The Feast of the Dead Among the Seventeenth Century Algonkians of the Upper Great Lakes Author(S): Harold Hickerson Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol
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The Feast of the Dead among the Seventeenth Century Algonkians of the Upper Great Lakes Author(s): Harold Hickerson Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 62, No. 1, (Feb., 1960), pp. 81-107 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/666909 Accessed: 07/05/2008 15:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We enable the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org The Feastof the Dead Amongthe SeventeenthCentury Algonkiansof the UpperGreat Lakes1 HAROLD HICKERSON Indiana University DURING the middle three decades of the 17th century, before French traders and missionaries had gained a permanent foothold in the Sault Ste. Marie-Mackinac Straits region in the present Upper Peninsula of Michi- gan, upper Great Lakes Algonkian-speaking peoples were already involved in the fur trade through Huron and Nipissing middlemen.2 The influx of French trade commodities, mainly metalwares and cloth, although restricted due to harassment on the trade routes by the Iroquois, had marked repercus- sions on the economic and political institutions of the Algonkians of the northern Lake Huron-Lake Superior region. An enrichment in material cul- ture and the development of external relations stemming from the trade formed the basis for political and ceremonial developments quite exceptional in terms of the later history of those Algonkians. One facet of this develop- ment was the ceremony held in several of the Algonkian villages referred to by the French as Fete des Morts, or Feast of the Dead. The Feast of the Dead, as it was practiced by the Algonkians of the upper Great Lakes, prob- ably had been introduced by the Hurons or their trading partners, the Nipis- sing. These latter, until 1649, formed a geographic and commercial link be- tween their Algonkian-speaking kindred of the upper Great Lakes and the Iroquoian-speaking Huron of the Ontario peninsula. The Feast of the Dead had a brief career in the upper Great Lakes region. The ceremony was not continued for long after the establishment of French missions and trading stations at Sault Ste. Marie and in nearby locales dur- ing the seventh decade of the 17th century (JR 52:199-203), and it would be difficult to find any traces of the communal aspects of the Feast in the mortuary customs of the Chippewa descendants of those peoples today. But certain practices involved in the Feast of the Dead of the 17th century reflect the sociopolitical and economic life of the participants, and what insights are afforded are relevant to Chippewa history. The contemporary Chippewa have been portrayed as an "atomistic," individualistic people.3 Hallowell, Barnouw and Friedl have projected this portrait to cover the Chippewa of historical and even aboriginal times. Hallo- well and his followers have emphasized the persistence of the "atomistic" Chippewa personality structure through the long period of their contact with Europeans, even though their conditions of life have changed markedly.4 This is an interesting problem; it is also an elusive one, if only for the reason that the earliest sources on the Saulteur (forerunners of the Chippewa), while comprehensive in some other regards, do not provide explicit informa- tion on personality. 81 82 American A nthropologist [62, 1960 Correspondingto the picture of the individualistic Chippewa personality, studentsof Chippewa culture have also depicted anindividualistic, "atomis- tic"socioeconomic life.6 Hallowell (1955:242) supports Speck's hypothesis feature of (1915)that the individual family hunting territory system was a of find- aboriginalAlgonkian organization, despite Jenness'rejection Speck's in this ings (1935:6-7). Thus, Hallowell reinforces the notion of "atomism" importantaspect of economic organization. Friedl explains the persistence of the"atomistic" Chippewa personality structure by saying that in all stages oftheir history, no matter what the external conditions of life: . .each Chippewahas always come to expect that every situation in which he finds himselfis likelyto be relativelyunique, immediate, and short-livedin its consequences(Friedl 1956:816). Inthe realm of economic, political, and religious experience, all of which comeunder Friedl's concern, this Chippewa outlook inhibits cohesion and reinforcesparticularity. It is, however, astatement by Barnouw which is most striking in regard to the "atomism" of Chippewa organization: .. there was no economic co-operationoutside of the family unit. There was no communal hunting,like that on the Plains,no campcircle, no organizedcouncil of chiefs,no policingsystem, noregularly constituted militarysocieties, and no symbolsof groupintegration. Every man was forhimself or for his own family;and therewere few activitieswhich linked the isolatedfamilies together. Eventhe majorreligious ceremonies were not conductedfor the benefit of the group as a whole(Barnouw, 1950:16).... I believe that the following material, although relevant to only a brief periodin the history of the Saulteur and their congeners of the upper Great Lakes, reveals a quite different picture, at a period as close to aboriginal times as the sources permit. THE UPPER GREAT LAKES ALGONKIANS The upper Great Lakes Algonkians of whom I write constituted in the middle 17th century a number of autonomous groups. These groups occupied contiguous territories on the coast, in the near interior and on the islands of northern Lake Huron, and in the northern and southern interior of eastern Lake Superior. The peoples living in this region included the Saulteur, Nipis- sing, Missisauga, Amikwa, and the various divisions of the Ottawa, besides a number of other groups which did not survive the 17th century as distinct peoples-the Achiligouan, Nikikouet, and others now even more obscure. Collectively, all these groups formed the western wing of a great family of peoples, very similar in language and culture, which was distributed from Ottawa River to eastern Lake Superior.6 In this paper I am chiefly concerned with the most prominent of the peoples on the western wing of this family, the Saulteur, who are the lineal ancestors of the modern Chippewa. However, for that early time it is often difficult to isolate the activities of any specific group. The intricacies of French tribal nomenclature provide one block to identification. Furthermore, it was char- HICKERSON] Algonkian Feast of the Dead 83 acteristic at that period for the Algonkians of the upper Great Lakes to com- bine in political, trading, and military alliances, and to seek common markets for their trade peltries. Linguistic and cultural similarity and interlocking marriage and blood relationships must have reinforced political and trading alliances and have been reinforced by them. The upper Great Lakes Algonkians were hunters in the winter and fisher- men in the summer (Blair 1911 1:275-277; Kellogg 1917:207; JR 54:129- 131). Few data on their hunting are available; we do know that communal 9 R E A TERGRA LAKESREGIO<Ny> j ,'^^L^ ,^ FIG. 1. Upper Great Lakes Region. hunting of large game, especially of elk, moose, and woodland caribou was carried on, as well as hunting by individuals (Blair 1911 I: 106-110). By the mid-17th century the beaver had assumed great importance because of its value in the fur trade (Blair 1911 1:173). Neither wild rice nor maple sugar production appear to have been important industries for the upper Great Lakes Algonkians, except possibly among some few groups living west of Green Bay who were neighbors of the Menominee. The gathering of berries played a part in their economy (Blair 1911 1:279-280). The fisheries, however, were the hub of community life, and fishing was the main subsistence pursuit. A sufficient quantity was taken in nets and by the spear in the late fall so that a small surplus could be frozen for winter use (Blair 1911 1:275-276). Village sites, occupied from six to eight months of the year (JR 54:129-133), were selected on the basis of the advantages they held for fishing, although by 1670, at the end of the period of which I write, the fur trade had already become an important factor in the selection of vil- 84 American Anthropologist [62, 1960 lage residences (JR 55:97; 56:117). Trading depots, however, were often located at pre-existing Indian fisheries, where Indian and European traders were afforded a stable food supply (see Kellogg 1917:207). Numerous fishing sites in the bays, inlets, and river mouths of lakes Huron and Superior were recorded by 17th-century authors (JR 50:267; 54:151-153), but it was the fishery at Sault Ste. Marie which attracted a host of kindred and allied peoples. At various times between 1641 and 1670 Sault Ste. Marie maintained a summer population of 1,600 to 2,000 persons (JR 23:225; 52:213; 54:133).