324 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974)

EASTERN CREE COMMUNITY IN RELATION TO FUR TRADE POST IN THE 1830 's:

THE BACKGROUND OF THE POSTING PROCESS

Richard J. Preston

McMaster University

Resume. Le present article etablit un contraste entre la notion de

'communaute' chez les Cris de la region d'East Main sur la baie James et celles qu'on retrouve chez les Europeens des postes de traite des fourrures de la meme region. L'auteur explique ces conceptions differentes telles qu'elles se refletent dans les actes et la structure sociale de chacune des deux cultures et ajoute un dernier exemple qui demontre les limites de ces notions, qui ont ete transgressees, brievement, a 1'occasion du massacre de la baie Hannah. 325 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974)

The Eastern Cree notion of community

I characterize the Eastern Cree notion as that of a portable, personal life-cycle community. That is, the essential or defining qualities of community are taken under these three qualities, with explanation of each as follows. A portable community refers to the typical quality of groups of people who are often shifting their location , 'going around' as a practical and necessary expression of the way that people get their living, killing meat and getting furs. The area covered by a group is their ecological range and was probably thought of in terms of the paths followed

(Preston:fieldnotes, and Speck:fieldnotes) and campsites and trading posts where they stayed. (The 'range' concept is an alternative way of conceptualizing the much-debated 'territoriality' of Northern Algonquians).

A personal community refers to several related defining qualities.

Perhaps most significant is that each community will be characterized quite literally and directly by the personalities of its members, as these personalities are manifested at different times and in varying contexts.

The nearly unorganized, little specialized 'structure' of the group is close enough to Victor Turner's concept of "communitas" to bear comparison with this ideal type of "even communion of equal individuals," (1969:96) they may occur in the liminal period of rites. While I would not argue 2 that the Eastern Cree lived their lives in a state of continuous liminality , their ideal of individual control of one's own actions, to maintain an easy composure within the group, emphasizes the group relationships and inhibits ego-assertion. In Turner's terms, "It is ... a matter of giving recognition to an essential and generic human bond, without which there could be no society," (Turner 1969:96). It is not a group that 326 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974)

lacks all hierarchical ordering, for persons ^o vary in their skills and powers. But the importance of consensus and unity is in the ability to share the benefits of skills and powers in coping with environmental contingencies, or with strangers or sorcery, and at the same time to keep each individual free from coercion by other individuals. In this sense one could say that people gathered for their individual freedom and for mutual profit, and that individualism in the European sense was nearly ostracism to the Cree.

A life-cycle community refers to a social network where individuals can, and typically do, live out their lives from birth to death. The other members of the group are likely to be intimately known, and in return, to know one's moods and motives as well as skills, powers, and weaknesses. In this context, acceptance of others' acts as only partly consistent with Cree ideals and as partly idiosyncratic seems an implicit given of the culture. One accepts the foreknowledge that people, during their lives, mature towards ideals if they are given access to do so.

And that with or without this access, people persist in their community, to live and act in ways only partly dependent on others, and partly predictable, often contingent upon and responsive to other's individuality.

The Cree community is one side of the picture; the contrasting side is the fur trade post. And the contrasts are not hard to find. Perhaps the most obvious is the aspect of location. The posts were sedentary - though they might be closed and reopened with little notice. Where the

Cree community is a personal community, the fur trade post is structured by hierarchical status accorded differentially to employees along a scale from apprentice to governor and from economic poverty to wealth. Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference327 Papers (1974)

Ideally, status and reward comes to those who show industry in pursuing the goals of the Company, and whose sense of responsibility is effectively directed to one's employer. A common problem was the tendency of responsible employees to show an attitude of dependent conservatism (ranging from dutiful, dependable labour to dispirited inaction) in their work, requiring the prodding of superiors to take new initiative. Getting a living was ideally not a matter of killing meat to eat, but rather trading for furs for commercial profit, a portion of which would purchase food. Necessity often overrode this ideal, however, and hunting was common, deprivation was periodic, and starvation was occasional. Not only did the lean food resources of the area bring modification of the post's activities, but the fact of an adult male population led to personal privation and often to the solution of finding an Indian wife and thereby a family. But this rarely led to anything approaching a life-cycle community, since there was a high turnover of personnel, and the Company censured marriage with natives. Men came for commercial purposes and left when these purposes so dictated. They tended to view the character of the Indians in commercial terms as well, in terms of their relation to the posts and the goals that the posts were put there for. This leads us to the topic of 'posting' as the process by which the Indians and Europeans developed greater intensity and duration of interrelationships.

'Posting' is a phenomenon that only periodically served economic purposes for both Indians and Eurocanadians. The particular qualities of these economic purposes are quite dissimilar. The Eurocanadians wanted the labour services of the Indians mostly during the summer months, for brigades to supply the inland posts, haying, wood cutting and sawing of 328 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974)

boards, and fishing and fowling for a food surplus to be preserved in brine against winter shortages.

The Indians wanted the supply of trade goods that served as security from the hardship of starvation, and as convenience in practical efforts:

(a) partly through trade goods such as knives, hatchets, fish hooks, twine, muskets and ammunitions, making good hunting much easier and giving a critical advantage in a poor winter's hunting,

(b) partly through relief rations of food—where hunting was worse than poor, or where accident or other contigency left a group in serious difficulty.

It is wise to consider 'posting' from the vantage of both Indian and

European points of view, then. While the effects of posting appear to us as simply the tendency to gather nearer to the trading post for longer periods of time, to depend more and more on its supplies, and to expend more labour for tasks that benefited the post, the causes of these effects are more complex. The Indian view is expressed most strongly in the many accounts of starvation and accident that indicate a need for help from anyone who is better off and accessible. There were winters when, for a large area, starvation was general, and the post was the source of relief when one's own reserves had been exhausted. Since the HBC provided feasts after a good winter had yielded a quantity of fine furs, they were expected to uphold the sharing ethic in its more critical context, starvation.

But it was not only calamity that motivated Indians to frequent the posts. There were more congenial motives, for gathering at the post in summer or for the New Year has a direct antecedent in the pre-fur trade Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference329 Papers (1974)

Indian culture, when people got together in large groups for the purposes of socializing, marriages, ritual events such as feasts, walking-out ceremonies for young children, conjuring and other events. Traditionally, then, the summer was when the small, portable hunting-group communities came together into a temporary large community. The social and psychological contrast from a winter's relative isolation was dramatic, and after the reticent, careful initial exchange of news regarding possible death, conflict, or other problems that might concern others, a surge of intense 3 socializing followed. Fur trade posts were often built at the site of these gatherings, and in other cases the gathering sites were shifted to the post locale to combine the practical, congenial and ideological goals of trade and social exchange.

The Company's goals were much less broadly conceived, and are fairly characterized as commercial. This primary attitude was not necessarily opposed to the social and ideological motives of the Indians, but the differences were sometimes marked. Conflict stemming from the differences in motives was most dramatic when the Company's man did not temper commercialism with sufficient human consideration, as in this case recorded by Erlandson, whose personal fortitude and industry was often hampered by what he described as Indian treachery, deceit, and credulity and further hampered by his white employees, described as "indolent, spiritless fellows, whom not even hunger can force to exertion," (Davies,

1963:24:221).

If the indolence of his European assistants was a problem, it appears that Indian indolence was the most important of his problems. He complains: 330 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974)

It was by great persuasion and extraordinary encouragement I induced them to look after martens in the early part of winter. Subsequently some of them were starving, which they blamed me for, saying that I enticed them to hunt furs when they could have killed abundance of deer; they then came to me not only expecting, but demanding, food which I was unable to supply them with. Now, said they, we hunted skins for you, we are hungry and you have nothing to give us, do you expect that we will again hunt for you? There are beaver up this river and a few also up the Natchecagamy River, but they will not kill them unless I reckon each large skin as two skins; but the truth is they are too indolent. (Davies 1963, 24:221, emphasis mine). The contrast between Erlandson's view and that of the Indians is the contrast of commercial rationalism (they agreed to trap martens and got trade for them) and the reciprocity of a personal community (if we hunt furs for you and thereby lose the important opportunity to kill food stores in anticipation of later hardship, you are then responsible for meeting the needs that your own insistent demands have created, by sharing food that you have).

The European standard of personal industry was a contrast to the Indian standard. Part of this contrast was the European ideal of diligence on principle; not on demand of practical needs, immediate or anticipated, which was the Indian view. Also it was in part a contrast of the object of the effort, fur for the Company and food for the Indians. This was understood by Erlandson, too, who summarizes,

But I am decidedly of opinion, and I speak from experience while m charge of E.M. House where I had Indians to deal

wants, they will not much exert themselves to kill fur animals; unless, indeed, they want a gun or some such article which can only be purchased for furs. (Davies 1963, 24:224).

One way to gain perspective on the cultural interface of posting is to 331 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974)

examine a case where the relationship breaks down, where intensity of relationships pushes violently past its structural bounds. This happened only once that I know of, in the James Bay- peninsula area, when on the 22nd of January, 1832, the Hannah Bay post, at the bottom of James

Bay, was massacred. Details of the story come from two complementary sources, Cree oral tradition and the HBC Archives, (Preston 1971:139-142,

Doran 1973:23-60).

The winter of 1831-32 was apparently a very hard one, with reports of starvation from Chimo (at the north) the Moose (at the west). The amalgamation of the HBC and the NWC in 1821 had led to the closing of several inland posts, and made it more difficult for inland Indians to get to posts for relief of hardship. Also, Bishop (1974:183-190) has documented the severe decline of food and fur resources in the 1820's and

1830's for the area west of James Bay, probably also true for the East

Main area, in which "...country provisions were usually difficult to obtain," (Davies 1963:24:xxviii). Against a backdrop of hard winters and trading policy changes, one group of Indians trading into the Hannah

Bay post made an extraordinary move. In a freezing and starving condition, they conjured to find out how they might survive, and were instructed by the spirit to "spoil the post at Hannah Bay" or they would not live to see the spring. The advice of the spirit was so extreme that they did not act right away, but conjured again. The message was the same, and so the homicide was planned and performed. The extent of their planning is not clear to me at this point in the research. Many alternatives are found in the records; it is not certain whether they planned only to kill the postmaster (not the ten persons who actually were killed); 332 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974)

whether they planned to treat the corpses with insult, as they did, and whether they expected to have the prompt support of the other Indians in the area (they did not get support) and to massacre the other small posts, then Rupert's House and Moose Factory and the supply ship that was wintering there—or whether there was some kind of revitalistic movement under way, with messianic overtones, (McLean 1932 (1849); 98-100).

What is clear at this point is that the conjuring vision signalled a break of structural boundaries, shattering the interdependence of one

Cree community and one fur trade post. The boundaries of community and the process of posting were transcended in the actions and motives of six men whose plans may have reflected self-control, but whose actions were extreme in their lack of adherence to the ideals of self-control, composure, acceptance of hardship, and resoluteness in coping with the environment. In their desperation, they "spoiled the Hannah Bay store"

(Preston 1971:140) but their success was at the cost of their community, both ideologically (they were not supported by the other Indians, even their wives and relatives) and physically (they were soon all shot).

If McLean's account is correct, they may have hoped to be regarded as revolutionary heroes. But in recounting the oral tradition in accurate detail more than 140 years after the events, John Blackned regarded them as the reason why the Moose Indians gave up conjuring. "Even though a person can conjure, still, the way they thought, it's not all true," (ibid. 142).

The relative importance of ideology, deprivation, alcohol, the postmaster's personality, Company policy, warfare tactics, Christian influence, etc. are open questions. Also researchable is the Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference33 3Papers (1974)

comparison with the other forms of breakdown, cannibalism and murder

(and perhaps sorcery) within Cree culture. 334 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974)

Not mobile, which connotes rather constant movement, but portable, which connotes convenience for periodic movement.

The comparison is nonetheless useful, since we have difficulty in speaking of an unorganized social structure—one arranged largely by immediate context into flexible sharing alliances.

The pattern persists still, in my field experience and that of Adrian Tanner for the Nichikun-Mistassini area (personal communication).

As occurred in non-violent form, in the west side of James Bay a decade later, in 1843 (Cooper 1933:82-84), and very recently at Rupert House (Preston 1975). 335 Originally published as part of: 6th Algonquian Conference Papers (1974)

References Cited

Cooper, John M. , 1933. "The Northern Algonquian Supreme Being", Primitive Man 6:41-111.

Davies, K.G. (ed.), 1963. Northern and Labrador Journals and Correspondence, 1819-1835.

Doran, Patrick, mss. Researches on the Hannah Bay Massacre. (Author's copy).

McLean, John, 1932. John McLean's Notes of a Twenty-five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory, W.S. Wallace, editor. The Champlain Society, Vol. 19, Toronto, .

Preston, Richard, mss. Field notes on James Bay research 1963-1973.

Preston, Richard, 1971. Cree Narration: an approach to the personal meaning of events. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The University of North Carolina.

Preston, Richard, 1975. "Belief in the Context of Rapid Culture Change: an Eastern Cree Example", iri Carole (ed.), Symbols and Society: Essays on Belief Systems in Action, University of Georgia Press, Athens.

Speck, Frank G., mss. Field notes at the Salem Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.

Turner, Victor, W. , 1969. The Ritual Process, Aldine Press, Chicago.