basque archaeological sites have yielded artifacts, and sometimes structures, indicating an Indigenous presence. We will present these findings and assess their temporal relationship with the Basque occupations, in order of their cultural affiliation with three Indigenous groups — Inuit, Innu, and Iroquoian — as seen by the archaeologists who excavated the sites from the 1970s to 1990s. Gen- erally, researchers attributed an Amerindian affiliation to sites with ceramics and a range of lithic materials, and an Inuit affiliation to sites with winter houses and diagnostic bone and lithic artifacts. An Amerindian presence on Basque sites has been detected at Red Bay (EkBc-1, EkBc-16, EkBc-17), Blanc-Sablon (EiBg-9), Île Nue de Mingan (EbDa-6), and Île aux Basques (DaEh-4). Similarly, Inu- it traces on Basque sites have been reported at Red Bay (EkBc-1, EkBc-5, EkBc-7, EkBc-12), Stage and Henley Islands in Labrador (ElAx-2, ElAx-3), and Petit-Mécatina on the lower North Shore (EdBt-3). We will present these data first for Amerindians, then for Inuit (Figure 1). 22 newfoundland and labrador studies, 31, 1 (2018) 1719-1726 Indigenous Traces on Basque Sites Figure 1. Basque sites of the Gulf of St. Lawrence (map by Brad Loewen). Amerindian Presence on Labrador Sites Traces of an Amerindian presence at the Red Bay whaling station are concentrated on the northern shore of Saddle Island (Logan and Tuck, 1990: 7). Inside a small Basque habitation (EkBc-1, area C) were copper off-cuts from cauldrons for trying whale oil, as well as an Iroquoian-style ceramic shard. These artifacts lay with a deposit of roof tiles in the Basque occupation level (Tuck, 1986: 233). Garnet beads from 1550–1650 came to light in the same area. Claude Chapdelaine and Greg Kennedy assigned the pottery shard to the Iroquoian style of the Late Woodland period (Chapdelaine and Kennedy, 1990: 41–43). It is a rim fragment from a castellated pot with an incised decor. The upper register of the decor has two horizontal lines and punctuations. The main register is visible only in a few dentate impressions below the punctuation, but the shard assuredly comes from a pot with a com- plex decor. At the western end of Saddle Island (EkBc-16), in an area of about 100 square metres near a whale-oil trying oven, James Tuck and his team found about 170 Amerindian hearths outlined by beach cobbles, some cracked by fire. Archaeologists were able to situate some hearths in the same stratigraphic level as the Basque occupation newfoundland and labrador studies, 31, 1 (2018) 23 1719-1726 Delmas (Table 1). Most of the material in and around the hearths is lithic, con- sisting of flakes and scrapers in local stone, as well as bifaces, points, knives, and various tools in grey-green chert, quartz, quartzite, and Ramah quartzite (Robbins, 1989: 10; Tuck, 2005: 31–32). In addition, the hearths contained European wood, forged nails, calcined harp seal bones, leather, baleen, roof tile fragments, as well as 334 shards from at least two pots (Tuck, 1986: 216–18; 1989: 2–6). The pottery remains are highly fragmented and only one rim shard (EkBc-16-199) shows diagnostic Iroquoian-style incisions (Figure 2). EkBc-16-199 EkBc-16-3929 Figure 2. Fragments of Amerindian pottery, Red Bay townsite (EkBc-16) (The Rooms, St. John’s; photos by Elaine Anton). 24 newfoundland and labrador studies, 31, 1 (2018) 1719-1726 Indigenous Traces on Basque Sites Despite the hearths’ stratigraphic position within the Basque cul- tural level, Tuck cast doubt on the simultaneous presence of Amer- indians and whalers. The lithic material can only be assigned to the Late Woodland, a period covering several hundred years, mostly be- fore the Basques’ arrival (Tuck, 2005: 21–32).
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