SIX MOOSE FACTORY CREE LIFE HISTORIES SIX MOOSE FACTORY CREE LIFE HISTORIES: THE NEGOTIATION OF SELF AND THE MAINTENANCE OF CULTURE Bv ARGYRO RULA LOGOTHETI' B.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Ful-fillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts McMaster UniversitY April 1991 IAciAASTER UNI\tERSITY LIBRARY I'IASTER OF ARTS (199L) (Anthropology) TITLE: Six Moose Factory Cree Life Histories: the Negotiation of SeIf and the Maintenance of Culture AUTHOR: Argyro Rula Logotheti B.A. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Professor Richard J. Preston NUMBER OF PAGES: 327 ii ABSTRACT Life histories, considered as simultaneously cultural and personal documents, are used to discern the patternlng and individual variation within culture. six t,toosl Factory cree life hlstories irrustrate how Native individuars .oipt to and accommodate culturaL changes. Through an inaiviauat developmental. process, competence i-s acqui_red and biculturalism is achieved. The achievement of biculturalism, which incorporates the best f rom both curtural wor.l_ds, is considered as. an adaptive strategy for ensuring personal and cultural survival. The usefulnell of life nisioiies outside the realm of anthropology is aLso considered and other modes of expression such as art, music, drama, all of which require language' are suggested to be, like life histories, stories about the self and id.entitv. lll ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS r wourd rike to thank president's Northern the committee on Studies at McMaster university for funding my research and making this possible. To trre people Factory and Moosonee, of Moose both informants and non-iiformanE,s, a heart-felt thanks for accepting me- into your communi-ty, sharing your stories and experien-ces with Rer and for givi-ng me the opportunity to learn lnd to grow. Meegwetch! To my commi-ttee members, Dr. Richard- preston and Dr. David counts, a special note of thanks for coming through for me in the crunch. r am especi-alIy indebted to Dr. preston, who, as an unobtrusive piofes"o-r, sympathetic encouraging f auide and riend, ar-l0wed me to i:-"a my own way. was always my mentor and his He appreciated. silent support was greatly r am also-greatly indebted to Dr. Richard slobodin, *lto s_everal years back gavg me the opportunity the l-ife history enterprise to dabble in antics and p;f up with my amateur To my friends and family, thank you for your encouragement your support. without you. Td I could not h-a.re done this Also, a notl of thanks to Dr. peter Er_der who has greatly helped me in my struggle. As a f i-nal note, - r would like to acknowledge the porymorphous help distracting and sustaining siqrnificant other, peter of my Lee Geyer. r look forward to a life-time of sharing with you. lv There is a longing in the heart of my people to reach out and grasp that whj-ch is'nleded. for our survival. thlre is a longing among th9 young of my nation to secure for them selves and their people the skilIs that wil1 provide them with a lense of worth and purpose. They will be our new warriors. Their training will be much 1onger and more demanding than it was in oiden J"y". Th" longer years of study will demanJ *or. determj-nation; separatioi from home .r,a- family will demand endurance. But they will- emergre with their hand held forriia, not to receive welfare, place but co grasp the--- in society that is rightl! oui" . .* chJ_ef, but my polrer to make isI gone, war and the only weapon left to me is speech. It- is only wiln tongue and speech that f can fight my people, s war (Chief Dan George Lg74: 91) TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTTON I. The Life History Method In Anthropology 1 II. Culture And The Indivi-dua1 2 rrr. The Use Of Narratives In Anthropological Research 5 IV. Setting And Methodology d V. The Narrators L7 vI. Collecting The Life History Material 26 VII. Assembling The Stories 36 CHAPTER rI I{ARY NOOTCHTAI: "ALL THAT KEPT ME GOINGS wAs THE KIDS" ... .. 42 CHAPTER III NORM WESLEY: ..IN THE LIFE I UNDERSTAND RIGHT NOW YOU NEED A BOAT" .. 81. CHAPTER IV ALLAN JOLLY: "IT,S A PERSONAL DECISION, ... 1-L4 CHAPTER V REDFERN LOUTTTT: .THEY'RE NOT LOOKTNG TOWARDS THE FUTURE" 150 CHAPTER VI BEULAH MORRISON: '.I ALWAYS THINK BACK TO MY FATHER GIVING ME THAT, TELLTNG MY MOTHER TO SEND ME TO SCHOOL" CHAPTER VII MUNRO LfNKLATER: "I LfKE TO DO WHAT I CAN AT ANY AGE THAT I AIU" . 1?B CHAPTER VIIT: ANALYSIS ..... 203 I. Introduction 203 II. Creating A Life History .. 2L0 III. Interpretation Of The Six Life Histories ... .. ZL3 Redfern Louttit ...21,9 Beulah Morrison ... 231, Munro Li_nkl_ater... ...,.239 Mary Nootchtai ... 247 Norm Wesley .. 266 Allan.Tolly ..292 CHAPTER rX: THE PURposE AND FUNcrroN oF LrFE HrsroRrES ... 302 REFERENCES .. 319 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION l. The Llte Hlstory Method In Anthropology The life history method, a form of biography/autobiography used in anthropology, emerged from research on North American Indians. The collection of life hj-stories from North Amerj-can Indians commenced in the early 20th Century as a kind of "ethnographic salvage". Anthropologists sought to preserve these peoples and their cultures in the museum or the library, as it was believed that they would not survive. Classics whi-ch resulted f rom this research include, Radin's Crashing Thunder (L926) | Dyk's Son of Oid Man Hat (1938) , Ford's Smoke from their Fires ( l- 941) , and Simmons ' Sun Chief (L942) .r Needless to sdy, these peoples and their cultures, despite rapid social and cultural change, have survived and continue to perpetuate themselves. At the same time that life histories of North American Indians were being co1 lected and presented, the school of 'culture and personal ity'in anthropology, was forming. This school, unlike its predecessors, who attempted I An excellent review of this research is given by l,angress (1965). through the use of lif e hi-stori-es to describe or portray culture, used life hi-story materiar to discover the individual's perceptions of his or her experiences, and the personar meani-ngs inherent in those experiences. However, these two approaches need not be mutualry exclusive. ll. Culture And The Indtvtdual A recounted life history is at once cultural and personal. Personal experiences, and memories of those experiences, are informed by a cultural context. Kundera (l-9BB) speaks to this when he talks about Heidegger/ s characterization of existence, which Heidegger calls in-d.er- re-Z t-se jn (being-in-the-wor1d) ; Man does not relate to the worrd as subject to objectr ds eye to painti.g; not even as actor to stage set. Man and the world are bound together like the snai-r to its shell: the worr-d is pirt of man' it i-s his dimensl-on, and as the worrd clrang.s, existence in-der-wer-t-sein, being-in-the-woild, changes as werr (Heidegger in Kundera 19gg: 35). on the other hand, the worrd is not only part of humans but humans are part of the world. And not onry d.oes existence change as the world changes, but also, existence and the world change as humans do.2 personal experiences inform and 2 Please note that I do not alter Kundera's use of 'man'-in-his-quote. I do this to maintain consistency with his intent. I do however assume that his quote includer-u6tr, genders and use it that way. I will similarly reat dl other quotes throughout this thesis. reform a cultural context.3 As such, we can conclude that culture and the indivj-duar and by individuar r mean indivldual personality are interpenetrating phenomena. Thus, life histories are vehicles through which culture at large, and the individuail s experience of curture can be discerned. obviously, the greater the sample of individuals from one culture the croser that we can get to dj_scerning the patterns within that culture. This in fact is the greatest shortcomj-ngr of many of the earlier Native rife histories. Anthropologists would collect a life history from one individual and then use that to make generalizations about the greater cul-ture r €rs suming that the ind j_vidual was entirely representative of his,/her culture. They did not account for, or rather, allow for the variatj_on within culture. This is not to suggest however, that these individuals are not to some degree representative of the culture from which they descend. sapir points out that it is from the same observed behaviour that one abstracts the patterns of culture as well_ as the indivj-dua1 variations reflecting personal meaning. Connerton (1989) elucidates: "The narrative of one life is part of an interconnecting set of narratj-ves; it is embedded 3 By 'cultural cont€xt' I mean the most immediate form of culture which is one's personal environment, which inevitably, through numbers and patterning, leads up to and includes onr more abstract and macrocosmic notions of culture. 4 in the story of those groups from which indj-viduals derive their identity" (1989: 2rl. Therefore, the information that is ericited from a rife history i-s not only about the indivldual but ar-so about culture. And. as sapir suggests, curture is not "merely abstracted confi_gurations of idea and action patterns which have endressly different meanings for the various individuals in the group . 1,,, but he argues, "...vast reaches of culture...are discoverable only in the peculiar property of certain individuals, who cannot but give these cultural goods the i-mpress of their own personal !ty,, (L949: 20r-202) .