skin for skin Narrating Native Histories Series editors: K. Tsianina Lomawaima Alcida Rita Ramos Florencia E. Mallon Joanne Rappaport Editorial Advisory Board: Denise Y. Arnold Noenoe K. Silva Charles R. Hale David Wilkins Roberta Hill Juan de Dios Yapita Narrating Native Histories aims to foster a rethinking of the ethical, methodological, and conceptual frameworks within which we locate our work on Native histories and cultures. We seek to create a space for effective and ongoing conversations between North and South, Natives and non- Natives, academics and activists, throughout the Americas and the Pacific region. This series encourages analyses that contribute to an understanding of Native peoples’ relationships with nation- states, including histo- ries of expropriation and exclusion as well as projects for autonomy and sovereignty. We encourage collaborative work that recognizes Native intellectuals, cultural inter- preters, and alternative knowledge producers, as well as projects that question the relationship between orality and literacy. skin for skin DEATH AND LIFE FOR INUIT AND INNU GERALD M. SIDER Duke University Press Durham and London 2014 © 2014 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper ∞ Designed by Heather Hensley Typeset in Arno Pro by Copperline Book Services, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Sider, Gerald M. Skin for skin : death and life for Inuit and Innu / Gerald M. Sider. pages cm—(Narrating Native histories) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978- 0- 8223- 5521- 2 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 978- 0- 8223- 5536- 6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Naskapi Indians—Newfoundland and Labrador—Labrador— Social conditions. 2. Inuit—Newfoundland and Labrador— Labrador—Social conditions. 3. Naskapi Indians—Health and hygiene—Newfoundland and Labrador—Labrador. 4. Inuit—Health and hygiene—Newfoundland and Labrador—Labrador. i. Title. ii. Series: Narrating Native histories. e78.l3s53 2014 362.84'97107182—dc23 2013026390 Cover art: Conte drawing of Sedna by the Labrador Inuit (Nunatsiavummiut) artist Heather Igloliorte. For Francine Egger- Sider il miglior fabbro—the better maker The Latin motto on the Hudson’s Bay Company coat of arms ispro pelle cutem, which translates roughly as “a skin for a skin.” —Explanation posted on the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Internet site. The company traded for furs with the Native peoples of Canada from 1670 to the mid- twentieth century. This was their motto from the mid- 1670s to 2002. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man . still he holds fast his integrity, although thou movest me against him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, [Satan continued] and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job. —Job 2:3–7 King James Version I have made it my study to examine the nature and character of the Indians and however repugnant it may be to our feelings, I am con- vinced that they must be ruled with a rod of iron to bring, and to keep them in a proper state of subordination. —George Simpson, governor in chief of Rupert’s Land and the Hudson’s Bay Company in what is now Canada, 1821–1860, in 1825 CONTENTS Preface xi Acknowledgments xvii one Historical Violence 1 two Owning Death and Life 25 Making “Indians” and “Eskimos” from Native Peoples three Living within and against Tradition, 1800–1920 59 four The Peoples without a Country 107 five Mapping Dignity 145 six Life in a Concentration Village 163 seven Today May Become Tomorrow 209 eight Warriors of Wisdom 235 Notes 251 References 271 Index 283 Gallery appears after page 154 PREFACE Labrador is the northeasternmost part of mainland Canada—a stretch of rocky and rough land along the north Atlantic coast. It has long been the homeland of two Native peoples, the Inuit and the Innu, who are a branch of the Cree Indian peoples. Starting in the late 1960s and intensifying relent- lessly since then, both Native peoples have been experiencing interwoven epidemics of substance abuse—mostly gasoline sniffing and alcohol—plus youth suicide, domestic violence, and high rates of children born damaged because their mothers drank alcohol while pregnant. During the fall semester of 2001 I was living with my family in St. John’s, Newfoundland, doing research on the declining Newfoundland fishery. Lab- rador is part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Newfoundland media were then full of reports both about these epi- demics and about the mostly ineffective measures that Newfoundland and Canada, who had shared responsibility, were taking in their attempts to help. By 2001 I had been working on the historical anthropology of Newfound- land fishing villages for three decades. As a great many fishers from northern Newfoundland had been going, seasonally, to fish from the Labrador coasts, and had been doing this for over 150 years, I knew a bit about the history of Labrador. What caught my attention in 2001 was the fact that the media were re- porting a widespread consensus—among government officials, academics, consultants, and media pundits—that the epidemics of communal self- and collective destruction were provoked by the forced relocation of Native peo- ples into centralized communities that Native youth referred to as “concen- tration villages.” These were, indeed, miserable places to have to live—poorly insulated or noninsulated houses with no running water, no toilets, no sinks, no showers, no sewerage, and all this in a sub- Arctic environment so that some people would wake up on a winter morning with the breakfast food in the cupboard frozen solid and find their children with skin infections because they could not wash effectively. So to blame the tragedies that developed within Native communities on the forced relocation of Native people into such unlivable places that the government did not bother to improve for decades, despite their promises to do so, made undeniable sense. But there is a problem with stopping the attempt to understand at that point. This problem, which I only dimly grasped at the start of the research, was that the suffering imposed by this forced relocation was not at all new, although the self- destruction largely was. Native peoples in Labrador had been subject to brutal abuse for several hundred years since contact, and what changed was their ability to deal with this abuse without turning on themselves and each other. That question, that problem of what changed in Native peoples’ abilities to deal with all the suffering imposed on them—what changed, and why, and what remedies might help address this issue—became the initial focus of the first several years of my research. My hunch that more was involved than relo- cation to, and continuing forced residence in, villages that were such difficult places to live was further supported when, in 2003, the Innu residents of one of the worst places moved to a new community, where the houses were well insulated, there were running water and sewerage, a community recreation center, and more, and the same problems very soon returned in full force. Beyond the hunches that began this research the work was far from easy or quick, for the relevant information was scattered among widely different sources, and these sources often contained little more than hints. Moreover, I made an important mistake, which I did not realize until the midpoint of my work. I was quite unsettled by the emerging picture, as the data from different sources came together, revealing the frequency of im- posed famines and forced relocations, devastating epidemics of introduced diseases, the murderous grind of constantly present diseases, including es- pecially tuberculosis, and the relentless stress of coping with the loss of their resources. In this context my focus on how Native peoples coped, or tried to cope, with all this became too narrow. I did not adequately look at a wider xii preface range of issues, for I was finding it difficult both to look closely at these events and to look away from them. In the spring of 2006, five years into this research, I gave a paper on it at Cornell University’s anthropology department. In a wonderful turning, Professor Kurt Jorden—whom I had worked with when he was a doctoral student, studying with me—opened a rather serious critique of this paper, along with his even more forceful colleague, Professor Audra Simpson. They pointed out that I did not adequately take into account the strong and posi- tive features of Labrador Native communities through all their centuries of suffering. That opened what became another five years of research, and I am grateful for the encouraging critique that started me on this work. The book that is presented here contains two histories, two “stories.” These are not the stories of domination, imposed abuse, and suffering on the one hand, and the changing ways Native peoples responded to this on the other. Those questions organized the research but not at all what came from the research. Rather, this book is about the struggles between order and chaos. This includes the pressure to create order both from above, from those who sought to govern, to control, to use, to “save”—including missionaries, fur traders, and government officials—and those working for a different kind of orderliness from within Native communities, who have struggled to create some kind of order out of the chaos that comes with imposed order.