The Path of the Maliseet People – An Anthropological Approach
Department of Anthropology Memorial University of Newfoundland Wonkyoung Choi (PhD Candidate)
Introduction
The Maliseet1 are the originally migratory Algonquian-speaking people of Eastern
Woodlands (Chute 2002; Smith and Cape 1957), and one of members of the Wabanaki
Confederacy which consist of Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenakis, Penobscot and
Micmac (Bourque 2001; Erickson 1978; Mechling 1958; Perley 2011; and Speck 1915).
The name Maliseet, which means “slow or bad talkers,” is thought to be derived from a
Mi’kmaq word (Chute 2002: 42; and Jerome and Putnam 2006:299). The Maliseet people, however, generally refer themselves as Waloastoqiyik, meaning “people of the beautiful river”, or “people of the St. John River” (Chute 2002; Jerome and Putnam 2006;
Mechling 1958; Perley 2011; and Speck 1946). Geographically, Maliseet has resided along the St. John River and its tributaries which cross the borders of New Brunswick and Quebec in Canada, and the state of Maine in the US (Chute 2002: 42; and Jerome and
Putnam 2006: 299).
Meanwhile, from nineteenth-century notes on the origin of the Maliseet
(Chamberlain 1898) to more recent ethnographic research on the Maliseet language
1 I acknowledge that the First Nation’s name is the most accurate and respectful term when I referring to specific peoples and institutions. In this sense, I use the term “Maliseet” accordingly throughout this paper. I will also use the term “Malecite”, however, when these people are referred as Malecite in the original references with which I am consulting.
1 revitalization movement (Perley 2011), records and studies of this group of people have covered wide range of topics. Such diversity in the ways in which Maliseet have studied and represented over time suggests that ‘Maliseet’ is not simply a word used to describe a certain group of First Nations peoples, but also an idea that is continuously being recasted and contested2. In this sense, questions such as “What does it mean to be an aboriginal today?” or more specifically for the purpose of this paper, “What does it mean to be
‘Maliseet’ today?” provide us a space for considering and discussing the contemporary dynamics of aboriginal identity construction and its maintenance.
Today, as a variety of studies on this region suggest (MacDougall 2004; Paul
2006; Perley 2006, 2011; and Silman 1987), identity is one of key concerns among many
First Nations in Canada. In dealing with questions of history, politics and the relations of the Native peoples on this region with other agencies such as European colonist and
Canadian as well as other neighboring Frist Nations people, the issue of Native identity has been a main topic for discussions. It is especially important in this eastern part of
North America, where the longer history of contact with European, the various sociocultural pressures of colonialism, the systemic assimilation projects, the establishment of the reserve system, the residential school experiences and the recent disputes over resource and land use have contributed the complicated contexts of
Maliseetness, or the Maliseet identity, and how this identity is constructed and utilized.
As MacDougall points out, the survival of Native American cultures results from “a complex interaction between political, economic and social forces (MacDougall 2004:
2 Due to the lack of agreed-universal-term among Native peoples, I use the term “Native American”, “First Nations people”, “Indigenous people”, “Aboriginal people” and “Native Indian” interchangeably in this paper when referring to the Aboriginal people of Canada and North America in general sense.
2 2)”. This can be said identically on today’s Aboriginal peoples’ concerns over identity.
Identity is not naturally imposed or given to an individual or a group of peoples as a fixed one; also, it is not simply invented. Rather, it is a problem of positioning based on various articulations within various contexts which results from a complex interaction between historical, political-economic, social and cultural forces.
In this paper, by considering how have the Maliseet were understood and described by different groups of scholars, I will explore the layers of context which compose the present-day Maliseet self-identification based on previous studies on this region. Although this paper would be a selective assemblage of historical, socio-political and cultural background of the Maliseet identity, this work would be linked with studies of broader context of Aboriginal peoples’ identity politics, a theme which has been dealt with extensively in the Aboriginal studies.
‘Maliseet’ in the early ethnographic studies
Early documentations on the Maritime First Nations are dated back to the early seventeenth-century (Erickson 1978; Mechling 1958; and Wallis and Wallis 1957). Many of these early written accounts produced by travellers and Jesuit missionaries, and the
Maliseet were often mentioned with other neighboring First Nations people such as
Mi’kmaq and Passamaquoddy (Erickson 1978: 135)3. Meanwhile, at the turn of the
3 It seems that there were not sufficient records specifically referring to Maliseet in comparison to those of Mi’kmaq of this period. In his ethnographic study on the Malecite, Mechling puts in as follow: “the Jesuit Relations refer to them frequently, but do not describe their life as carefully as they do Micmac life, and it is often very difficult to determine exactly when they refer to the Malecites (Mechling 1958: 11)”. Wallis and Wallis (1957) also point out the same limitation on accounts of the Maliseet from the early-seventeenth-century to early-twentieth- century (Wallis and Wallis 1957: 1-2).
3 twentieth-century, anthropologists had collected languages, kinship terms, mythology, rituals, and other cultural aspects of Native peoples. In fact, anthropology as a discipline has had a long relationship with Aboriginal people. And it was the time specifically under the influence of American anthropologist Franz Boas and his students, there was a strong tendency which was trying to preserve and record the cultures of the rapidly disappearing
Native people of North America (MacDougall 2004: 3).
From Two Months on the Tobique, New Brunswick: An Emigrant’s Journal,
London (1866) describes how the Malecite have moved toward the white’s ways of life and their use of English:
“ The village consists of two rows of houses, about twenty in number; […] There is a chapel and burial-ground in which the graves are simply marked with a cross, and there is also some little land fenced in, and in a measure cultivated; but the Indians have no great genius for agriculture. This village is perched on a his bank in the angle formed by the junction of the Tobique with the St. John, […] It has altogether surprised me, as I had no idea of the extent to which the Indians are actually civilized, being in many instances good tradesmen, with a correct (in fact a very keen) appreciation of the value of money, talking English well and fluently, and having hardly more, if so mush, of the savage as the peasantry in some of the remoter parts of England (London 1866:82).”
By observing the great influences of white culture into the Native American ways of life, anthropologists of that time might conceive the ‘urgent situation’ confronting the Native peoples including the Maliseet and felt the need of documentation of this ‘vanishing’ people and their culture. In the “Introductory note” of “The Malecite Indians, with Notes on The Micmacs” by Mechling in 1958, Edward Sapir mentioned as follow:
“This monograph may be looked upon as a general account of the Indians investigated, though a slight amount of technological detail has also been admitted. The reader must constantly bear in mind that it is no longer possible to present as complete and detailed a picture of the older Malecite life as may still be
4 attempted for tribes which have been subjected to the disintegrating influence of white contact at a much later date than they (Mechling 1958: 1-2).”
Based on Boasian methodological approach “everything is important (Perley 2011:
32)”, anthropological studies on Maliseet around the mid-twentieth-century were trying to collect their language, material culture, rituals, and mythology and explain its cultural distinctiveness and similarities with other groups of Native peoples (Mechling 1958,
1959; Smith and Capes 1957; and Wallis and Wallis 1957). It can be easily verified by reviewing how those papers are organized. For example, Mechling’s extensive studies on the Malecite based on fieldwork from 1910 to 1913 were composed of ten chapters deal with history, life of the individual, kinship, tribal life, religion, games and amusements, temporal divisions and units of measurement, and medical practices except the introduction and the conclusion (Mechling 1958, 1959). Other anthropological studies on the Malecite of this period by Smith and Capes (1957) and by Wallis and Wallis (1957) are also giving an account of economy, beliefs, mortuary customs, phases of social life, games, treatment of injuries, and myth and traditions of the Maliseet people.
Along with such tendency, there are some interesting points in the ways with which the Maliseet were dealt on these studies. To begin with, the studies of this period material culture of Native people was considered as an important tool for explaining the
‘correct cultural position’ of the Maliseet. Mechling puts in as follows: “in order to estimate correctly the cultural position of the Malecites and Micmacs, it seems necessary to consider not only those aspects of their social life […], but also their material culture
(Mechling 1959: 263)”. Then, Mechling uses the shape of their house and the types of canoe, for example, when he explains the cultural similarity and distinctiveness between
5 the Malecite and Micmac as well as their cultural relatedness with other Native peoples such as the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot and the Beothuks of Newfoundland (Mechling
1959: 263-266).
Material culture, however, shows not only the ‘correct cultural position’ of the
Maliseet but also the dynamism of native society in relations with others. It is because that material culture is a medium that can show cultural interaction and dynamism among other Native people. This also can be a clear evidence of what the Maliseet cultural position was among other Aboriginal peoples of this region. A description on the function of ceremonial wampum belts from “The Eastern Algonkian Wabanaki Confederacy” by
Frank G. Speck (1915) indicates this well. From this paper, Speck shows the internal affairs of the four eastern Natives of the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and
Penobscot forming the Wabanaki Confederacy, and their external relationships with
Iroquois and their neighbors through the function of ‘wampum’, or the traditional shell beads of the Native peoples of the Eastern Woodland (Speck 1915: 495-505). According to him, the wampum belts themselves represent “the pledges of the tribe, and played an important role in the life of the confederacy (Speck 1915: 507)”. Although studies on material culture of these people offer another venue to understand the dynamism of native societies, but ethnographies of the mid-twentieth-century are not free from a criticism that it is hard to find the native perspectives from their studies.
In effect, it is really hard to find the original voices of the Maliseet people from the studies of this period, even though those anthropologists mentioned about their informants in the introductory part of the papers. Rather, these studies depend heavily on the documents written by prior missionaries, travellers and captives. For instance, in his
6 explanation on the “Sources of Information”, Mechling shows that his main source of information and his mistrust on accuracy of the information derived from his chief informant. It is as follows:
“This memoir is based both on personal observations and on the statements of other writers. […] In regard to the information derived from living informants, I regret to say that it is not as good as I should like. […] My chief informant, Jim Paul was not paid directly for any information, but was employed at a fixed salary. I am afraid that he made use of other Indians to get information which he gave me as his own, and some errors may thus have arisen, despite my efforts to chek his information by separate account form other individuals. […] It will become apparent to the reader that I quote most frequently in the following memoir from a limited number of writers, Biard, Denys, Le Clercq, Maillard and Giles, to whose works constant reference is made. […] Because these five seem to me to have the greatest knowledge of this region and to give the best description (Mechling 1958: 8-10).”
Other studies of this period also take similar perspective when they write on Maliseet culture and the ways of life. In turn, within these studies Native peoples’ voices have been marginalized and silenced, and eventually have become invisible through interpreting Native people and their culture with the lens of the early observers’ perspectives and opinions4. In this way anthropologists of this time have represented
Native peoples’ realities as if it was frozen, and they were not considered as consumers of information which were produced by explores, missionaries and anthropologists. Within these studies, the Maliseet have been represented remaining being silenced and being stuffed despite they actually exist.
4 However, not every study ignored the Maliseet voices. In “A Report on Tribal Boundaries and Hunting Areas of the Malecite Indian of New Brunswick”, Speck and Hadlock give an explanation on late-nineteenth-century hinting territories of Maliseet people of the St. John river area and the transition of which the Maliseet had experienced results from the contact with the Whites based on prior documents as well as the information derived from their informants (Speck and Hadlock 1946: 361-372).
7 From invisible to visible : Historical reconstructions and the First Nations
Archaeological data indicate that there had been considerable human migration and cultural articulations, changes and continuities in the Northeastern Canada since prehistoric period (Bourque 2001; Clarke 1970; and Leavit 1995). Notwithstanding such data demonstrate the existence of Aboriginal people and the regional cultural history before European had arrived, the dominant historical accounts of this region usually assert that the history of this land started with the ‘newcomers’ for the first time. In the process of nation state building after settlement, the newcomers have developed an idea that their national identity is “deeply rooted in the notion of Canada as a vast northern wilderness (Bonita 2002: 23)”. For this notion of national identity, the histories of
Aboriginal people, their cultural diversity and longevity have been ignored and they became the ‘people without history’.
It is impossible for Aboriginal people of this region, however, to consider themselves as invisible and unknown figures of the contact period and onward historical events. Introducing new perspectives to what is considered as “Canadian history”, Bonita
(2002) critically points out the problems in case of when non-Native dominance academy owns the pasts of the Aboriginal peoples as follows:
“First of all, colonization in normalized. “Native history” becomes accounts of specific intervals of “contact”, accounts which neutralize process of genocide, which never mention racism, and which do not take as part of their purview the devastation and ongoing implications of the policies and processes that are so neutrally described. A second problem, […] is the longevity of colonization and the fact that some Indigenous peoples are considered by non-Native academics to be virtually extinct, to exist only in the pages of historical texts. In such a context,
8 the living descendants of the Aboriginal peoples of Eastern Canada are all to seldom viewed as those who should play central roles in any writing about histories of their ancestors (Bonita 2002: 24-25, emphasis is in the original).”
For many years Aboriginal people have felt invisible, and they could not find themselves in history textbooks. Also they found that they were tangled “in the web of the “Indian” stereotype (MacDougall 2004: 8)” that of “holding timeless spiritual secret, relating more intimately with nature, engaging in collective production, sharing commodities, and living in an extended family (MacDougall 2004: 8)”. Such stereotypes consider the First
Nations as people who have lost their voices and inadvertently denigrate their role in history of North America.
However, as recent attempts to write the history of Northeastern Canada from
Aboriginal peoples’ experience and their perspectives indicate (Bonita 2002; Criag and
Degenais 2009; Dickason 1986; Gould and Semple 1980; Macdougall 2004; Nicholas
1994; Patterson 2009; Paul 2006; Pawling 2010; Rolde 2004; Smith 2003, 2004 and
Upton 1979), the big picture with a different angle offers an alternative venue for understanding the colonial experience of the First Nations communities and a history of contact period. Without First Nations perspectives it can be hard to grasp the big picture of this period. Today, writing history from the Native peoples’ perspective as a key focus is known for ‘ethnohistory’ (Bourque 2001; MacDougall 2004; and Pawling 2010). As a historical and cultural approach to the study of socio-cultural interaction, ethnohistory is
“the cooperative undertaking that employs methodologies from both history and anthropology (Pawling 2010: 5).” Although each work deals with different topics, studies with this alternative perspective share the idea that the contact period is not a starting point of a history of Northeastern Canada, but it is a period of when different values,
9 different ways of thinking had started to interplay among Aboriginal peoples and
Europeans (mainly the French and the British). In addition, these alternative perspectives and interpretations suggest that First Nations were not passive victim of history; rather, from those studies First Nations people has been perceived as an active agency those who gradually adapting to the challenges and changing circumstances. In the following section, I will briefly show that how the dominant narratives that of the history of northeastern Canada pioneered by European newcomers can be differently seen when the history of this region is reviewed by Native peoples’ perspectives and their experiences.
Then, I will consider today’s disputes on resource and land uses among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people as well as the Aboriginal identity struggles with an extension of this colonial history.
Writing History from Native Perspective
“Mercantilists wanted our furs, missionaries wanted our souls,
colonial governments and later, Canada, wanted out lands.”
–Winona Stevenson
MacDougall’s book titled The Penobscot Dance of Resistance: Tradition in the
History of a People shows the cultural history and their circumstances of one of the
Native peoples in the state of Maine. Using dance as a key metaphor, she describes how the Penobscots have been able to maintain their cultural tradition in the whole process of facing European contact, domination, and assimilation policies. In fact, the Penobscot
10 experience can be shared among majority Aboriginal peoples of this region such as the
Maliseet and the Mi’kmaq. As Aboriginal historian Winona Stevenson summarizes as
“Mercantilists wanted our furs, missionaries wanted our souls, colonial governments and later, Canada, wanted out lands (Bonita 2002: 26)”, these shared experiences of colonialism and land dispossession have affected on various aspects of Native peoples’ societies and their ways of life.
With regard to this contact and the onward shift to present, Upton (1979) adds explanations as follows:
“With the coming of the White man, the Micmac entered into a process of acculturation that has continued to this day. This experience, common to all Amerindians, falls into two main phases: non-directed and directed acculturation. At first, two different cultural systems meet on a nearly equal footing and each chooses from the other those trait and materials that are of the most use of them. […] In the second stage, direct contact, one group develops the power to force change in the other and to decide what course that change will take. Under the impact of white trader, missionaries, and settlers, many native people have passed from non-directed to directed acculturation within a generation (Upton 1979: 16).”
In the very early period of the mercantile and commercial colonization, Aboriginal people were able to embrace this new relationship with the Europeans into their ways of life in a manner they can control. In other words, a process of acculturation of this early period can be seen as ‘non-direct’ interaction. For instance, trade with the French fishermen of the first quarter of the sixteenth-century must have started with ritual gift exchanges (Upton 1979: 18). A Mi’kmaq historian Daniel Paul says this gift exchange ritual was essential for the French traders: “In trade and land acquisition, European adopted the gift-giving practices of the Amerindian nations. For the Mi’kmaq, the exchange of presents was intended to create a brotherly atmosphere. […] However,
11 French authorities appreciated that gifts and trade with the Amerindian were essential for reasons other than financial profit (Paul 2004: 40).” The Aboriginal people incorporated the European’s seasonal arrival into their annual life cycle and through this seasonal ‘gift exchange relationship’ the Aboriginal societies naturally adopted European technologies such as iron knives, copper kettles, and guns (Upton 1979; and Patterson 2009). With regard to this introduction of new technologies and changes on everyday life of the
Aboriginal people, Upton offers an interesting explanation:
“On the surface, European technologies and goods reinforced the traditional ways by permitting the Aboriginals to do what they had done more efficiently. A single discharge from a musket could kill five or six ducks where an arrow could only take one; a cooking pot saved endless hours of hollowing out tree stumps and heating water with red hot stone; an iron knife facilitated everything from skinning animals to making snowshoes (Upton 1979: 18-19).”
As long as these changes and innovations could be explained within the traditional ways of thought, utilizing European technologies were not a challengeable issue. The world of the Northeastern woodland Algonquian was filled with supernatural forces and there were various relations between human and non-human beings (Martin 1974; Mechling
1959; Smith and Capes 1957; and Wallis and Wallis 1957). Within this world, animals as well as inanimate objects also have spirits. Following this belief system, the new implements could be adopted into the spirit world of the Aboriginal societies, for example, as the ‘spirit’ of iron knife, or the ‘spirit’ of kettle.
On the other hand, as Dickason points out, Native people sought trade alliance with Europeans because of the usefulness of their goods, and also because of “the prestige these brought in fulfilling social obligations within their communities as well as in their diplomatic relations with other tribal groups (Dickason 1986: 46)”. With regard to
12 this prestige among intertribal diplomatic relations, a record on medals for the Wabanaki chiefs from the French King is worthy to note. Nicholas Smith (2004) gives some clue as follows: “In 1713 French missionaries recommended that the French King send medals to present to the Wabanaki chiefs. Six large medals for the chiefs and twelve smaller ones for those of lesser rank were soon on their way. A hundred years later it was observed that the Penobscot chief wears to this day, as a badge of honor, a medal of the likeness of
Louis XIV. Wabanaki chiefs continued wearing medals as chiefly insignia until about
1930 (Smith 2004: 391).” As seen from this description, the medals from French King had considered ‘a badge of honor’ among Wabanaki chiefs and it was handed down to their descendant over two hundred years. That is, the medals identify the European nation with which the chief was aligned.
In the long run, this new force did not remained unaffected. Such adaptations were threatening to destabilize the every aspect of Aboriginal peoples’ life and their intertribal relationships (Bonita 2002; and Upton 1979). From the paper focusing on the works of
Leacock which are drawn from the seventeenth-century writings of Jesuit priest Paul
LeJeune, Nicholas (1994) asserts that the Maliseet and Micmac societies had experienced great changes by the beginning of the 1600s due to the fur trade (Nicholas 1994: 230).
According to her, the fur trade “struck at the heart of Native cultures, their values of sharing and cooperation (Nicholas 1994: 230)”. As hundreds of trade ships of different
European nations began to clash over access to furs, the existing intertribal political alliances in eastern North America had been disrupted (Bonita 2002; and Bourque 2001).
Pointing out the fact that there were a variety of large-scale warfare that appears to have grown throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on this region,
13 Bonita says: “It is important to take into consideration the extent to which the new commodities offered by the Europeans gave obvious material advantages to those nations who successfully controlled different trade to obtain many of the necessities of life, access to trade routes became not only desirable but actually necessary for survival
(Bonita 2002:27).” By using European technologies, Native people became able to travel faster and further, and in turn, they no longer maintain the cooperative relations with other band members when they hunt5. More importantly, these outsiders gradually became more important figure to Native people for survival, and this resulted in “such extreme levels of competition between Indigenous nations (Bonita 2002: 27)”. Trade and warfare of this period among First Nations dramatically changed the way of life and the relations to the land of the Maliseet people. However, as Bonita warns, this transition should not be seen as evidence of savagery of these people; rather, such dramatic changes should be understood as results from “the severe pressures caused by the intense competition of European powers during mercantile colonialism to depopulate entire regions of all fur-bearing animals (Bonita 2002: 28)”
The arrival of the Europeans brought not only the tools which led significant changes on the Maliseet and other Aboriginal societies’ lifestyle, but also diseases such as smallpox, measles, and cholera. The archaeological and historical records suggest that due to the regular contact with Europeans since the sixteenth century, Aboriginal societies experienced severe epidemics (Bonita 2002; Bourque 200; and MacDougall
2004) throughout the following century. As a result of these continuous wave of
5 For this reason, Upton explains that the division of the land into hunting areas for individual families became more acceptable (Upton 1979: 19). “A Report on Tribal Boundaries and Hunting Areas of the Malecite Indian of New Brunswick” by Speck and Hadlock (1946) offers a vivid description and substantial explanation on this transition after the White intervened the Native peoples’ economy (see Speck and Hadlock 1946).
14 epidemics Aboriginal populations were tremendously declined. When diseases decimated these people, a variety of things build up over generations were also broken down.
Furthermore, this devastating effect of new diseases aroused doubts among the
Aboriginal peoples concerning their traditional belief systems and practices. In consideration of this idea, Martin shares his concerns:
“Disease did more than decimate the native population; it effectively prepared the way for subsequent phases of European contact by breaking native morale and, perhaps even more significantly, by cracking their spiritual edifice. It is reasonable to suggest that European disease rendered the Indian’s (particularly the shaman’s) ability to control and other wise influence the supernatural realm dysfunctional- because his magic and other traditional cures were now ineffective-thereby causing the Indian to apostatize (in effect), which in turn subverted the “retaliation” principle of taboo and opened the way to a corruption of the Indian-land relationship under the influence of the fur trade (Martin 1979: 17).”
It is hard to say that the epidemics were the only factor of the Christianization of the
Aboriginal people, however as Martin points out European-introduced diseases had contributed the destabilization of Aboriginal spiritual relations with their supernatural non-human beings and affected their conversion to Christianity in the seventeenth- century. Meanwhile, the fact that those who produced the historical records on this contact period were mainly the missionaries shows that they had considerably engaged with the Native peoples’ everyday life. In fact, it is important to perceive that all the factors such as the fur trade, the newcomers, the epidemics, the propagation of
Christianity, the missionaries and the changes of the Native societies were entangles altogether affecting to each other. Upton is illustrating how the traders, missionaries, and settlers were intertwined with each other and led gradual changes on the Micmac society:
15 “The fur and skin trade introduced change to the Micmacs; their lives slowly altered over generations in a way frequently beyond their comprehension. The trader laid the groundwork for the missionary, who came to answer the unsolved riddles of white contact by propounding an alternative explanation for the whole life. The missionary directly challenged the spiritual complex that had already been undermined by the economic impact of the French trader. […] The activities of the missionary complemented those of the trader, and in many parts of North America both combined together to pave the way for the settler, the final agent in the destruction of the Indian. But as with trader, and missionary, the impact of the settler on the Micmacs was so gradual over so many years that the changes might almost pass unnoticed (Upton 1979: 20-25).”
This shows that it is impossible to see those entangled web of forces as separative factors.
If one dose, it reveals only partial aspects of the Native history. It means that the history of northeastern Canada is composed of not only the experiences of the newcomers but also that of the Native people of this region. When we perceive and understand those forces are complexly interrelated, it can be revealed at last what is the context that of the
Native people has experienced in the history and how they have had a voice for their history.
During the eighteenth-century, Aboriginal people of Maritime found themselves in the middle of “the growing conflict between the French and the British (Coates 2000:
31)”. As many historical and ethnohistorical studies indicate (Bonita 2002; Bourque
2001; Chute 2002; Craig and Dagenais 2009; Dickason 1986; MacDougall 2004;
Patterson 2009; Paul 2006, Pawling 2010; Rolde 2004; and Upton 1979), Maliseet,
Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot, the members of the Wabanaki confederacy, became “part of the French alliance system since the late seventeen century until the collapse of French power in the region after the Seven years’ War (1755-1763)(Patterson
2009: 32)”. The changeover colonial power from French to British took place in the
16 period between the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 and the Treaty of Paris of 1763 (Dickason
1986; and Upton 1979). Especially, the Treaty of Paris authorized Great Britain’s definitive acquisition of the entire region and gave them a practical control over northeastern America (Upton 1979).
The British colonial government dealt with Native people in quite different ways from that of French did. As Bonita explains, what the British wanted and sought was “not furs and missions but land where they could build colonies for their surplus populations
(Bonita 2002: 34)”. The political relationship between the Aboriginals of this region and the British colonial government during the eighteenth century was frequently considered as conflicts and warfare. And these conflicts subsided at various times, when Native people and the British government entered into a written understanding of their relationship through treaties. According to Patterson’s explanation, while treaty-making was “part of the historical tradition of both Aboriginal peoples and European colonizers, the British insistence on written treaties was novel (Patterson 2009: 32).” Under the regime of the British government, treaty-making aroused in all the colonies and those treaties took a variety forms and served various purposes such as “to reconcile Native people to British settlement, establish or preserve peace, open up trade, or detach them from imperial rivals such as France (Patterson 2009: 33)”. At this point, it is important to have in mind the fact that there were fundamentally different understandings and assumptions on the meaning of the treaties among Aboriginals and British government.
Coates (2000) gives clear explanations on these different assumptions:
“Within the British/European tradition, such treaties were about sovereignty; with the agreements transferring effective control of the land and its inhabitants to the British. The British argued that, by signing the treaties, the First Nations became subject to British law. […] The Mi’kmaq and other First Nations took the
17 agreements, as fit with their tradition, to represent peace accords, promises not to wage war and to share resources. Theses treaties were not, like later western Canadian agreements, clearly devoted to the Aboriginal people’s surrender of land and resources, even though explicit land surrenders were actually required before indigenous lands could be alienated for other purposes (Coates 2000: 41).”
These different understandings on the role of the treaties are still controversial issues encircled the use of land and resources of this region.
Meanwhile, since the nineteenth-century, the Native people adopted the practice of submitting written documents or petitions to the government in order to make a voice for their interest. Petitions were one of forms of making a voice and diplomatic negotiation
(Gould and Semple 1980; and Pawling 2010). For instance, in 1840, a Mi’kmaq Chief
Paussamigh Pemmenaweet sent a petition directly to Queen Victoria as follows:
“ I cannot cross the great Lake to talk to you for my canoe is too small, and I am old and weak. I cannot look upon you for my eyes not to see so far. You cannot hear my voice across the great Waters. I therefore, send this wampum and paper talk to tell the Queen I am in trouble. My people are in trouble … no hunting ground … no beaver … no otter … poor forever … all these woods were once ours. Our Fathers possessed them all … white man has taken all that was ours … let us not perish (Gould and Semple 1980: 50)”.
Due to their practices and efforts to produce petitions, it becomes easier to consider what is the “tribal perceptions of the past (Pawling 2010: 6)” more vividly comparing with the early period of European contact in which there were little or no written records produced by Native peoples.
In terms of using petitions for art of voicing, Pawling gives an extensive and vivid description on “how Wabanaki people have resorted to written petitions as a political tool to confront challenges in their homeland (Pawling 2010:1)”. Focusing on the land dispossession of Native people along with the flood of immigrants from Europe and
18 onward establishment of the international border between present-day Canada and United
States, Pawling examines how Wabanaki peoples, those who have lived the Northeast region6, experienced this new geo-political reality and resisted against it with use of ‘pen and ink’ for their own interests. By regarding the Wabanaki members as a main agency of the history of geo-politics on this region, this study also reveals how different perspectives on land has been articulated and produced Aboriginal identity connected with their homeland.
Reviewing ethnohistorical studies on this region help to shed lights on the importance of historical thinking and writing from Aboriginal perspectives. As mentioned earlier, it is impossible to consider the history of Native people and their complex relations with the newcomers from two-dimensional perspective. It is because layers of experiences such as fur trade, gift exchange rituals, advance of Europeans technologies and diseases, intertribal warfare, Christianization, land dispossession and forced move, and establishment of reserves are all dynamically entangled with each other forming the history of this region for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginals. Moreover, historical thinking and writing have been essential in Native peoples’ resistance to colonization. It is because the reconstruction of historical events and the process of colonization help to understand the background of what their losses are as well as the difficulties with which they are engaging. Furthermore, such attempt for reconstruction of history from Aboriginal perspective has rescued the historicity of Aboriginals from the myth composing the colonial discourse on the beginning of the history of North America
6 Specifically, it includes present-day eastern Maine, western New Brunswick, and the southern shore of Quebec.
19 with which started from the arrival of white newcomers. Today, writing history and thinking about the past have become an essential part of Aboriginal resistance and revitalization movements. Producing and understanding their own histories also allowed them to make a voice illuminating their resiliency over time and Aboriginals abilities to communicate with dynamic social forces.
Uncertain Rights: Land, Resource and Aboriginal people
History provides an important context for understanding contemporary land and resource issues. As mentioned above section, contact with European brought drastic changes for Aboriginals. Despite their early relations were quite cooperative, those relations eventually meant “being pushed from their lands, stripped of independence, dominated by foreign governments, relegated to tiny and marginal reserves, cut off from resources and the means of making a living, assailed by an aggressive clergy, and later, subjected to an intrusive education system capped by the now infamous residential schools (Coates 2000: xv).” This process of alienation of Aboriginals from their lands and resources made them as marginalized and the most disadvantaged groups in today’s
Canadian society. As a result of this unbalanced relationship, Aboriginal people in
Maritime in particular, and also in Canada in general, have been struggling for gaining control of their land and resources through various actions from highway blockade to using the Court decision (Blakney 2003; and Coates 2000).
Dealing with the recent conflict seen in the Aboriginal forestry as an example,
Blakney (2003) highlights emerging tensions among various interest groups such as the
20 Maliseet and Mi’kmaq people, the Province of New Brunswick, the federal government, and the large forestry cooperation within the contemporary Aboriginal forestry.
According to Blakney, there was a huge difference on understanding the relationship of people and land between Aboriginals and the Euro-Canadians. For the Maliseet and
Mi’kmaq people, “the Earth is a living, conscious being that must be treated with respect and care (Blakney 2003: n63).” Such understanding on land of these people can be linked with the concept of ‘homeland’ what Pawling is trying to understand. According to
Pawling, for Native people homeland is “an organic interaction that occurred between
Native people and the land (Pawling 2010: 559),” and it is “more than a map that defined a tribal territory (Pawling 2010: 16).” For them, homeland is a stage of their lifeworld in which the complex landscapes with all human experiences reflecting Native peoples’ cultural perspective of space and natural world. For the European newcomers, on the contrary, the nature considered as exploitable object and “science and technology systematically and calculatively expanded the means available to understand and manipulate nature (Blakney 2003: 64).” These different understandings on nature and natural resources has merged in varying degrees, and along with the historical context such as eighteen century treaties various understandings on land and resource use have produced today’s complex situation. Several court decisions may shed light on understanding of today’s complex circumstance around land and resource use.
-The Turnbull Decision and Aboriginal Forestry
21 The Turnbull decision by the lower court in New Brunswick on Thomas Peter Paul who was charged with “illegally harvesting bird’s-eye maple on Crown land (Blakney
2003: 66)” and a chain of events after this decision indicate that how different understandings and assumptions from various interest groups are interrelated with each other producing dynamic and uncertain aspects of contemporary Aboriginal forestry. In
November 1997, Justice Turnbull ruled that the Crown Lands and Forests Acts did not apply to the Maliseet and Mi’kmaq of New Brunswick because they have the right to harvest and sell products derived from natural resources defined by treaties7 (Blakney
2003). After this decision announced, harvesting wood on Crown land by Aboriginals in
New Brunswick began. Unfortunately, most of the Aboriginal communities did not have proper guidelines or training programs for wood harvests, in turn, such lack of experiences brought unexpected results. Opposing the indiscriminate logging by
Aboriginals, threats of physical violence, confiscation of equipment among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal loggers were happened, and the large logging companies refused to buy wood cut by Aboriginals (Blakney 2003: 67). In the following year, finally, the
Turnbull decision was reversed and the Aboriginals were ordered to cease cutting trees.
With regard to this decision, several First Nation communities negotiated with the province, and they got 5% of the annual cut deducted from the wood supply of the province’s forestry companies.
During this interim period, traditional leaders, members of band council and chiefs, coordinators, Aboriginal loggers, non-Aboriginal loggers, the New Brunswick provincial government and the federal government had experienced the unequal
7 For example, the Treaty of the Peace with the Mi’kmaq of 1752 clearly mentioned a commercial right regarding natural resources (Gould and Semple 1980: 172-173).
22 distribution of benefits, misunderstanding on Aboriginal rights, and most importantly conflicts of interests and values. At this point, it is important to take into consideration that there were layers of stakes and conflicts not only between the Aboriginal loggers and the non-Aboriginal loggers but also among different inner groups of the First Nation communities. As Blakney succinctly points out, this clash within New Brunswick forestry is “not simply a collision between two realities (Euro-Canadian and traditional
Aboriginal) but of two hybrid realities – the reconstructed traditional Aboriginal and the federal Indian (Blakney 2003: 74).” These historically and socially constructed relations are never be static; rather, those different forces are constantly produced new relations and new understandings reinterpreting the past and present. There is another court decision which shows the uncertainty and various understandings on Aboriginal land and resource use and their rights.
- The Marshall Decision and Aboriginal Fisheries
The Marshall Decision of 1999 is one of the most controversial cases revealing the layers of complex relations and different understandings of Aboriginal rights. On the 17th
September 1999, the Aboriginal people of Maritime including the Maliseet and Mi’kmaq, the Canadian public, the academic professionals, and the Supreme Court of Canada witnessed a historical court decision on Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi’kmaq from Membertou band who was charged with an ‘illegal’ eel fishing and selling during a closed season.
Connecting the grounds of this ruling to the eighteenth-century treaties covering the commercial use of resources between the Aboriginal people and the British, the Supreme
23 Court of Canada made a decision that Aboriginal use of resources- in this case, eels- is valid. This decision brought enormous debates on its scope of application. As Coates points out, it is because “it was not merely about eels. If the Mi’kmaq had a right to harvest one species for sale, that tights could logically extend to other fishery resources.
Potentially, it could extend to timber, minerals, and other natural resources as well
(Coates 2000: 6).” With the different interpretations of ruling by proponent and opponents of Aboriginal rights, the Supreme Court of Canada, unprecedentedly, issued a clarification of the Marshall Decision in November 1999. Whereas the first decision did not clearly mentioned how far this decision can be applied, the Court issued second clarification8 emphasized the limits of the Marshall decision that it did not apply to other natural resources, and also clarified that “governments had the authority to impose regulations over Aboriginal treaty rights (Coates 2000: 18).”
On the surface, the Marshall Decision might seem to deal with the fisheries resources and its rights to use of Aboriginal people based on the eighteenth-century treaties. However, along with a long line of other cases from St. Catherine’s Milling and
Lumber Company (1888) through Syliboy (1928), White and Bob (1965), Calder (1973),
Guerin (1985), Simon (1985), Sparrow (1990), Van der peet, N.T.C. Smokehouse and
Gladstone (1996) to Delgamuukw (1997) the Marshall Decision and its clarification reveal that how the webs of historical, social, political, and economical forces are entangled with each other. In addition, it also indicates that such complex layers of forces
8 On the contents of this clarification, Coates explains: “First, the Marshall Decision related specifically to eels and that it was not obvious that the judgment opened up all natural resource sectors to Aboriginal people. Second, the Court made it clear that the Frist Nations’ right to fish had less priority that the conservation efforts of the federal government and did not automatically displace non-Aboriginal users of fishing resources (Coates 2000:19).”
24 are forming various understandings and drawing different reactions within a variety of interest groups. As Coates shows, and acute tensions were seen between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginal stakeholders in the whole process of this decision. Hope, victory, anger, resentment, and frustration were seen from both groups, and in turn, these conflicts attracted public attention to a political and social response on Aboriginal rights and their current situations of marginalization, economic distress, social and cultural difficulties.
Both examples, the Turnbull and the Marshall decision, indicate that today’s
Aboriginal rights and its practices are interrelated with different interest groups and intertwined with various forces. Today, Aboriginals, those who are standing in the middle of the intersection in which different values, understandings are entwined with each other, should negotiate not only with the federal government, the provincial government, the large cooperation, non-Aboriginal stakeholders but also with different sub-groups within Aboriginal communities. As Coates says as follows, “the only certainty about the
Marshall decision is that it has created enormous uncertainty for the Maritimes (Coates
2000: 187)”, the practices of the Aboriginal rights and its impact and results are surrounded with uncertainty. Also those practices open another venue for discussion engaging with the Aboriginal identity politics.
Aboriginal Identity Politics and The Meaning of ‘Being’ Maliseet
Today, identity is one of key concepts linked with a variety issues related with
Aboriginal people from history reconstruction to cultural revitalization movements. As mentioned in the introductory part of this paper, identity is a process of articulations
25 which reflect the complex interactions among historical, social, political, economical and cultural forces. Asking an extensive analysis on the determinants of the Maliseetness,
Perley (2011) points out that this analysis should include “not only the emergence of linguistic and cultural forms but also outside hegemonic contributions to formative constellations of Maliseetness (Perley 2011: 27).” This means that a significant part of
Maliseet peoples’ sense of identity originates from their self-positioning with the larger society and what they conceive of their culture, tradition and the history. Meanwhile, those factors composing aboriginal self-identification such as culture, tradition, other social, political, and economic forces and history are not static. By constantly shifting and reinterpreted, these factors make Maliseet identity as a challenging discussion topic. In terms of ‘being’ Maliseet and its meaning to the members, among many others, Perley
(2006, 2011) shares insightful understandings as well as introduces one key concept of aboriginality.
In the extensive ethnographic studies on Maliseet language revitalization movements and the process of Maliseet self-identification construction, Bernard Perley
(2011), a member of the Maliseet, shows dynamic contexts of what makes Maliseet identity. Focusing on several variables such as language, blood, and aboriginality, Perley argues that there are inner dynamics of Aboriginal identity politics and its recognition.
According to him, there are different understandings on language and blood which have acted as the distinctive Maliseet attributes among different generations.
For the elders and adults generations, language and blood are commonly considered as important distinctive attributes for being Maliseet. Especially for elders, as
Hanrahan also indicates from her work with Maliseet elders, language is the most
26 important factor when they think about their identity. One Maliseet elder Imelda Perley says: “Our language is our ancestral breath. We can’t lose that. Language is who we are and who we will be; it is the centre of my learning and teaching and a gift from creation
(Hanrahan 2008: 201)”. For adult generation, however, blood is considered more important qualifier for Maliseetness than language. This is a generation who has the extensive connections with other Native peoples in Canada as well as the United States, also they have participated in “the ethnic renewal or political resurgence that has characterized aboriginal politics since the sixties (Perley 2011: 160).” In the meantime, this generation has also witnessed and experienced the increasing disappearance of the language and English used in everyday interactions as a first language. As Perley explains, language, blood, and identity were complexly intertwined “by the tension between shifting practices of Maliseet and English language usage (Perley 2011:168)”, and this affect the configuration of the adult generation’s most important identity qualifier from language to blood. Interestingly, for younger generations, both language and blood are not taking as determining factors in Maliseetness, rather “lived experience, the embodiment of intersubjective relations with other residents (Perley 2011: 169)” are considered as essential for their self-identification as Maliseet. Those members of this young adults generation are the children of the adult generation. For this generation the
Maliseet language is a common weakness in their identity components. Instead they suggest the alternative ways of that how Maliseetness is experienced, articulated, negotiated and expressed and they also show that the meaning of being Maliseet is equally complex issue for younger people.
27 With these contexts in mind, Perley argues that “the phenomenon ‘aboriginality’ is replacing them as a distinctive marker of a situational and complex Maliseet identity
(Perley 2011: 151).” Under the circumstances in which language and blood as the distinctive attributes for Maliseet identity are slowly being perished, understanding the process of ‘aboriginality’ becomes crucial for understanding what it meant to be
Maliseet. According to Perley, aboriginality is “a process aboriginal peoples use to resist the assimilatory pressures of dominant “culture” through the revitalization of aboriginal languages and traditions lifeways (Perley 2006: 192)”. Aboriginality is a problem of aboriginals’ identity politics in a contemporary context. It is also linked with the empowerment of Native cultures in the late-twentieth-century by international indigenous rights movement and other cultural revitalization movements that allow Native people to assert their identity through the revival of their history, language, traditional knowledge, music and other cultural forms. In other words, it is strategies for aboriginal self- identification, in this case it is a process of interactions and articulations of various forces forming the Maliseetness. When one recognizes the aboriginality as a variety of strategies and efforts for aboriginal self-identification process, one can see that how this process of
Maliseet self-identification is interconnected with various forces and practices.
As Perley (2006, 2011) explains by revealing Maliseet aboriginality through language revitalization movements in Tobique band, Maliseet self-identification process should be considered with various degrees of power relations and its historical context. In fact, today’s aboriginal language revitalization movements are interrelated to the complex contexts results from their colonial history, assimilation polices, residential schooling experiences, and today’s marginalization of Maliseet language as a third language in New
28 Brunswick circumstance. Therefore, as indicated above if one understands aboriginality as strategies and practices for aboriginal self-identification, various efforts to recognize the contexts their current circumstance could be embraced as a kind of efforts for aboriginality. This means a variety of spectrums of efforts and practices can be included into the aboriginality.
With this in mind, historic perception and history reconstruction in Native perspective can be integrated into as one of essential part of this aboriginal self- determination process9. Today, writing history and rethinking about their past have became essential part of resistance for many Aboriginals in Canada. Mi’kmaq historian
Daniel Paul’s effort for rewriting the Aboriginal – European history, for example, indicates that those efforts are intensively intertwined with aboriginality (Paul 2006)10.
Such efforts reveal that there are alternative ways of approaching to multi-layered
Aboriginal history story-telling as well as understanding historical contexts of time, place and various events are crucial for today’s aboriginality.
In addition to historical context for understanding aboriginality, it is also important to consider the determinants of Maliseetness in relations with the larger social and political forces. This is a problem related to what Perley mentioned as “outside hegemonic contributions (Perley 2011: 27)”. Among many others, the Indian Act is one
9 Historical reconstruction efforts including the establishment of ethnohistory by both Native and non-Native scholars have contributed to this aboriginal self-making process. See Bonita (2002), Brouque (2001), Clarke (1970), Coates (2000), Craig and Dagenais (2009), Dickason (1986), Gould and Semple (1980), Leavitt (1995), MacDougall (2004), Nicholas (1994), Paul (2006), Pawling (2010), Rolde (2004), Smith (2003, 2004) and Upton (1979).
10 Throughout the book, Paul (2006) usually employs quite direct and caustic terms in describing the relationships between the Mi’kmaq and European newcomers. However, such narratives and description can be considered as a form of resistive aboriginality.
29 of most influential formal outside hegemonic forces affecting aboriginal self- determination. The Indian Act is a formal institution which was enacted “as a means to civilize the Native peoples by assimilating them into dominant life and culture (Perley
2011: 175).” It rules not only the Native people in Canada in general but also has defined and created categories who is and who is not “Indian” (Gould and Semple 1980; Perley
2011; and Silman 1987). In terms of this ‘recognition’ of the Indian status, Senier (2012) also shares insightful understandings by focusing the governments’ recognition and its impact on Native peoples’ self-representation. Discussing two different Native tribes’ efforts for federal recognition and its opposite results in the late twentieth century in
Maine state, Senier shows the ironic aspects11 and unexpected problems of the federal
‘Indian’ recognition such as conflicts among members who live in the reserve and who are not12. However, by appropriating the ‘Native hub’ paradigm emphasizing the ways
Native people gather for activism and overcoming differences, Senier suggests possibilities of aboriginality at various locations such as “a traditional fishing spot, a school gymnasium, an annual academic conference, or a kitchen table (Senier 2012: 18).”
Meanwhile, Aboriginal women have more intensively experienced those outside hegemonic forces by sexually discriminatory rules. Since the enactment of the Indian Act
11 According to Senier, recognition brought two different directions: “On the one hand, it provides political and economic structures and resources necessary for people to live. […] On the other hand, recognition can constrain Native lands and Native communities by delimiting them to smaller territories and identities (Senier 2012: 18).”
12 Coates (2000) adds explanations on struggles between this on- and off- reserve groups is “about partly resources and power, but also illustrates a difference of opinion about what is best for Mi’kmaq and Maliseet culture. To those who support reserve residence requirements, it is imperative that the people stay together to preserve the language and the culture. To Scatter to surrounding towns and cities, they argue, weakens the band and the social order. […] Off- reserve residents, argue that, […] to stay on the reserve is to risk being drawn into the morass of social despair; towns and cities at least offer greater hope (Coates 2000: 63)”.
30 in 1876, it has been amended many times, and each amendment reflected the sociopolitical contexts for dealing with Indian matters. Among others, the 1985 amendment which is know for Bill C-31 brought considerable changes on Aboriginal women and their children’s ‘Indian status’. Until the passage of Bill C-31, Aboriginal women who married non-Aboriginal man automatically lost their aboriginal status
(Coates 2000; Perley 2011; and Silman 1987)13. After this 1985 amendment, many
Aboriginal women who married non-Aboriginal man returned to reserves, however they only found themselves in the middle of continued discrimination and hardship. This is because even though the 1985 Indian Act eliminated gender discrimination, this amendment also added new rules for affecting Aboriginal status. It is so-called the third generation rule which means that according to Clatworthy “parenting between Indians and non-Indians over two successive generations results in loss of entitlement to Indian registration among the offspring of the second generation (Perley 2011: 176-177).” Along with other determinants such as language, blood and various intersubjective interactions with other Maliseet members, this ‘outside hegemonic force’ contributes to the complex dynamics of the process of Maliseet self-determination. As has been seen above, the meaning and the process of ‘being’ Maliseet is not simply given to an individual or a group. Rather, the Maliseetness is a process of articulations results from the complex interactions among historical, social, political and cultural forces.
13 With regard to this Silman (1987) puts in as follows: “When she married a non-status man, an Indian woman born with status lost it, unable to regain it even if she subsequently was divorced or widowed. Along with her status, the woman lost her band membership and with it her property, inheritance, residency, burial, medical, educational and voting rights on the reserve (Silman 1987: 12).”
31 Conclusion
Contemporary Maliseet people in Canada are in the middle of myriad difficulties in establishing their identity. Self-identification is not a simple problem for today’s aboriginals including Maliseet people. In a sense, it is partly caused from the discourse that they are passive victims of history. However, as a number of historical and ethnographical studies show that they are not passive victims of history, rather they are active ‘agencies’ in every single moment. When we see the Maliseet and other aboriginal people as active agencies, we can understand what actually happened to both the
European newcomers and the indigenous peoples, as well as how they have experienced afterward a range of changes. With this in mind, it becomes important to pay attention on the fact that historical continuity cannot be separated from today’s Maliseet people and other aboriginal peoples’ struggle and self-identification. Their self-identification is not a permanent, fixed sense of belongings determined by just blood. Rather, these studies reveal that Maliseetness is a continuously challenged process, namely process as articulations which reflect the complex interactions among historical, social, political, economical and cultural forces.
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