2004 (volume XXXIV) n° 3

Algonquian Hunting Territories Before Their "Discovery"?

Harvey Feit

This paper synthesizes the author's long-term interest in the possibility that Algonquian hunting territories could have existed before the arrival of Europeans, and in it he also responds to some recently renewed arguments that Algonquian hunting territories are a phenomenon of the European fur trade period. He reviews the ethnographic analyses that favour the possibility that Algonquian hunting territories existed before the earliest European reports of their use, and updates some of these conclusions. He questions the recent claims that widespread use of hunting territories could not have predated European tutelage in the practice. He also shows that social and environmental processes created by recurrent large-scale forest fires throughout the period before the arrival of Europeans would have periodically created the conditions which many Algonquianists have thought would be conducive to the development of hunting territoriality. Finally, he synthesizes the insights gained from these ethnographic, ethnohistorical and socio-ecological studies by creating a "story" of how hunting territories could have been created, and re-created over and over again - without ever becoming the sole form of tenure or hunting practice among Northern Algonquians - throughout the long period before Europeans "discovered" there were hunting territories in the 19 th century.

Boundaries and Territories: Eastern Cree Land Tenure in the Québec/Ontario Border Region - Part I: Crisis and Collapse

This is the first article in a two-part study of Eastern Cree land tenure in the area of the present-day Québec-Ontario border, between James Bay and Lake Abitibi. Part I introduces the Algonkian tenure system, and focuses on circumstances in the first two decades of the twentieth century that combined to render that system largely non-functional: competition from non-aboriginal trappers enabled by railway access, together with government policies often unfriendly to the interests of aboriginal hunters. These circumstances precipitated a rapid and severe decline in beaver and other fine fur species by the end of 1920s. The extension of the provincial border northward to James Bay at the end of the nineteenth century, and the process of treaty-making in the first decade of the twentieth, set the stage for administrative rigidities in governments' response to the crisis (to be examined more fully in Part II). Relations between Eastern Cree and their Moose Cree and Abitibi Algonkins neighbours were characterized by interpenetrating social relations and tenure arrangements, together with flexible and shifting identities that fit poorly with European ideas about band residence and belonging.

Ways of Perceiving the Landscape: Continuity and Change among the Mi'kmaq Indians

Anne-Christine Hornborg

This article discusses how the Mi'kmaq struggled in the 1990s against a planned super quarry on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, by referring to their traditions and their culture hero Kluskap. The author begins by exploring a premodern, Canadian Mi'kmaq hunter's way of interpreting his world, as depicted in the traditional stories compiled between 1850 and 1923. It is through Kluskap's adventuresome encounters with animals, humans, and other beings that we can glimpse the earthy, organic frames of reference of the Mi'kmaq hunters and sense their symbolic classification of the landscape: his everyday familiarity, beyond linguistic communication, with the tangible experience of animal sounds, odours, viscera, and bones. The second study in this article situates the culture hero in the modern world of the 1990s, when allusions to tradition and to Kluskap played an important role in the Mi'kmaq struggle against the quarry. Here we examine how the Mi'kmaq are rebuilding their traditions and environmental relations in dialogue as well as in confrontation with modern society. In this process, environmental groups and issues, panindianism, and education play an important role, but so does the daily life on the reserves.

Senses of Place and Contemporary Coast Salish Land Claims

This paper discusses how the theoretical idea of 'place' can be used to better understand the differences in First Nations and Euro-Canadian worldviews about the land. Rooted in the tradition of phenomenological anthropology, the concept of 'place' is understood as a powerful nexus of individual and collective experience, which shapes and is shaped by language and culture. The way in which Coast Salish people have shaped their sense of place is explored through three ethnographic vignettes that are located around discursive practices about places important to Coast Salish people. Narratives about place names and mythology, identity, boundaries and land tenure are all discussed in the context of a Coast Salish community who are trying to resolve social and political equalities by negotiating a comprehensive land claim with the Federal and Provincial governments in Canada. For this community, their unique cultural expressions of 'place' have provided them a tool to make positive changes for the future.

"Of Women and Territoriality": Starting a Dialogue on the Gendered Nature of Aboriginal Rights

Gerdine Van Woudenberg

This article is situated in the overarching framework of aboriginal rights discourse in which we explore the specific topic of women and territoriality. Using as a case study of east coast Wabanaki cultures, the author critically engages the historical documentation to examine women's affiliation to 'place' through their engagement with their environment, and how the context of that engagement changed as a result of colonial processes. Because this paper is situated within the broader scope of aboriginal rights discourse, it raises some important questions with respect to Aboriginal women's position within current rights and title processes, not only as contemporary participants but equally as historical actors.

Research Report

Policy of Representations: Bureaucratic Social Representations and Canadian Indian Education Policy, 1828-1996 (I)

This article shows how social representations, elaborated by Indian Affairs bureaucrats, ultimately modeled and legitimated the ideology of aboriginal integration into mainstream Canadian society, the educational policy that prolongs it, and the educational system that acts as an agent of change.   The first part of this article describes the British strategy that aimed at transforming Indians from savages to civilized subjects. However, even though they put their heart into the civilization program, British bureaucrats never had the means to fulfill their ambitions. This first part also shows that in spite of new approaches in terms of social representations and educational policy, the methodical education system, put in place by the federal Indian Affairs bureaucracy, not only failed to meet its assimilation objectives, but in fact recreates a system of exception that only serves to reinforce the distinctiveness of Indians across the country. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Canadian federal authorities could only acknowledge the failure of both the education policy and the education system. Indian Affairs bureaucrats were faced with the need to redefine the paradigms of the education system as well as social representations and education policy. This redeployment will be the object of the second part of this article.  

2004 (volume XXXIV) n° 2

Political Violence, Ethnic Exclusion and Ritual in Guatemalan Pentecostal Churches (1989-1994)

Manuela Cantón Delgado

This article describes certain practices which deny ethnic diversity, practices that are based on a conscious and organized rejection of native culture by Pentecostal Churches in Guatemala during the 1990s. These strategies of representation aim at stigmatizing all non-converted Maya and at legitimizing their political domination while proposing their symbolic exclusion. However, those that are excluded are also social actors capable of putting into practice processes of appropriation and cultural mediation which transform into useful strategies the very same ideologies which tend to exclude them.

Religious Changes and "de-Ethnification": Recent Protestant Expansion in the Central Andes of Argentina

This article presents the multiple meanings of a process of religious change that involves a large part of the colla population that live in the region of ravines known as quebradas and the high Andean plateau called puna of the province of Jujuy, in northwestern Argentina. The author exposes the links between traditional aspects of colla society and worldview and those elements introduced by new religious options. Despite the continuities that can be seen between old and new elements, the process as a whole can be interpreted as a de-ethnifying trend which can be better understood in the light of the opposition between ethnic group and nation.

New Imaginaries and Recent Conversions to Pentecostalism among Indigenous People in Guerrero (Mexico)

Pierre Beaucage

During recent decades there has been an important movement of conversions of indigenous peoples in Mexico to various protestant churches, namely Pentecostal. This trend has been interpreted by scholars either as a loss of Indian identity due to outside forces (e.g., Hvalkof and Aaby), or as its redefinition and even its strengthening in a context of modernity (Bastiat). Data collected in the montaña of Guerrero (Mexico) suggest that conversions are part of a wider process of decomposition/recomposition of indigenous identities in this region.

Indigenous Religiosity and Ethnic Identity: Pentecostalism among the Toba

The purpose of this paper is to show how the analysis of indigenous religiosity is essential to understanding the presence of the Toba and their forms of organization in Argentinean cities. The strong links that persist between urban migrants and those who remain in their traditional territories of the Chaco (northeastern Argentina) allow us to speak of one Toba people, transcending the urban-rural division. It is precisely the Iglesia Evangélica Unida, created in the Chaco as a "Toba Church", which constitutes one of the main organizational forms which tend to reproduce the social dynamics of this people. Studying the religiosity of the urban Toba allows us to shed new light on the relationships between religion and social organization.

The "Generaction" of the Myth of Saint Juan Diego: Reappropriation and Transformation of the Virgen of Guadalupe's Myth

Margarita Zires

In July of 2002, Pope John Paul II came to Mexico to canonize Juan Diego, a native to whom the Virgen de Guadalupe supposedly appeared in 1531. It is but one of the numerous reappropriations of the myth of the Virgin, this time a media ritual typical of the 21st century, ruled by the logic of show business and marketing strategies. The myth of the apparition of the Virgen de Guadalupe, a cornerstone of Mexican national identity, has thus become an "exemplary life" myth. The author explores how the rules of verisimilitude proper to the genre of "exemplary lives" act upon the apparition myth, since the verisimilitude rules of both genres of religious discourse differ. Our hypothesis is that the various existing versions of the Juan Diego myth represent conflicts of power within the Catholic Church, as well as between dioceses and even parishes.

Research Report

Early Contacts between Ayorés and Whites in the Paraguayan Chaco: The Native Point of View

Using the notion of acculturation, the implications of which are examined here in the light of the tylorian concept of culture, the author presents data illustrating the early contacts between Whites and the Ayorés of the Paraguayan Chaco from a Native perspective. To escape the almost mystic vision of "first contact", the data chosen (life and war stories, texts of shamanistic visions collected in the field, and archival images) cover a period extending from the capture of an Ayoré boy of 12 (José Ikebi) by Paraguayans in 1953 to the arrival of the last Ayorés to "White civilization" a few years ago. Analysis of these data leads the author to a radical critique of the notion of acculturation, and especially Herskovitz's position, and to a questioning not only of the existence of a different perspective on the reality of the Conquest but also of the status of those sources that represent the Conquest in historical and anthropological approaches.  

2004 (volume XXXIV) n° 1

Late Ice Age Hunters in the Megantic Lake Region : Discovery of the First Fluted Points in Québec

Claude Chapdelaine

The first fluted points in Québec were found during the summer of 2003 at an archaeological site in the Mégantic Lake area. These discoveries, made by archaeologists from the Université de Montréal while conducting the Anthropology Department summer field school, push back the settlement of Southeastern Québec to more than 10 000 years BP. Late Ice Age hunters were probably exploiting caribou herds in a totally distinct environment compared to the present. Following a brief description of the site and its ecological position, the tool kit will be presented as well as its chronological significance. The implications of the fluted points discovery will be addressed along with insights on the hunters' way of life, annual cycle, and lithic network.

The Historical Disappearance of the Oumamiois and the Kichestigaux : an obvious trick

José Mailhot

A study signed by historian Dawson (2001) claims that, among others, the two groups called Oumamiois and Kichestigaux simply dispappeared from the territory of the Traite de Tadoussac before the mid 1700's. Using an approach that combines linguistics and history, the author rexamines the 17th and 18th Century documents after having established that the two labels of Innu origin referred to the people occupying the Sainte-Marguerite and the Moisie Rivers. She demonstrates that they did not disappear at all; they just changed names through time. She concludes that their disappearance is a story made up by the historian for ideological purposes.

Natives before French Colonial Justice within Québec's Government, 1663-1759. II - Alcohol, Fur Trade, Indebtedness, Civil Affairs

This two-fold article, discussing Natives' presence before the Québec Government's tribunals during the French Regime, is published in two successive issues of Recherches amérindiennes au Québec . In a previous issue (Vol. xxxiii , No. 3), the authors have first introduced Native actors, the historical context, and French authorities' intentions with respect to the Natives' juridical status. They have also analyzed six capital crime trials. The bibliography related to both parts of this article is included in the first part. The second part, published in this issue, discusses the legislation and the judicial matters related to alcohol, fur trade, indebtedness and various civil affairs.

Commemorative Medal or "Peace Medal": trade ornaments or tokens of friendship

Christian Roy

The excavation of a cellar abandoned towards the end of the 19th century on the site of the first men's house at Fort-Témiscamingue, a trading post occupied since the end of the French Regime, brought to light a large quantity of artifacts, among which was an intriguing commemorative medal bearing the effigy of Queen Victoria. Beyond its characteristics and its historical context, recalling the official visit of the young British ruler to the City of London on November 9, 1837, the discovery of this medal serves to re-examine the role and the importance of "Peace Medals" in the relationship between Natives and Europeans. According to the available data, the research seems to demonstrate that the medal unearthed at Fort-Témiscamingue could well represent a new "Peace Medal". Whether presents or tokens of friendship, the medals offered to the Amerindian chiefs became popular trade ornaments while acquiring a new meaning.

The Nature/Culture Pair Rides Again! Women, the Bear and the Snake Among the Nahua and the Mazatec of Mexico

Pierre Beaucage , Eckart Boege et Taller de Tradición Oral del CEPEC

The modern Nature/Culture opposition, which has been wrongly taken for a universal category, has no exact equivalent in most systems of cosmic representations. Basing themselves on an analysis of indigenous animal categories, as well as Nahua and Mazatec myths, the authors demonstrate, first, that Nature is described there as participating, though unequally, in the supernatural world : certain plants (such as corn) and certain animals (monsters or 'perfect animals') assure this continuity. Second, the necessary and dangerous relationships which humans must have with this natural/supernatural world, are bi-directional : human behavior influences that of natural beings, on the one hand, and the forces of Nature control certain particularly important human actions, on the other hand. These relationships are here represented by sexual alliances, either impossible, when Nature is symbolized as a destructive force (John the Bear) or delicate but stable when it appears as the power of fertility (the boa).

Political Marches Among Guerrero's Indigenous Peoples: From the Exchange of Saints to Protest

Martin Hébert

For some decades, Indigenous peoples of Mexico have used political marches as an extra-institutional political strategy of choice. Based on ethnographic data collected in the state of Guerrero, the present article situates these marches within the broader context of the traditional exchanges of religious pilgrimages between Indigenous communities. It also argues that the parallels between these two sets of phenomena should lead us to consider the political marches as being more complex than a simple exercise of political communication between the indigenous and the non-indigenous actors. The example of the Tlapanec community of Barranca Tigre shows that the debates surrounding the organisation of a march to the state capital in the summer of 2001 were linked to the religious pilgrimages in two significant ways. First, traditional religious mobility served as a backdrop for thinking of the political march and its instrumental value; secondly, because, as with any mobilisation of pilgrims outside the established ritual calendar, the organisation of a political march is an occasion to debate and evaluate the development of the community.

The Indian Experience of National Parks in the United States : from removal to intercultural cooperation

Raphaëlle Rolland

Today, when visitors admire the majesty of American national parks, very few realize that Natives were removed from their ancestral territory and their traditional use was banned. Yet, among the three hundred sixty seven units of the National Park Service (NPS), without considering the Civil War or urban monuments, the eighty five remaining ones are all located closely, within or around different Indian reservations. This article relates first the ideological context that underlaid, at the end of the nineteenth century, the creation of a double system of wilderness sanctuary and Indian reservation. Then, the article retraces the recent efforts to incorporate native values in parks management, as the NPS is confronted by tribal sovereignty and the revitalization of cultural traditions in which natural environments re-anchor the sense of identity. The case of the Navajo reservation, surrounded by twenty one parks, is more specifically developed, offering a striking example of the complex relationships between parks and Natives.

Research Note

A Tribute to René Ribes. The Archaic Site of Sainte-Thècle

René Ribes (1920-1983) was a pioneer in archaeology in Québec. His important contributions were as site prospector, experimenter, promoter and organiser of archaeology in the Mauricie region. This article wishes to pay homage to him in presenting a modest but indicative collection that he had assembled at Sainte-Thècle more than twenty-five years ago.

Native Representation in French Canadian Descriptive Literature, 1850-1900

Claude Gélinas

While the treatment of Native reality by the French Canadian historians of the 19th century is well known today, such is not the case for the image of Native people that is to be found in the much wider literature produced by the entire class of French Canadian intellectuals of the time. Did this literature convey the same perceptions and representation of Native people as the one found in the writings of a more "historical" nature? Based on the analysis of a representative literary corpus, this paper shows that just like the historians, but sometimes by following different paths, the French Canadian intellectuals of the second half of the 19th century proposed a specific image of the Native population, an image that had less to do with reality than with a preoccupation regarding the identity and survival of French Canadian society and culture.

2003 (volume XXXIII) n° 3

Representing Cherokee Dispossession

Arnold Krupat

In his magisterial Democracy in America (1838-1839 ), Alexis de Tocqueville, foreseeing the effects of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, giving President Andrew Jackson the authority to "remove" eastern Indians to lands west of the Mississippi, wrote that "It is impossible to destroy men with more respect to the laws of humanity". It was in the same year that De Tocqueville's book appeared that the eastern Cherokee were forcibly removed from their North Carolina and Georgia homes to Indian Territory, present day Oklahoma. Travelling first in the hottest days of the summer, then, in the coldest days of the winter, the Cherokee lost some four thousand of the roughly thirteen thousand people who set out on what came to be known as "The Trail Where We Cried", or "The Trail of Tears". This paper looks at attempts on the part of some contemporary Cherokee writers, Robert J. Conley, Glenn Twist, Wilma Mankiller, and, in particular, Diane Glancy, to represent the dispossession of their people.

Playing at Indians is one thing, being a Native is another

Certainly there is a visual history of Native dispossession. It belongs to the Other : the conqueror, the missionary, the anthropologist, the photographer, the film-maker, the techno-bureaucrat. On one side, it reinforces the image of Natives being confined in reserves and folklorized, and, on the other, with the blessing of the state, it contributes to building up academic knowledge a patrimony, a culture of the spectacle and an exotic recreo-tourism. Here the author explores the dynamics of the socio-artistic opposition, the one where art is used as a medium for resurgence, endorsing Tom Hill, Georges E. Sioui and Gerald McMaster's visions of another Native history and Native art. From a sociological-critical standpoint, he comments on certain steps in this socio-artistic journey. While the socio-artistic practices, expressions and circumstances touched upon here go back a long way, they nevertheless relate to actual artistic stakes.  

To Have and To Be in Jeannette Armstrong's Novels, Slash and Whispering in Shadows

Simone Pellerin

The voice of Native Americans has often remained unheard, smothered by the louder representations of "Indians" offered by Euro-American writers of fiction. Yet Native authors have untiringly reacted against such misrepresentations of themselves, widespread images made up according to the dominant culture's viewpoint and concepts. In two of her novels, published fifteen years apart, Okanagan writer Jeannette Armstrong takes up the same task of countering erroneous information about Native Americans by telling "another story". In transcribing through words "reality" as it is lived by Okanagan protagonists, she uses modes of literary representation that address both Native and non-Native readerships. Her aim is to oppose material and cultural deprivation through a reappropriation of indigenous history, customs and values. Even though the two novels differ widely in terms of plot and form, they nevertheless remain similar at core, in that they both evince the author's indomitable will to restore the dispossessed Natives' dignity.

Sonia Robertson's Journey : A Territory for a History

This paper recounts the journey of Sonia Robertson, a multidisciplinary Innu artist whose process is used here to illustrate and supply the debate over cultural appropriation or dispossession. This Native, who first defines herself as an artist, realizes works that express her ancestors' culture while using syntax common to actual international art. Following the evolution of her work, we can see more clearly this trans-cultural aspect of her practice where the tree, as a theme, holds an important place. Is it a case of acculturation or cultural re-appropriation? What role and value should we assigned to cultural referents? How should the art of Sonia Robertson be interpreted along with its breakthrough on the local, national and international art scene? All these interrogations show the new stakes regarding native art that can no longer be reduced to discriminatory contexts. Instead of offering a backward-looking account, the author draws from Sonia Robertson's art to propose a structuring and therapeutic word, an account of the Self opened toward a future that is already here and a Native history of art well alive and registered in a more general history of Art.  

Kaion'ni, the Broken Wampum : The Breaking of the Covenant Chain, or "The Great Resinous Unconscious"

Yves Sioui Durand

This paper is a reflection on the actual presence or absence of native writers in Quebec, as seen through a parallel with the prevailing situation in Native Canada, on the larger American continent and elsewhere in the whole world. This reflection is presented in a personal manner through the author's own experience and journey as an artist. A man of theatre and words, the author creates shows where the text serves the word and the voice. Because of the oral nature of culture, theatre always remains a sort of craft, an unavoidable archaism, a kind of shamanism that weaves the necessary meeting and confrontation between the Self, the Us and the Other. The author argues that there is a lot of subterfuges and lies that validate the mediocrity of what is done for and in the name of the Natives, or what is written about them. In fact, isn't there a dispossession of the literature, a keeping out as few individuals occupy all the space, the entire vacuum? Is every form of writing, every text literature?

How Native Contemporary Art is seen depends on cultural ownership

The reader does not need to be a specialist in Native Contemporary Art (NCA); in fact the article states that specialists are very few. As mentioned in its title, the article will focus on diverse ways to look at NCA, depending on the audience's cultural ownership. Three specific zones are highlighted based on territorial and linguistic characteristics : anglophone world (mainly North America including English speaking Quebec), French speaking Québec and France. Three statements are discussed in relation to the three zones, in logical order : ghettoïsation, ignorance and fascination. At the beginning of the text, a definition of NCA is sketched, although the main focus is on stereotypes associated with the noun "Indian". Because of her three statements, the author resists the temptation to discuss NCA in a more theoretical and analytical way. It would be nonsense to detail and analyze art pieces when the audience is not yet ready, when said audience has not yet overcome the cultural stereotypes which inevitably avoid any receptivity. Meanwhile, the text recognizes the value of Native Contemporary Artists and hopes the readers curiosity will be challenged.

From the Attic to the Forest: the Museum of the Immaterial

In this paper, the author describes a sort of literary journey composed of four places propitious for emotions. An exploration of these places leads to the discovery of hidden mechanisms that sustain the expression of dispossession. Later or too late, in constant interval, dispossession is always a consequence of the great historical fights, and often it is at the personal level that its effects are the most dramatic. It is felt from generation to generation, and it always reappears whatever the amount of time may have passed. Dispossession is watching us and, just like an animal, we are always watching for it. This non-chronological journey from a small part of my life revealed to me the importance of being in relation with the territory and its material and immaterial dimensions. By exploring the places that are the attic, the summer cottage, and the museum of the immaterial, the reader will take part in this feeling of loss and understand how it can be downplayed by re-creating the immaterial patrimony.

Natives before French Colonial Justice within Quebec's Government, 1663-1759 : I- Capital Crimes and Punishments

Denys Delâge et Étienne Gilbert

This two-fold article, discussing the Natives' presence before the Quebec Government's tribunals during the French Regime, will be published in two successive issues of Recherches amérindiennes au Québec. In this first part, the authors introduce Native actors, the historical context, and French authorities intentions with respect to the Natives' juridical status. Six capital crime trials are afterward analyzed. The bibliography related to both parts of this article is included in this first part. The second part will discuss the legislation and the judicial matters related to alcohol, fur trade, indebtedness and various civil affairs.

2003 (volume XXXIII) n° 2

Father Aubery’s Liturgical Linguistics: An Ethnohistorical View

Nicholas N. Smith and Alice Nash

Father Joseph Aubery (1673-1756) spent almost fifty years at the Abenaki mission of Saint-François de Sales, today known as Odanak. He produced an important manuscript dictionary of the Abenaki language along with Catholic devotional and liturgical texts. These manuscripts were written in a dialect of Abenaki that was already becoming outdated in Aubery’s lifetime, yet they were widely used for a period of 200 years, from Odanak to the Maliseet community of Woodstock, New Brunswick. As this article shows, the fact that Aubery was used for so long, by so many people, raises broader questions about the sociocultural context in which these texts were produced, disseminated, and used by missionaries and by Wabanaki people. Moreover, Aubery’s work also raises questions about the usefulness of the term “Western Abenaki”, espoused by the Handbook of North American Indians (vol. 15), for the period before 1800.

Nescambiouit, the Abenaki Chief and the French-Abenaki Alliance

Sylvie Savoie

The journey of the Abenaki chief Nescambiouit (around 1660-1727), represents admirably the ups and downs of the French-Abenaki alliance. He actively participates in numerous raids, from Massachusetts to Newfoundland, where he joins French expeditions in order to expel the English from the territory. Following the Treaty of Utrecht, which ended this war, France decides to give up the Abenakis’ land, without their consent. As a result, Nescambiouit moves among the Fox (Outagamis), west of Lake Michigan, where that nation still resists the French subjugation. Nescambiouit’s relations with the insubordinate Fox compromise the French-Abenaki alliance. French authorities fear that their allies at Odanak and Wôlinak will stay faithful to Nescambiouit, a well respected chief, and this decision may weaken the strength of the French colony. During this period, the colonial archives abound with evidence which confirms the French necessity of maintaining the friendship and the support of the Abenakis, as well as with Nescambiouit. The Abenakis also need this relation to maintain their integrity.

The ancient friendship knot. The Abenaki presence on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Sylvie Savoie et Jean Tanguay

This study looks at the accessibility and sharing of the territory among the Nations and tries to pin point the foundations of the Abenaki claims to the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. The presence of the Abenaki people between the St. Maurice and the Saguenay Rivers was the subject of many disputes throughout history: first by the Algonquins and Montagnais during the 17th and 18th centuries period, then by the Algonquins, the Atikamekw, the Hurons and the Nipissings at the beginning of the 19th century. Why did the Abenakis always presume to have the right to exploit the north shore? What are the alliances and the agreements between these nations that explain the assumptions displayed by certain individuals and the hesitation or refusal exhibited by others, and sometimes prohibitions. The authors will initially focus on the starting point of the Abenakis’ presence on the north shore, as well as the relationships maintained between the Abenakis, the Algonquins and the Montagnais people. This will be followed by a review of the events that took place at the beginning of the 18th century, as the presence of Abenaki hunters in the St. John Lake region is disputed as much by the Montagnais nation as by the owner of the trade monopoly in that region.

Abenakis’ Mauricie in the 19th Century

Claude Gélinas

The Hudson’s Bay Company archives and A. Irving Hallowell’s fieldnotes are used to document the economic activities of the Abenakis on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River between 1830 and 1900. On the historical level, two major periods can be distinguished. From 1830 to 1870, the Abenakis’ hunting practices north of the river were mostly intrusive as the hunters were trespassing on the hunting grounds of Algonquin and Atikamekw people. Then, starting in the 1870’s, the withdrawal of the Algonquins allowed the Abenakis to introduce for their own use a typically Algonquian hunting territory system north of the river, until the decline of the hunting activities in the first decades of the 20th century. Abenakis’ relations with the Algonquins and the Atikamekw also offer insights on the opportunistic use by the Natives of the Western legal system to manage inter-tribal conflicts.

Crespieul: Old Abenaki Reserve (1851-1911)

Jacques Frenette

The Act of 1851 set aside 230,000 acres of land for the Indians of Lower Canada. The Order-in-Council of August 9, 1853 decreed their distribution. The Abenakis of St. Francis (Odanak) and Becancour (Wôlinak), as well as the Algonquins and the Têtes-de-Boule also dwelling along the St. Maurice River, received 16, 000 acres of land at La Tuque. In the case of the Abenakis, the site was too far from the reserves of St. Francis and Becancour. There were little game and woods ; the soil was not fit for agriculture. The Abenakis of St. Francis rejected it as early as 1857. They would have preferred a reserve close to the Matawin River. The Abenakis of Becancour, consulted for the first time on the matter in 1889, also refused to consider the site at La Tuque. After a number of turnarounds, the Department of Indian Affairs asked for the survey of the reserve of Crespieul in 1894 for the Abenakis of St. Francis and Becancour only. The reserve was located even further to the north, close to Lake St. Jean. Finally, on June 30, 1911, the Abenakis of St. Francis and Becancour who had asked the Department of Indian Affairs to consider, according to the most advantageous scenario, either the sale of the timber or sale of the reserve, saw this department give up the whole reserve, timber and land, for the price of the wood only.

The Abenaki Nation's Territorial Claims

Lucie Gill

Since 1995, Abenakis from Odanak and from Wolinak have undertaken territorial claims. To date, four claims have been filed at the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. This article presents a brief historical sketch of how each of these Abenaki communities came to be, a recall of the events which led to the parceling out of their territorial inheritance as well as an update of the developments concerning each file.

Theophile Panadis (1889-1966): An Abenaki Guide

Alice Nash and Réjean Obomsawin

Among the people of Odanak, Theophile Panadis was known as “The Storyteller”. People used to say, “Ce que Théo raconte n'est pas des mensonges mais, il aime broder autour des faits”. To anthropologists A. Irving Hallowell, who worked at Odanak in the 1920s, and Gordon M. Day, who worked at Odanak in the 1950s and '60s, Panadis was a valued informant. He was also a husband and a father, an artist and an active member of his community who wanted people to remember the old ways. For much of his life he earned a living by guiding non-Native sportsman on hunting and fishing expeditions, using skills he had learned from his father and older relatives. This article will explore the life and lore of Theophile Panadis, drawing on interviews with people from Odanak as well as archival sources. In the process one can see that Panadis left behind a detailed documentary trail of Abenaki language, history, culture and worldview for anyone who wants to follow him.

Research Note
The Bécancour Trail: Abenakis Encampments in the Hinterland

Gwen Barry

This article, in the vein of localized social history and transhumance, deals with Abenaki seasonal encampments in the foothills of the Appalachians of Megantic County, the northeastern wilderness corner of Quebec's Eastern Townships. Their seasonal trail into Megantic can be linked directly from Wolinak by way of the Bécancour River. This «Bécancour Trail» was in use from at least the late eighteenth century until the mid-nineteenth century. Accounts of the first white settlers of the area are indicative of their relations with the Abenakis, and of the state of the Wolinak Abenaki group in this period. It also uncovers a little known, probable pre-white contact, Abenaki burial ground. The article also deals with the late allocation of the Little Lake St. Francis Reserve in Megantic, (1853-1882), and the causes of its demise. Sources used include settler accounts, county annals, interviews, Abenaki genealogy papers, and land and church records.

Research Note
The Abenakis of Wolinak and the Arthabaska lands (1829-1850)

Sylvie Savoie

In 1829, the Abenakis of Wolinak sent to the colonial authorities a petition “asking for a grant of land south of the St-Lawrence River”. They obtained permission to visit and choose the land of their choice “as long as that particular territory has not been promised to anyone else”. The Abenakis, who found suitable land in the Arthabaska township, pursued the process in order to settle down. At first, their request was positively received, but there would be no further follow up in that region.

2003 (volume XXXIII) n° 1

Seals and Walrus in Coastal Gulf of Maine Prehistory
Arthur Spiess

The archaeological record of Native American coastal hunting and fishing is contained primarily in shell middens where bone preservation is excellent. Because of coastal subsidence and erosion, however, this record only covers the Late Archaic and Ceramic periods: the last 5000 years. Within this span of time, Native Americans have utilized at least four species of pinniped: harbor seal, gray seal, harp seal, and walrus. The latter two were rare visitors to the region, however. The author first discusses the nature of bone preservation in coastal sites and the identification and differentiation of pinniped species and then reviews the sites that have yielded seal or walrus bones, their age and cultural identification. The Turner Farm and Goddard sites in Maine provide the largest identified samples and seasonal hunting reconstructions, and show us that seal hunting was not an important activity during the Late Archaic. Seal hunting intensified rapidly at some locations during the Ceramic period to become an important multi-seasonal activity just prior to European contact.

Woodland Period Seal Hunting in the Quoddy Region, New Brunswick
David W. Black

Faunal assemblages and other subsistence information from Woodland period archaeological sites in the Quoddy Region, New Brunswick, indicate that Native people practised a foraging adaptation focussed on the resources of the littoral zone, but also involving resources from inshore waters and from near-shore terrestrial and freshwater habitats. A significant aspect of this littoral foraging strategy was the hunting of two species of seals : the harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) and the grey seal (Halichoerus grypus). Native people hunted seals in the littoral zone, when the latter were hauled out on intertidal ledges, during their breeding, pupping and moulting seasons : spring/summer for harbour seals; January-March and early spring for grey seals. They probably exploited seals for oil, meat and hides.
Stable isotopic analyses of carbonised encrustations on ceramic sherds suggest Native people sometimes cooked seal meat in pottery vessels. Stable isotopic analyses of domestic dog skeletons suggest that faunal analyses of Quoddy Region coastal sites underestimate the importance of marine resources, such as seals, in the diets of the people who inhabited these sites. Taken together, the zooarchaeological, paleodiet and culture historical information suggest that marine resource exploitation, including exploitation of seals, peaked during the Middle Woodland period.

Prehistory of Seal Hunting in the Strait of Belle-Isle
Jean-Yves Pintal

In this paper, we evaluate the role occupied by seal hunting in the adaptive strategies of the Amerindian groups who frequented the eastern part of the Lower North Shore, and more specifically the northern shore of the Strait of Belle-Isle, prior to the arrival of Europeans. Analysis of the faunal remains clearly indicates that seal has always been an important resource for the Amerindians who frequented this region. However, a more precise examination permits us to see certain tendencies through time. Indeed, the data suggest that the exploitation of seals is important during the Archaic period (8500-3500 BP), although this hunting is embedded in the context of a generalized exploitation of large marine and terrestrial mammals. The exploitation of seals becomes more intense during the subsequent post-Archaic times (3500-400 BP), and reaches a climax during the 1100-400 BP interval. Simultaneously, the settlement pattern data point to semi-nomadism, a development which seems to have been made possible in part by seal hunting.

Late Woodland Seal Hunting at the Mouth of the Saguenay River
Michel Plourde and Christian Gates Saint-Pierre

Faunal remains from Late Woodland (1000-400 BP) components excavated at sites in the area of the mouth of the Saguenay River belong mainly to seal species. Hunting patterns, that can be traced as far back as the Early Archaic period (8000 BP), consist of sporadic occupations when Harp seals migrate in large numbers to the area. These hunts could be seen as a seasonal maritime adaptation without a specialised marine hunting technology.

Seal Hunting and its Implications for the Occupation of the Shores of the St. Lawrence River by the Montagnais at the Tadoussac Trading Post during the 18th Century
Daniel Castonguay

18th century written sources contain numerous references to seal hunting by the Montagnais Indians. At the time, the French outline the importance of this activity while distinguishing two important sub-groups within the native population occupying the north shore of the St. Lawrence: “Sauvages du bord de la mer”, literally “Savages living by the sea”, and “Sauvages des terres” or “Savages from the hinterland”. This situation differs from what can be gathered from the 17th century sources which make little reference to marine mammal hunting by the Montagnais and do not associate any specific Montagnais population to the marine environment. The comparison of different historical documents indicates that important changes took place at the end of the 17th century or at the beginning of the 18th century. The development of commercial seal hunting and the dwindling moose population led some of the Montagnais to hunt seal more intensively and to prolong the duration of their stay on the coastal fringe of the St. Lawrence River.

Seal Hunting by the Ekuanitshit (Mingan) Innu Community: 1900-1950
Robert Comtois

Seal hunting was one of the principal activities engaged in by Ekuanitshit Innu hunters on their return from the spring beaver hunt. In 1903 and the years following, when beaver hunting was banned, seal hunting probably increased in importance in spring as the main activity following the Canada goose hunt. As a source of cash income during the time spent on the coast, this activity was one of two options available to the Innu people during the period when cod fishing was an attractive pursuit. After that, it became the only major source of income for Innu hunters from their coastal activities. The community had to wait until the US military base in Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan was established in 1942 before they had other opportunities to earn an income. For the greater part of the period between 1900 and 1950, the main products of seal hunting, namely oil and skins, met some essential needs of the Innu community. Sealskins were vital to the Innu making of footgear worn by the Innu in fall, when thy travelled inland, and in winter and spring when the snow was wet.

Seal Hunting at Essipit and Les Escoumins
Paul Charest

Today, seal hunting is still practised by the Innu of the small Essipit reserve along with their non-native neighbours of Les Escoumins. Both communities are the heirs of a long tradition that has been pursued at Bon Désir throughout the historic period up to the middle of the 19th century by Indian hunters associated with the Tadoussac trading post. Until the middle of the 20th century, hunting methods had not changed much. Seal hunting was practiced during the winter and spring seasons by a crew of two hunters using a rifle and a harpoon navigating between the sea-ice fields in a canvas canoe. Skins and oil rendered from the blubber were sold, and the meat was eaten and even relished by many members of both communities. The use of outboard motor launches starting in the middle of the 1960s made the hunt more productive in terms of animals killed. However, the ban on seal products in the United-States and the European Union in the 1970s following anti-hunting campaigns by environmental and animal rights groups has much affected the economic viability of this activity. This is despite the fact that hunters have organised themselves into associations and cooperatives to improve the organisation of their activities and the marketing of more diversified seal products.

Research Note
The Montagnais Petition of February 1st, 1843: Hunting, Fishing and Farming at Baie des Escoumins
Jacques Frenette

When the Hudson’s Bay Company signed a new leasing agreement for the King’s Posts Domain on the 27th of June 1842, it only kept from its previous monopolistic privileges the control over its trade with Indians and seal hunting activities. On the other hand, the Crown reserved for itself full liberty to develop the Domain’s territory to the benefit of settlers from neighbouring regions and lumber merchants from United Canada who had all wished to see it open for many years. Faced with this announced invasion of their lands, the Montagnais reacted promptly. With the support of local businessmen, politicians, and missionaries, they began sending petitions, most of the time to the Governor-General, in order to sensitize the authorities to their situation. About ten of these requests, dating from 1844 to 1850, have already been recorded. The author introduces a new one here. Thanks to the regional literature and archival documents (i.e. exploration journals, nominal census, ecclesiastic registers, survey reports and maps), we are able to specify the petitioners' identities, their place of residence, and the contents of their requests in the context of the rapid changes that seemed imminent.

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2002 (volume XXXII) n° 1
La rencontre des cultures :
Amérindiens, Français et Britanniques

The Art of War during the French Regime: Mutual Adaptation between Aboriginal and French Allies
Martin Fournier

This article centers on the life experience of historical agents in analyzing two significant aspects of Aboriginal-French relations, during the French Regime. Alliance and exchange between Aboriginal and French partners precipitated transformations in the military customs of both: the Aboriginals quickly adopted European weapons, and the French quickly adopted Aboriginal tactics and strategies. These facts are well documented, and this article addresses, specifically, the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the changes that emerged. This approach also allows us to resolve, in part, the debate surrounding two questions: was the introduction of firearms responsible for reconfiguring Aboriginal geopolitical relations in the region? And did incommensurable aspects of strategy and tactics as practiced by French, Canadian and Aboriginal soldiers, militiamen and warriors weaken French forces on-the-ground during the Seven Years War? Analysis of the practice and experience of the partners in combat indicates that pragmatic advantage, as evidenced on a day-to-day level and as understood from within their respective worldviews and ways of life, was the main incentive for change and adaptation in warfare.

The Archaeology of an Encounter: The Dualistic Worlds of the French and the Amerindians in 17th and 18th Century North America
Marcel Moussette

Borrowing -- from the baroque or rococo decorative style -- of floral patterns, and perhaps also of the double-curve motif, by Amerindians of Eastern North America was a phenomenon of major significance, marking as it does the meeting of two traditions, of two ideational worlds: the baroque spirit of the European and an autochtonous form of expression making its way through a bipartite ideological field. Given the amplitude of this phenomenon, which extended over an immense area from the East Coast to the Rockies despite divisions between nations, the author proposes that this hybridity in decorative motives might be understood as the reassertion of Amerindian identity following contacts with the French. To pose the question in more general terms: what structural features in the encounter of the ideational worlds of the Amerindians and the baroque of New France, what conditions and underlying commonalities, enabled cultural hybridity to occur?

Strategic Neutrality of the Iroquois during King George’s War, 1744-1748
Jon Parmenter

This article focuses on the variable forms of strategic neutrality adopted by the peoples of the Iroquois Confederacy in northeastern North America during King George's War (1744-1748). Employing French- and English-language archival sources, the article demonstrates how the Iroquois proactively engaged diverse approaches in order to protect their own best interests in the presence of two rival imperial powers. Special attention is paid to the key role of the Iroquois settlements in the St. Lawrence valley, Kahnawake and Kanesatake, in sustaining the Confederacy's neutrality throughout the war. The leaders of these settlements worked with those occupying traditional Confederacy territory in New York to conduct parallel negotiations with colonial officials in New France and the Anglo-American colonies, and to communicate intelligence back and forth. They were assisted in these endeavors by male and female Iroquois traders, who conducted a busy traffic in furs between MontrÉal and Albany. In consequence, the collectivity of Iroquois communities were able to coordinate their actions to considerable effect and to preserve their neutral status. The article concludes that persistent adherence by the Iroquois to a policy of neutrality during King George's War contributed both to eventual stalemate in the North American military theater, and to the Iroquois’ retention of a degree of political influence that they could not have secured through force of arms.

Black-Hat, the Great Spirit, and the Anishinabe: Ojibwas and Jesuits in Western Canada, 1843-1852
Sylvie Dussault

Little research has concentrated on the Jesuit missions after the 17th and 18th centuries. Nevertheless, in the early 1840s, in the tradition of their predecessors in New-France, the Jesuits reasserted their mission of conversion in Canada, particularly in the Canadian West, where they sought to bring Ojibwa traditionalists and Protestants to Catholicism. At this time, some groups were already living on reserves. In light of what the Lettres des nouvelles missions du Canada, 1843-1852 reveal, we analyze the arguments of Ojibwa traditionalists against Jesuit proselytizing, and in parallel, what motivated some Ojibwa to embrace the Catholic doctrine.

Being Catholic and Becoming Indian : Sister Cecilia, an Odawa Woman
Susan Sleeper-Smith

This paper addresses the emergence of a Métis identity in the nineteenth-century Western Great Lakes region, south of the Canadian border, when the United States established its sovereignty there. A Métis elite emerged in many established fur trade communities, such as Michilimackinac, and they successfully imposed exclusionary standards of behaviour echoing those of incoming U.S. immigrants. The effective social ostracism of those who violated new behavioral norms complicates the identification of who was Métis. A close analysis of the Bailly family reveals the complexities of being Métis in such a time and place.

British Colonial Justice and Aboriginals in Québec, 1760-1820 : I — In Indian Lands
Denys Delâge et Étienne Gilbert

In Québec, between 1760 and 1820, the British courts gradually imposed their authority on Aboriginals, but not entirely. A systematic analysis of judicial archives reveals that Aboriginals' political and judicial institutions also remained functional. Colonial authorities attempted the imposition of British criminal law even if it meant countenancing something equivalent to an Aboriginal civil law. In Aboriginal territory, or in cases of a criminal nature between Aboriginals, recourse to British courts was late in developing, and individuals who took such recourse were bearers of modernity rather than tradition, causing tension among Natives. While criminal cases involving Aboriginals and "Whites" were brought before the colonial courts, they nevertheless offered various opportunities for accommodation between distinctive principles and modes of regulating conflict: reparation versus punishment, collective versus individual responsibility, debt versus guilt, banishment versus the death penalty, and execution by firing squad versus hanging. The discussion supports, in the domain of law, analyses by the constitutionalist Andrée Lajoie of legal pluralism and, in the domain of history, analyses by Jan Grabowski and ourselves of Aboriginals and the practice of justice under the French Regime. This article is published in two parts, in two consecutive issues of Recherches Amérindiennes au Québec. The first part deals with recourse to British colonial justice versus recourse to Aboriginal justice (as administered by village councils of chiefs) in cases involving 1) two Aboriginal parties 2) Aboriginal territories and 3) fire-water (spirits). The second part will deal with recourse to British colonial justice in cases relating to offences within the territory of the colony, regardless whether the Aboriginals are plaintiffs or defendants.

Another Invisible Hand: Two Domestic Prosperity Rituals among the Tlapanecs of Guerrero, Mexico
Martin Hébert

This article provides an anthropological perspective on two rituals of prosperity performed by the Tlapanecs of the Guerrero montane (Mexico). Of these two, described here for the first time in the anthropological literature, one is tied to coffee production, while the other is aimed at securing adequate monetary income for the household. Based on fieldwork conducted in the region between 1998 and 2001, the article first discusses the social, cultural, and economic context in which these rituals take place. During the last twenty years, the Tlapanecs' economic life has undergone a series of major economic transformations, characterized, among other things, by a shift from subsistence to commercial agriculture. This shift has not only had a profound impact on the productive cycle itself, but has also prompted the adaptation of traditional agrarian rituals to the new regional economic reality. The article then turns to a description and analysis of the "symbolic construction" (Bloch) of the two domestic rituals of prosperity, as the Tlapanecs performed them during the period of the fieldwork. In addition to a description of the content of these rituals, the article explores their perception by peasants as important resources for achieving beneficial integration within the market. This other "invisible hand" of ritual, theoretically counterposed to the "invisible hand" of a market generally unfavourable toward small producers, therefore becomes, for the Tlapanecs, a crucial resource that allows them to gain a measure of subjective control over market forces.

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Odanak in the 1920s: A Prism of Abenaki History
Alice Nash

This study draws on the unpublished papers of anthropologist A. Irving Hallowell who conducted fieldwork at Odanak in the 1920s. The documentation includes Hallowell’s field notes, a photo scrapbook, and an unpublished manuscript on Abenaki hunting territories. The latter document contains extensive annotations by linguist Gordon M. Day. The information collected by Hallowell in the 1920s enables a new telling of Odanak history. Viewed through a lens of hunting and, later, basketry rather than the traditional themes of warfare, Catholic missions, or Indian-White relations, Odanak history is a story of intertribal relations, constant renegotiation of boundaries, and making the best of a bad situation in a colonial world.

The Creation of Atikamekw Reserves (1895-1950), or when the Indian really was an Indian
Claude Gélinas

Confronted with the arrival of forestry and colonization in the Upper St-Maurice region in the 1870’s, the Atikamekw felt the need to ask for reserves in order to protect tracts of land on which they could continue hunting, fishing and trapping. The establishment of reserves in the region turned out to be a long and complex process involving the federal and provincial governments, the missionaries, the economic interests established in the Upper St-Maurice and the Atikamekw themselves. Because these interveners did not share a common view with regard to the pertinence and the role of the reserves, it took a long time to create them and, in the end, the amount of protected territory offered to the Atikamekw was far less than they needed. This paper presents the principal steps in the establishment of the Atikamekw reserves as well as the interests defended by the various interveners in the process.

The Innu of the Lower North Shore and the Catholic Mission of Musquaro (1800-1946) : Historical context and oral tradition
Denis Gagnon

The study of Lower North Shore Innu Catholicism constitutes a new problematical subject for the social sciences. Marked by the importance of prayer, singing and pilgrimages, their religious practices nevertheless exhibit a particular adaptation of Catholicism to the traditional religious ideology. Situated at the mouth of a river by the same name, between the villages of Natashquan and La Romaine, the mission of Musquaro has been, since the beginning of the 19th century, an important summer gathering site for the Innu of the Lower North Shore. Based on an analysis of the literature and of sixteen interviews held with elders from the Innu communities, this article presents certain elements of the Catholic tradition as practiced at Musquaro during the years 1800 to 1946, with emphasis on the power relations and significant practices.

A Twentieth Century History of Eastern James Bay: In Search of an Interpretation
Toby Morantz

Focused on the years 1930-1970, this enquiry for Eastern James Bay, asks how to judge or interpret the period when the Canadian government undertook socio-economic programmes which directly affected the Crees’ economic and political well-being. Over most of this vast region, industrial development started later than it did in Native territories elsewhere in the north. Without any of the modern forms of communication (roads, telephones, television), most of the Crees were, to a large measure, isolated from the direct influences of the south. Immigration and emigration were slight. Nevertheless, as this brief history recounts, towards the end of the 1930s, there was federal government involvement in replenishing the beaver stock, and in the late 1940s, welfare, education and the political direction of the communities. The author argues for seeing the effects of this involvement as bureaucratic colonialism. This theoretical model was relatively self-evident to formulate but not the interpretation or the moral view of the government’s involvement. Was it beneficial to the Crees?

French-English Rivalries and Territorial Structuring in Hudsonia (1904-1926)
Thibault Martin

This article proposes a discussion of the historical reasons that lead to the fission into two communities of an Inuit village of Nunavik (Québec). Indeed, in 1986, a third of the Inuit population of Kuujjuarapik ( the southern Itivimiut) left the community to relocate 160 km further north in Umiujaq, a newly built village. This relocation occurred during the Great Whale River project and was financed according to the requirements of the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement. The author argues that this development was not only caused by the hydroelectric project but also rests on outcomes linked to the commercial policies of the French and English trading companies in the first half of the 20th century. Thus, the paper shows how the French Revillon Frères Company had developed a policy of clientelism, to divert the Itivimiut from their English competitors, the Hudson’s Bay Company. The author suggests that this policy contributed to the weakening of traditional alliance networks of aboriginal groups and could be, to some extent, responsible for the relocation to Umiujaq. The discussion combines an analysis of historical documents (especially Victor Revillon’s accounts) with information collected directly (through semi-structured interviews) from residents of Kuujjuarapik and Umiujaq.

The Eleven « Apostles » of Reverend E. J. Peck : The First Inuit Conversions at Little Whale River (1876-1885)
Frédéric Laugrand

The author offers an ethnohistorical look at eleven Inuit conversions described by a missionary of the Church Missionary Society, Reverend E. J. Peck. While oral tradition locates the first conversions on the coast of eastern James Bay in the 1910- 1920’s, Peck’s archives show that they occurred half a century earlier at Little Whale River, during 1870-1880. The trajectories of the converts, qualified as « exemplary » by the missionary, reveal many basic aspects of the earlier times of evangelization: the role of the fur traders, the proselytism among the Inuit, the impact and contradictory effects of diseases, the idiosyncratic reception of Christian ideas, the misunderstandings, etc. Through the narrator’s rhetoric, they offer a unique opportunity to outline the missionary’s strictly transformist representations of conversions. The complexity of this process holds to the fact that the converts resorted to strategies of appropriation that never seem complete or antinomic with the preservation of ancestral practices. Even for those qualified as Inuit « apostles », the missionary has more difficulty demonstrating their integration of Christian dogmas than affirming their progress in learning syllabics and deploring a certain cultural atavism. Understanding conversion also requires associating closely the continuity and discontinuity.

Apparent Compatibility, Real Incompatibility of Native and Western Versions of History : The Innu Example
Sylvie Vincent

More and more we notice a will to give Natives a larger place in our national history. We even talk about "integrating" oral traditions within our western way of writing history. However, in this paper the author argues that such a goal is unattainable. Following the example of the arrival of the first Europeans as told by the Innus of eastern Quebec, the author shows that if footbridges can sometimes serve to connect one history with the other, basically no bridge can be built between Native and Western histories. In fact, history is constructed by the very culture that produces it, which means that from one culture to another, those who make history use different methods to understand the past reality. They each have their own way of organizing the events, their own cultural references to talk about these events, and in producing history they look to achieve different goals. History is seen here as a space where each society invents itself following its own codes. Knowing the other’s history from its own point of view is a necessity, but trying to “integrate” or “harmonize” knowledge without understanding the culture from where they come from runs the risk, as many authors like Morantz, Cruikshank and McClellan are saying, of producing serious misinterpretations.

British Colonial Justice and the Indigenous People of Québec, 1760-1820: II — On Colonized Lands
Denys Delâge et Étienne Gilbert

In Québec, between 1760 and 1820, the British courts gradually imposed their authority on Aboriginals, but not entirely. A systematic analysis of judicial archives reveals that Aboriginals' political and judicial institutions also remained functional. Colonial authorities attempted the imposition of British criminal law even if it meant countenancing something equivalent to an Aboriginal civil law. In Aboriginal territory, or in cases of a criminal nature between Aboriginals, recourse to British courts was late in developing, and individuals who took such recourse were bearers of modernity rather than tradition, causing tension among Natives. While criminal cases involving Aboriginals and "Whites" were brought before the colonial courts, they nevertheless offered various opportunities for accommodation between distinctive principles and modes of regulating conflict: reparation versus punishment, collective versus individual responsibility, debt versus guilt, banishment versus the death penalty, and execution by firing squad versus hanging. The discussion supports, in the domain of law, analyses by the constitutional expert, Andrée Lajoie, of legal pluralism and, in the domain of history, analyses by Jan Grabowski and ourselves of Aboriginals and the practice of justice under the French Regime. This article is published in two parts, in two consecutive issues of Recherches amérindiennes au Québec. The first part appeared in the last issue (Vol. 32, No. 1) and dealt with the recourse to British colonial justice versus Aboriginal justice (as administered by village councils of chiefs). The second part, in this current issue, discusses British colonial justice in cases relating to offences within the territory of the colony, regardless whether the Aboriginals are plaintiffs or defendants.

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2002 (volume XXXII) n° 3

Aux marges de l’œkoumène. La période paléoindienne dans le Nord-Est

Sous la direction de Pierre Dumais, Gilles Rousseau et Éric Chalifoux

The Paleoindian Archaeological Record of Southern Ontario
Christopher J. Ellis

This paper provides an overview of developments since 1985 in the study of Ontario’s earliest inhabitants. In contrast to earlier research, more recent research has focussed on excavation and detailed site reporting rather than on survey to locate sites. Also, investigators have been more selective in which sites are chosen for excavation with an emphasis on sites which are smaller, in a greater variety of different geographic settings and which, based on artifact recoveries, represent activity sets or emphases not previously documented. Investigators have also attempted to develop typologies designed to more precisely measure temporal change and to document activity variability. The large number of sites now known and reported has also begun to allow researchers to explore the meaning of inter-assemblage variability. Major roadblocks to our understanding continue to be a paucity of radiocarbon dates and direct evidence for the paleoenvironmental context and subsistence practices of Paleoindian groups.

The New England-Maritimes Paleoindian Sequence and Adaptation
Arthur Spiess and Paige Newby

Progress during the last decade in our understanding of Paleoindian in New England and the Maritime Provinces includes construction of a fluted point stylistic sequence, a more precise radiocarbon chronology for that sequence, and the excavation of several new sites. Moreover, we have extended the Paleoindian point style sequence and chronology into the Late Paleoindian period. Reconstruction of Late Pleistocene vegetation based on fossil pollen maps has revealed environmental change, but in a setting generally favourable for large caribou herds. A focus on caribou hunting probably explains much of the fluted point Paleoindian archaeological record. However, the large herds of caribou disappeared in New England at the beginning of the Late Paleoindian period.

On the Nature of the Paleoindian Occupations at the Mouth of the Chaudière River
Jean-Yves Pintal

The purpose of this article is to present data collected during archaeological survey and excavation done in 1996 and 1998 on three prehistoric sites located at the mouth of the Chaudière River. These data have only been partially analyzed, which limit possible interpretations. They are also based solely on relative chronological parameters and on the identification of a few diagnostic traits. However, when considered as a whole, these data suggest the presence of ancient Amerindian occupations at the mouth of the Chaudière River. The author proposes that these sites represent small settlements dating to the end of the Early Paleoindian and the beginning of the Late Paleoindian period.
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Of Silt and Sand An Early Holocene Paleoindian Occupation at Squatec (ClEe-9), Témiscouata
Pierre Dumais and Gilles Rousseau

Two seasons of excavations at the Squatec site (ClEe-9) have allowed the authors to study successive human occupations dating from the early Holocene period which took place in a changing landscape in southeastern Québec. The Squatec Late Paleoindian site lies within a focal area of an extensive network of valleys connecting the Bay of Fundy to the St. Lawrence Estuary. Its complex stratigraphy reflects a very dynamic physical and hydrologic environment during the early Holocene including major natural events that can be traced as far as the upper St. John River Valley. The thick layers of sediments that have sealed the archaeological deposits have permitted the identification of numerous occupation areas and the recovery of many samples of organic matter suitable for radiocarbon dating. The authors present a preliminary typological exercise which compares the Squatec Late Paleoindian site to early Holocene sites in the St. Lawrence Valley and the New England-Maritimes region. This work reveals the unique nature of the Squatec lithic assemblage and points to the great complexity of Late Paleoindian manifestations.

The Contribution of Geomorphology to Archaeological Studies of the Paleoindian and Archaic Periods in Eastern Québec: Is There a Place for Geoarchaeologists?
Bernard Hétu and James T. Gray

This article emphasises the need for archaeologists studying colonisation by Paleoindian and Archaic groups in eastern Québec, to take into account geographical conditions very different from those prevailing today. Recently acquired data on the chronology of glacial retreat and re-establishment of a forest vegetation cover, suggest that conditions were not conducive to colonisation prior to 10,000 B.P. The first groups of paleoindians (associated with the Plano culture) arrived in eastern Québec between 8,500 and 7,800 B.P. They occupied a taïga or forest tundra landscape, subject to a cool and dry climate, with sporadic patches of permafrost still present. This period was characterised by lower sea and lake levels than those prevailing today, and by several phases of downcutting and infilling of coastal valley floors in response to both base level and climatic fluctuations. Such rapid geomorphological change has important implications for archaeological research: several Paleoindian and Archaic sites have probably been buried by sediments or submerged by subsequently rising lake or sea-levels, as evidenced at Squatec and Sainte-Anne-des-Monts. The implications of this are that stratigraphic analyses of exposures will have to accompany surface survey in future archaeological research. It is recommended that archaeologists and geomorphologists work closely together in order to better understand the natural and cultural transformations in habitats during the Holocene, in eastern Québec and elsewhere.

Late Paleoindian Quarries in La Martre and the Geology of the Mélange de Cap-Chat Chert
Adrian L. Burke

Three chert quarries dating to the Late Paleoindian period were recently discovered in the village of La Martre, Gaspé, Québec. These quarries exploit a good quality chert that is found within the geological unit called mélange de Cap-Chat which stretches along the north shore of the Gaspé Peninsula. The author describes the physical, chemical and geological properties of this chert and how these relate to the lithic technology of the associated Paleoindian sites.

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The Fragmentation and Reconstitution of Native Identity in Four Coffee-Growing Regions of Mexico
Pierre Beaucage

This article explores the economic and ecological transformations subsequent to the development of a coffee-growing economy amongst four Native peoples in Mexico: the Nahuas of the Sierra Norte de Puebla, the Popolucas of Veracruz, the Tlapanec of Guerrero, and the Zapotec of the Sierra Sur de Oaxaca. First adopted as a supplement to traditional food crops such as corn and beans, indigenous coffee-growing was transformed in 1974 when the Mexican government launched an ambitious modernization programme which introduced high-yield varieties of coffee, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This intensive monocultivation, which involved significant changes to the farmers’ work habits and to their relations with the environment, was variously accepted by the indigenous farmers. As well, it coincided with the growth of an important Native movement. A decade ago, a new wave of changes deeply affected the peasant producers: the withdrawal of State intervention and aid, and plummeting prices. Our comparative research, carried on by a team of anthropologists and biologists in these four coffee-producing areas of Mexico, exhibited important differences from the perspectives of ecology and the socio-economic institutions, as well as in their notions of identity. These observed differences seem due to various factors: the nature of social relations in the communities concerned, the differential exposure of the two regions (the Gulf and Pacific watersheds) to the State's modernizing programme, and the different orientations of the local Native producers’ organizations.

Pilgrimage Exchanges, Alliance Networks, and the Micropolitics of an Indigenous Movement in Guerrero
Martin Hébert

By using ethnographic data gathered among the Tlapanec Indians living in the Eastern part of the state of Guerrero (Mexico), the present article will examine the birth of a regional indigenous collective movement which has grown in this mountainous and remote region of Mexico from 1995 to the present day. This article will address, among other matters, the ways in which communities which had, until recent times, displayed certain traits considered characteristic of the closed-corporate model defined by Wolf (1957), have now united through a variety of alliance networks to become part of a regional movement able to confront the various levels of the Mexican government. It will be argued that this mobilization process, based on social, political, and economic interests common to a certain number of indigenous communities, once isolated one from the other, is a process that must be understood not only in practical terms, but also in symbolic terms. By using ethnographic data gathered in the course of various sojourns in the region, the present article aims to describe and explain how traditional networks of conflict and cooperation, as well as their symbolic representations, came to influence the inter-community dynamics of the region and the power struggles that took place within the nascent organization. This exploration becomes even more important when considering that the new movement is composed of communities which have had to overcome antagonisms, often dating back more that a century, in order to participate together at the regional level.

Indigenous Rights and Human Rights in Mexico: From State “Indigenismo” to Popular Movements
Kristin Norget

This article examines the involvement of the liberationist Catholic Church in the Southern Mexican state of Oaxaca with indigenous groups struggling for recognition of their cultural distinctiveness and politico-economic rights. In Oaxaca, Catholic religious leaders have been working with members of their communities to create a new social space of cultural and organizational autonomy from which they are challenging political and social structures that have customarily excluded them. In this, elements of idealized and essentialized tradition are sources for the re-evaluation of cultural and democratic practices as groups construct themselves within new parameters of collective identity. Human rights ('derechos humanos') has operated as the central orienting discourse by which church agents are organizing people and promoting the need for social and political change. In the context of this struggle, the multi-faceted human rights campaign enfolded within the Oaxacan and Mexican indigenous movement is pushing the parameters of the conventional Euro-western version of human rights. This article addresses the social and economic conditions of indigenous peoples in Oaxaca and in Mexico, and wishes to contribute to the understanding of contemporary social struggles, particularly the Church-sponsored indigenous movement.

Power, Resistance and Processes of Identity in an Indigenous Region of the Sierra Sur
Carlos Antonio Martínez

This article results from ethnographic fieldwork carried out between Febuary and July 1999 in a Zapotec speaking area of the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca, more precisely in the Atahualco parish. The object of this enquiry was the study of the fate of local collective identities within the new global processes as described by Castillo and Nigh (1998) and Featherstone (1990), among others. In this period of globalization there is a debate on this theme within the social sciences, including Anthropology. In this “new” global context, it seems as though local cultures redefine their identities by appropriating (juxtaposing) non-traditional elements from the outside. This process gives the appearance of being “hybrid” to these local, regional collective identities.

Who Have the Mayas Become? The Construction of New Identities in Yucatán
Marie-José Nadal

The observation of two regions of Yucatán reveals that the globalization of the Mexican rural economy leads to an increase of intercultural situations in which the impoverished Mayas must integrate to survive the ejido crisis. This paper examines the strategies of identity, differentiated by gender, of these peasants whose agricultural and handicraft output is produced within the context of the informal economic sector or the private sector. As well, it analyses how the new outlets generated by maquiladoras or tourist industries lead to an understanding of the diverse expressions of identity the Mayas have produced.

The Search for Identities in Guatemala's Post-War Era: Transnational Perspectives
Patricia Foxen

This article concerns the transmigrant experience of a Maya K'iché community straddled between a highland village in El Quiche, Guatemala, and an industrial New England city. Most community members were victim to ? or participated in ? brutality and terror during the civil war; in the mid-1980s, some migrated North, creating the foundations for what would become a solid transnational network. In New England, most K'iché are currently undocumented or have temporary visas, living liminal, marginalized lives. It is often argued that among displaced people, memory and narratives of the past serve to reterritorialize space and create a sense of continuity with 'home'. However, for those who, in addition to having witnessed unfathomable ethnic violence, remain hidden and silenced in the host country, feelings of fear, shame and guilt can produce a profound sense of rupture with respect to past identity and place. The paper analyzes the manner in which transnational K'iché negotiate conflicting memory processes and draw on their past in creative ways in order to create viable, flexible cross-border identities. This process is compared with the more formal and institutionalized discourse on ethnic identity currently unfolding in the political spaces of Guatemala’s peace process.

The Zapatista’s Revolutionary Laws for Women: From the Text to the Actors
Geneviève Saumier

The important place that the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) has accorded to women’s issues has contributed to their earning the sympathy of part of the Mexican population and of an international public. This article situates the texts of the two “ Revolutionary Laws for Women ” within the political and socio-cultural context in which they have been created and it also analyzes them. Elaborated in 1993, on the verge of the insurrection, the first Revolutionary Law recognizes their need and right to take part in the revolution. It stems from a synthesis of the interests of Zapatista Native women and those of the organization to prepare itself for armed struggle. The Proposition for the Extension of the Zapatista Revolutionary Law for Women, written more than two and a half years later, seems to represent more directly the voice of Native women of Chiapas. It reveals a progression of the women’s struggle inside the Zapatista one. A reading of this second text suggests principally the presence of a particularistic and collectivist conception of rights regarding justice and the social order that draws from the Meso-american Native tradition. Despite, and maybe because of, the contradictions between this conception and the precepts of individual rights and freedoms that are dear to Westerners, the author stresses that it would be in the feminist’s interest to reflect on and to recognize the validity of this alternative search for a solution, one based on an inner view of the specific situation of these women.

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Research Note
Sites of the 1701 Peace Treaty, and Other Considerations about Native Camps in Montréal
Laurence Johnson

Under the French Regime, large groups of Natives from the Great Lakes region frequently came to Montréal to attend diplomatic or business meetings with the French. The peace conference of 1701 is a spectacular exemple of these annual visits. Using archaeological and ethnographical evidence, as well as historical documents of the time including cadastral data, this article studies the sites where various ceremonies connected with that event took place. The author also examines the more general issue of Native camping and lodging sites in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century.

American Indian Signatures: A Tentative Interpretation of the Montréal Peace Treaties of 1700 and 1701
Yann Guillaud, Denys Delâge and Mathieu d'Avignon

This article reviews the difficulties raised by an analysis of the symbols used by North American Indians to sign treaties with Europeans, such as: uncovering the original archival sources to guarantee the accuracy of the symbols appended, identifying each signatory and the group being represented, establishing the meaning of the pictographs. The two Montréal peace treaties of 1700 and 1701 between, on the one hand, the Iroquois League of the Five Nations, and, on the other, New France and her American Indian allies are used for a systematic study of those symbols. The interest of these two compacts lies in that the signatories present at both peace conference are identical, and that the 1701 treaty involved numerous nations of the Great Lakes: Iroquois, Hurons, Ottawas, Illinois, Miamis, Abenakis, Algonquins, Beaver, Crees, Ojibwas, Potawatomis, Fox, Sauks, Sioux… To identify the signatories and the number of signatures, and to understand their nature (symbols referring to the nation, the clan, the person or a place), various aspects of French-Indian diplomacy are discussed: the importance of protocol, the order of speaking and signing, distinctions between speakers and signatories. Compared to rock art, this ethnographic field is still largely neglected ; several other research avenues have yet to be followed to gain a better understanding of the nature of the pictographs used by American Indians in signing agreements in Northeast America.

The origins of the Seven-Fires Federation
Denys Delâge and Jean-Pierre Sawaya

The Seven-Fires Federation was the St. Lawrence valley resident Indians’ political organization from its inception in 1760 and up until ca. 1860. Under the leadership of the Iroquois of the Sault, known today as Kahnawake, which was then recognized as the capital, the Federation grouped together the other Montréal region Iroquois, namely those of Saint-Régis, modern day Akwesasne, those of Deux Montagnes, also referred to by the toponyms of Oka or Kahnesatake, the Nipissings and the Algonquins resident of the latter village, the Algonquins of Pointe du Lac near Trois-Rivières, the Abenakis of Saint-François or Odanak and those of neighbouring Wolinak, and, finally, the Hurons of Lorette or Wendake. The Iroquois of La Présentation or Oswegatchie were no longer members of the Federation beyond 1763. This political organization was never part of the French-Indian alliance network. The Federation was put in place by the British immediately after the conquest of Canada. Its creation lay within the scope of the British rapprochement policy and diplomatic efforts deployed from the early eighteenth century on to conclude treaties (1735, 1742, 1753) with the resident Indians, especially the Kahnawake Iroquois. The emergence of the Federation and the pre-eminence of Kahnawake bear testimony to the determination of the British to control and manage the Indians then qualified as "subjects and allies". This approach falls within the bounds of British "indirect rule" aimed at elevating one nation above all the others to associate it with the colonial power and use it as a broker between the Crown and the other nations. Beyond the study of the origins of an Indian political organization, this article discusses the French and British colonial models, the characteristics of the colonized, the issue of colonial power, and, more generally, colonialism.

To Live as Brothers: Fraternal Metaphors in the First French-Native Alliances in Canada, circa 1580-1650
Peter Cook

In the first half of the seventeenth century, the Montagnais, Algonkin, Huron, and French alliance was characterized by the use of tropes of brotherhood that, in the absence of a common political vocabulary or shared institutions, allowed Native peoples and the French to convey their respective expectations and claims in council. The convergence was, however, limited, due to differing interpretations of the logic of brotherhood. Missionary discourse employed the same kinship metaphors to express the ideal of the politico-religious solidarity of the faithful. The dispersal of Huron and Algonkin communities at mid-century marked the decline of the brother metaphor in French-Native diplomacy, despite Iroquois efforts to adapt it to the project of forming "one people" with the French. Henceforth, the French acted as the fathers of their Native allies in North America.

 « Des esprits à soi »: The Chiefs in the French-Indian Alliance of the Pays d'En Haut (1660-1715)
Gilles Havard

The Indian ambassadors from the Pays d'en Haut who were the regular interlocutors of the officers of New France, were leaders of their people as well as mediators between the two societies. The French, who regarded those chiefs as relays of pax gallica, subscribed all at once, via the institutionalization of gift-giving and feasting, to a Louis XIV-type rationale (using munificence and corruption as waays of domination) and to that of Native chiefdom (resorting to generosity as an attribute of power). The dialogue between the colonial authorities and Native chiefs is diplomatic in essence, but it is also part of a process of subjugation which clearly appears from the pivotal position occupied by the French in the alliance.

From the Iroquois to the Tupinambas, and Back, Or: Reflections on American Indian Warfare
Emmanuel Désveaux

Recent works about the Iroquois raise once again the question of warfare. Although a contribution to this debate, this article refutes the idea of an absolute singularity of the phenomenon as (historically) observed among the Iroquois. The author rather endeavours to undertake an inter-American comparison, which follows the insights of Lévi-Strauss's Mythologiques and is based on the concept of transformation. Taking as a starting point the profound similarities between Iroquois and Tupinamba rites and pratices of warfare, the author uncovers a common structure which rests on the pairing of the captive and his captor. He also shows the crucial role played in the former case by pure affinity and in the latter by what he calls "maternality". A comparison of the sociological determinants of warfare has other heuristical virtues, since it permits to gain a better understanding of South-American anthropophagy versus North-American torture.

The League of the Iroquois: Finding the « Peace » of Space, Time, and Kinship
Adriano Santiemma

This paper examines some elements from traditional Iroquois culture with which the West, from first contact till the present, has created a series of stereotypes (positive and negative) in accordance with a process of assimilation of cultural diversity. These stereotypes have been used to reinforce the cultural identity of observers of Iroquois culture. In particular, the paper examines in detail some stereotypes of the "League" to show that there exists a divergence between what many observers have written about the League (Lafitau, Cusick, Morgan, Hale, Clastres…) and the cosmological vision of the Iroquois. The author emphasises the complexity of the Iroquoian cosmological vision and how far removed this vision is from analyses that have forced the data into ideologically-derived western frameworks.

The paper concentrates on analysing the foundation myths of the League from a new viewpoint, and concentrates on the manner in which two systems of kinship reckoning (matrilineal and patrilineal) have strongly influenced the  political, social and territorial organisation of the League. For the traditional Iroquois, the League was a  single entity with many dimensions that Western culture insists are separate instances of reality. The League was so attuned to cosmological phenomena that it was an accurate instrument for measuring solar and lunar time.
 

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Globalization and the repositioning of indigenous political practices: a theoretical overview
Irène Bellier et Dominique Legros

In Québec, Canada and elsewhere indigenous peoples have been encompassed within nation-states. In the process, they have also been, so to speak, turned into political non entities. Will globalization allow for the creation of a new political space in which first nation peoples might find new ways to act and voice their concerns ? Will the emergence of a new brand of young leaders, schooled in Western institutions, and now accustomed to international exchanges, allow for an enduring transformation of living conditions in their respective societies ? This issue explores some cases that involve the emblematic issues embedded in all first nations’ struggles for the recognition of their political and cultural rights: relationship to land ; management of one’s environment and heritage; bilingual education; definition of new political spaces. Through these issues we can understand the difficulties that First Nations face in being recognized, not simply as citizens, but more importantly, as distinct peoples with full rights, with distinct cultures, living in a world in which their economic survival strategies confront others with radically divergent historical heritages. The papers published here bear on the consequences of globalizing the indigenous problem and on the difficulties and inherent contradictions faced by first nation organizations having to formulate a "new political deal" in a context of social, economic and cultural destruction which accompany the relative withering away of the nation-state. They also reveal how first nation peoples can imagine "significant/signifying spaces" spreading beyond the borders of their own territory as a result of their foreseen consciousness of the danger threatening human kind if it is to be ruled by the sole logic of neo-liberal economic globalization.

Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination: An Interview with Kenneth Deer, a representative of the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawake to the United Nations
Dominique Legros et Pierre Trudel

In 1987, after years of involvement in the struggle for aboriginal rights, Kenneth Deer, then a young Mokawk school councillor at Kahnawake near Montreal, decided that more effective action demanded taking the cause of the indigenous peoples of the Americas to the international arena. He went to Geneva to represent the Kahnawake Mohawk nation at the International Labor Organization, then in the process of discussing Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous peoples, and at the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Since then, he has maintained the latter function, returning year after year to Geneva. In this interview, he recounts how his participation in discussions at the United Nations has broadened his concerns, which now include indigenous people worldwide. He also forcefully explains why no indigenous people should be satisfied with a simple right to political autonomy within the state it has found itself incarcerated during the colonial era. For Kenneth Deer, all indigenous peoples have an inherent right to self-determination. Finally, he insists that racism is an enduring reality in most dominant societies, including Canada, in particular toward the indigenous peoples they presume to have assimilated.

We are here to speak as equals: Interview with Alexis Tiouka, coordinator for the Federation of Amerindian Organizations of French Guyana (FOAG) from 1996 to 2001
Irène Bellier et Gérard Collomb

In 1988, the Federation of Amerindian Organizations of French Guyana (FOAG), moved onto the international scene in taking a place provided to indigenous peoples by the United Nations in Geneva. Until then, the claims of the indigenous peoples of Guyana (Arawak, Emerillons, Kali'na, Palikur, Wayana, Wayapi) had scarcely been noticed by France, and FOAG expected to put pressure on the state by referring and resorting to international rights. Alexis Tiouka, who was delegated by FOAG, coordinator and entrusted with the issue of indigenous rights, reports here his experiences with the UN Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, the Working group for the creation of a permanent authority on indigenous peoples matters, as well as the Intersessional Working Group on the Declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples.

Inuit Construction of New Political Spaces in the Era of Globalization
Françoise Morin

Globalization, which may be understood as the intensification of worldwide social relations (Giddens), has generated numerous debates. Certain analysts interpret these exchanges, products of the growing interpenetration of societies, in terms of hybridity or of multiculturalism. Others address the question of the homogenization of culture, and examine new cosmopolitan realities. But what of indigenous peoples? If they are unable to escape the impact of cultural homogenization, they are nevertheless concerned, above all, with the degradation of their environments resulting from the globalization of economic flows. To defend their territorial and cultural rights, and to pose sustainable development alternatives, they have invented political strategies enabling them to form new relations with encapsulating nation-states. In order to illustrate this novel indigenous approach to the concept and practice of politics, the author, from a political anthropological perspective, has selected two cases in point. The first is that of the Inuit of Nunavut (central Canadian Arctic) who in 1992 successfully concluded, with the federal government, an agreement recognizing their rights to land and self-government, and who since 1999 have governed a new territory. The second is that of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), which since 1980 has spanned international boundaries to bring under one umbrella the Inuit of four states (Russia, USA, Canada, and Denmark). In Nunavut, we are witnessing the creation of an Inuit territory and a new political entity in the Canadian North. For the first time, claims of territorial and political rights have been dealt with through a unified set of negotiations with the federal government. With ICC, two processes are at play: the invention of a new ethnic entity, the Inuit as a "people"; and the construction of a transnational sense of place permitting the innovation of an imagined territory reaching from Chukotka to Groënland. Far from resembling Arjun Appadurai’s "ethnoscapes", Inuit transnational identity is a political tool enabling the CIC leadership to act on the international scene in confronting the issues that attend globalization.

From Indianness to Indigenousness: The Internationalization of Indigenous Guyanese struggles and the stakes of indigenousness
Gérard Collomb

The Amerindian political movement in French Guyana originated in the 1980s among the Kali’na (Caribes) on the bases of a territorial claim as well as a call for the recognition of their culture and indigenous language. These claims were addressed to the French state, thus recreating a long established relationship between France and the indigenous peoples during a long colonial era. However, in the last decade the Amerindians of Guyana (Arawak, Emerillons, Kali’na, Palikur, Wayana, Wayapi) have developed different political strategies in that they initiated a move unto the transnational stage developed by the indigenous political bodies from greater Amazonia (COICA), as well as by working groups piloted by NGOs or by the United Nations’ offices at Geneva.
This article, supported by ethnographic findings, proposes an anthropological analysis of this repositioning. This opening of the Indigenous Guyanese movement to the international community has reconfigured their discourses and arguments and created new trans-boundary cooperation. Above all, it has legitimized the notion of the "indigenous peoples", hereafter central in the political discourse of peoples who, in the recent past, had to see themselves as mere "minorities" belonging to a nation-state whole. From now on, the stakes in indigenous Guyanese politics have contradicted and challenged the Creole’s own "national imagining" in the making (shared by the other dominant segments of the Guyanese population), a "national imagining" which some day could become important to support tomorrow’s autonomy or independence.

Amerindian Associations and Sustainable Development in Brazilian Amazonia
Bruce Albert

From the end of the 1980s, more than two hundred Amerindian associations have been constituted in the Brazilian Amazon. This article proposes a panorama of this development, an analysis of the dynamics and an account of what is at stake in the question of the conservation of the environment. The paper first briefly looks at the political and economic conditions which have made possible the appearance of this network of associations, then, at how they function within the institutional, local and global space of aid programs for sustainable development. Finally, it evaluates the geographic and ecological significance of Amerindian lands in the Brazilian Amazon as well as the interests and challenges associated with the on-going management of natural resources by the Amerindian associations. This is discussed from the perspective of a "socio-environmental" and non predatory model of development for the region.

Multiculturalism at School: Between Myth and Utopia
Christian Gros

Starting from Amerindian myths underlining the importance of writing and of school, this article discusses the constitutional recognition of the right of indigenous populations of Latin America to bilingual and bicultural schools. For countries which, until now, would wish to see themselves as culturally Metis, this recognition comes about in a neoliberal context where globalization and the rise of ethnic claims presents for states and governments the necessity of putting in place new strategies aimed at renewing their legitimacy and securing their governance. In doing this, it creates a symbolic rupture with the national project which saw the schools of the republic as a melting pot for the construction of a citizenship devoid of all communal affiliations. Now, for these indigenous organizations engaged in processes of construction and politicization of an ethnic identity, it is true that bilingual and bicultural schools are part of the collective rights recently gained. However, it may turn out to be different for Indian populations which look above all to schools for the acquisition of new learning and the means of integrating to the mainstream society. This raises the more general question of how to introduce multiculturalism in the school in countries now aspiring to take on the aspects of multiethnic and multicultural nations. In order to avoid establishing cultural ghettos, is it not necessary to re-imagine the school for everyone and make it a place of shared multiculturalism? This discussion is applicable to countries such as Colombia, Ecuador or Bolivia, which have made some progress in establishing bilingual and bicultural schools, and to others, such as Mexico, that have, until now, been little inclined to go beyond the rhetoric of multiculturalism.

Globalization and James Bay Crees’ new challenges : Going Beyond Neo-Liberal Politics
Jean Rousseau

This article explores how the globalization of politics impacts on the struggles of the Cree people inhabiting the James Bay region. It appears that Cree politics is shaped by a double process of deterritorialization and reterritorialization by which Cree people have been increasingly recognized as global actors. Although globalization has provided new opportunities, it also imposes upon them new constraints, contributing to their disempowerment. In this article, the author examines two major constraints faced by the Cree at the global level. The first constraint is the high amount of organizational and political resources required to participate efficiently in global debates. The second constraint derived from the hegemony of globalism, imposing a neo-liberal and corporatist form of globalization. While Cree people have adequately managed to respond to the first constraint, they are confronted with the necessity to provide an alternative to globalism. This challenge is particularly important for the future development of Cree people and for the other indigenous peoples as well.

When Bourgeois and Indigenous Ethics met: Modernity, Post-modernity and Amerindianness
Denys Delâge et Jean-Philippe Warren

This article proposes a hypothetical encounter of two worlds, one of ethics rather than one of warfare or cultures. Is it possible to think of the conflicts and dialogues between Amerindian and European peoples in terms of different ethical conception of what constitutes morality? Borrowing from Weber's work on the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, it becomes a matter of proceeding with a sociological reading of the moral basis which orients the European sense of indigenousness and the Amerindian one of the Europeans. Briefly explored are the meanings of the terms "work" and "guilt" held by each. Through such means the authors try to bring out the relation with hunter-gatherers and sedentary Indians instituted by modernity at the time of colonization. In the first part, the opposition presented is between "guilt" in the reformist ethic and "debt" in the indigenous ethic as well as between "beruf" in bourgeois ethic and the conceptualization of "work" proposed by the indigenous ethic. In the second part, these two oppositions are brought forth to demonstrate their persistence, despite certain radical reformulations, in postmodern society. In the first part, as the second, the matter is to analyze the process by which an Amerindian view of colonial reality is constructed ? an image reinforced by mutual misunderstandings. As the discussion progresses, it becomes possible to more clearly grasp the ethical logic as well as the political, social or military rationales which contribute to the tightening of the colonial noose around the Amerindians. This extensive journey will also contribute to a better understanding of the present challenges confronting Native Peoples.
 

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Thinking from Without : Mirrors for Identity in Mesoamerica
Jacques Galinier

Several Native Mesoamerican theories hold that thoughts are temporarily captured by individuals from an anonymous flow of ideas circulating in the natural world, moved by generalized sexual energy. Indigenous descriptions of psychic activity explain how humans interact with a "thinking Nature", which, among the Otomi, is represented by anthropomorphic "beacons", in the form of shamanic ídolos made of bark paper. These items are readily found today on the international curios market. However, symbolically, these artifacts are the expression of an underground prehispanic tradition focussing on sacrifice. This tradition, though extremely complex and not easily accessible, is still very much alive, and has not been wiped out, despite trends towards supposed syncretism and cultural crossbreeding.

The Ritual of San Marcos in a Tlapaneco Community of Guerrero
Martin Hébert

This article describes the San Marcos ritual as it is performed among the Tlapanecos of Guerrero (Mexico) each year during the night of the 24th to the 25th of April. During this ritual, members from each of the communities in the region build an altar in the mountains and offer sacrifices in honour of the saint so that he will soon send rain and that he will watch over the beings living on earth. As this celebration marked by very strong prehispanic elements, we witness many characteristics of the Tlapaneco worldview, such as the distinction between beings incapable of knowing the celebrated god and those that can know him. This distinction, imbedded in the ritual itself, helps us to understand the Tlapaneco approach to collective action when this action consists in demanding a non-divisible good from a supernatural being.

The Casta. The Jicarilla Apache Puberty Feast
Veronica Velarde Tiller

In this article Veronica Tiller, an Apache historian, offers an insider's view on the Ceremonial Puberty Feast of the Jicarillas (casta ) and its current renewal among her people. She reviews some of the hardships the Jicarillas had to face over the last hundred years and argues that the very foundations and values of Jicarilla society were trampled on in the name of Christianity and assimilationist policies. She analyzes the staging of the casta  from a female perspective, centering on the philosophical meaning of the ceremony rather than the description of the rituals.The casta is presented as an important rite of passage celebrating the role of women in Jicarilla society. It is a significant reflection of the tribe's desire to keep its culture alive and the revival of Indian ways in the United States.

Sitting Bull and the White Man's Religion
Colin Taylor

This carefully researched study gives some new insights into the life and times of a great North American Indian patriot. In particular, it reconsiders the historic and linguistic record which to date has largely, at best, been glossed over by previous researchers, scholars and students of Sitting Bull. The author shows how the different renditions in English of his true Lakota name do not adequately reflect the concepts and nuances inherent in this name. In addition, the author brings to our attention the interesting parallels between the religion of the Plains tribes and that of the missionaries who sought to convert them.

The Eternal Round : Birth and Rebirth in Lakota Belief
William K. Powers

In this article, William K. Powers discusses Lakota concepts of birth, life, death and rebirth. He stresses the influence of religion on tribal identity and emphasizes continuity rather than change. According to the author, the idea of roundness plays a very important role in structuring Lakota beliefs and rituals. Life is perceived as a circular journey, the different cycles of human development being marked by cardinal directions, color symbolism and seasonality. The cycle of life, in the form of the "eternal round" defines Lakota metaphysical identity. All seven sacred rituals are based upon the symbolism of the circle. Life and death appear as an "incidence" on the eternal round. The idea of the circle is analyzed on two planes, the horizontal and the vertical. According to the author "just as the horizontal plane is a statement about mortality, the vertical plane represents immortality".

Native North American Perspectives on Aboriginal Ceremonies, Prayer, and Media
Jean-Guy A. Goulet

This article explores reasons for the recurrent Native North American "traditionalist" ban on media coverage and various forms of electronic recording of ceremonies and prayers. Three fundamental reasons explain partly this resistance. First, traditionalists do not want to market their heritage as a tourist curiosity or a live exotic show. Second, traditionalists do not want to identify with the dominant culture. Banning media coverage of their ceremonies is an effective way to distance themselves from that Euro-North American culture. Third, traditionalists promote the view that a true appreciation of their ceremonies is gained from the perspective of the individual who experiences them from within and lost from the viewpoint of the oberver content to record their external expressions. The discussion is based on an analysis of the media coverage of the ceremonies of the Cree, Dene, Lakota, and other aboriginal groups.

Identity, Politics and Spirituality : Discussions with Some Ojibwa Leaders from Northern Lake Huron
François Boudreau

Contact between Native American and Euro-Canadian in the Great Lakes Region is over 400 years old. Traditional aboriginal culture and religion have long been in a dismal state. Recently, however, with respect to contemporary Ojibwa culture, we are witnessing a will to reconstruct and reinstitute a distinct aboriginal culture. This Renaissance proceeds from heterogeneous cultural elements.To understand how this reconstruction proceeds, the author interviewed twenty-one Ojibwa leaders from the North Shore Tribal Council on Lake Huron and from two anishnabe higher education institutes in Sudbury. Based on a content analysis of the interviews, he underlines the conception those leaders hold their identity and the "aboriginal" meaning they give to certain concepts. This leads to a criticism of representative democracy as practised in the Western world. The analysis also looks at the relationship between the Ojibwa and nature. The author demonstrates that, to some Ojibwa leaders, the political project of self determination is pursued with a will to reintroduce a traditional-ancestral-spiritual dimension. He suggests that some Ojibwa leaders refuse to accept the political modernity of the Western world, modernity which they find abnormal if not amoral and anti-democratic.

Archaeology, Politics and Revisionism: A European "First Nation" in America?
Patrick Plumet

Two discoveries, the Kennewick Man in the United States and a possible Paleoarctic micronucleus in Iceland, and the recycling of a very old theory about a European Paleolithic origin for the first peopling of the Americas are examined. This paper tries to understand the scholars' approaches and the sociopolitical context in which these new data and their first interpretations are presented, discussed and ideologically exploited. Some reflections are offered concerning the extrascientific and ideological exploitation of these non-official prehistoric "scoops".

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History, Symbolism and Modes of Resistance among the Tzeltals of the Selva Lacandona (Chiapas) 1940-1994
Martin Hébert

By way of an examination of the circumstances that led to the colonization of the Selva Lacandona (Chiapas) by the Tzeltal Indians in the nineteen-forties, this article seeks to retrace the origin of some symbolic elements which arose in the socio-political mobilization process leading to the Zapatista uprising of January 1994. One of these elements is the periodization, in three periods, that the Tzeltals themselves do of the history of their communities: exodus, disappointment, and socio-political mobilization. The genesis of this historical framework has been deeply influenced by the teachings of liberation theology, so that the socio-political mobilization that aims to redress the social injustices perpetrated against the Tzeltals must necessarily be understood by a composite symbolism whose various components have developed in synergy and whose figures like the "boss" have been replaced by the "government" at the same time that traditional forms of resistance have been replaced by a more organized mode of protest.

French Posts and Indian Villages: studying one aspect of French colonial space organization in the Pays d'En Haut, 1660-1715
Gilles Havard

In the Upper Country (Great Lakes region), the colonial space was not structured according to a logic of settlement but rather through two factors.  Montréal played a central and polarizing role linking it to the Lower Country (the St. Lawrence valley) while, locally, the structuring depended on the interaction of the trading posts with the Indian villages. This (post/village) connection was the main support for the French colonial presence in North America by which the Upper Country was partially incorporated into the French Empire.

Fur Trade and Native Society in the Upper St. Maurice Region at the End of the Eighteenth Century
Claude Gélinas

The letters exchanged between Frederick Haldimand and Louis-Joseph Godefroy de Tonnancour at the end of the 1770s represent so far the most informative documents of the time on the history and the occupants of the Upper St. Maurice region. They offer information on the fur trade, on the identity of the fur traders and the profitability of their operations, as well as on the social organization and economic behavior of the local Natives. The fur trade was not a lucrative adventure in the Upper St. Maurice at that time because the Natives preferred to trade at James Bay or in the King’s Posts to acquire the major part of the merchandise they needed. Their trade with local Canadian merchants served to obtain only a limited range of articles considered of better quality than those offered elsewhere.

Blood Feud and Peace Ceremony among the Tutchone Athapaskan (Yukon). A Critique of the Nature/Violence Linkage Made by Saint Augustine, Hobbes and Lévi-Strauss
Dominique Legros

In its first section, this paper links alliance theory (as found in Saint Augustine and Lévi-Strauss) to the Hobbesian theory of order.  It reveals how this theory has endured through the ages in Western thought and in which way the opposition it makes between nature/war on the one hand and culture/peace on the other is a parochial theory, not universal or even rational. Two theses are proposed in sections 2 and 3 based on Northern Athapaskan Tutchone ethnographic data. First, there is no cause of war that is universal. Any war is the result of culturally defined pretexts which are themselves linked to particular societal structures. What is outrageous here may be of no consequence there.  This is why we propose that violence is everywhere an integral part of culture just as grammatical errors exist because of the presence of given grammars and language. Through an analysis of the Tutchone conception of violence (section 2) and of the Tutchone ritual of peace (section 3), the reader is also invited to consider that a peace/violence cycle always includes a de facto third segment which transforms the cycle into a ternary one of peace/violence/peace and therefore the whole process is best understood as a solemn reaffirmation of the existing structural order ? as the tick-tock of a grand-father clock.
That the same prevails in Western societies is harder to perceive for we lack the distance to see ourselves.  Notwithstanding, the article uses the evolution of our notion of rape to demonstrate that our violence is no less cultural than that of the Tutchone ? that a rape and the trial that eventually followed were the mere tick and tock of a clock's tick-tock and a reaffirmation of the terms of the then acceptable relationship between genders. Moreover, it shows the kinds of behaviour which in this structure were prohibited to women and which "provoking the crime" somehow "excused it".

After the Seals and Caribou Are Caught: Expanding Models of Adaptation in the Eastern Subarctic
Marianne P. Stopp

Frozen meat, "stinking meat", powdered eggs, and storage caches were tried and true means of nutritional insurance among historic Aboriginal peoples of the Eastern Subarctic. This paper suggests that ethnohistoric evidence provides a reasonable analogy for the reliance of prehistoric groups on food processing and storage. Current models of adaptation are informed and defined by the procurement of resources; however the processing and storage of food resources are equally critical components of Subarctic sustainability and warrant greater consideration in discussions of adaptation.

The IcGm-5 site, a Dorset Occupation on the East Coast of Hudson Bay
Claude Pinard

Diverse archaeological research in the Eastern Arctic shows a lack of information on tent rings sites; the emphasis was mainly on sites with semi-subterranean dwellings. Data from the excavation of IcGm-5 site in 1995 give us a little information on a Dorset non-winter occupation site on the east coast of Hudson Bay. Tent rings and stone tool comparisons with some sites from the Eastern Arctic allow us to date the occupation of the site to the Middle Dorset period.

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Hunting Territories of the Hurons of Lorette
Jocelyn Tehatarongnantase Paul

The Hurons of Lorette traditional lifestyle demonstrates the Northeast natives ability to adapt to a changing environment. These Iroquoian natives, horticulturalists at the time of contact, adopted a hunting way of life at the turn of the 18th century. This article analyzes the limits of the hunting territory of this nation as well as its patterns of occupation, mainly for the 19th century. The territories were bounded by the Saint-Maurice river on the west, the Charlevoix area to the east, the St. Lawrence River watershed to the north and the St. John River to the south. The author demonstrates some variation at the eastern limit of the Charlevoix area as well as a heavy presence of Huron hunters south of the St. Lawrence River. In terms of patterns of use, Paul underlines the great mobility of some hunters who were not limiting themselves to their family area but, on the contrary, were hunting on the whole territory of their Nation. Moreover, the author demonstrates that some areas were passed from one family to another over the generations, and he emphasizes the limits of Frank G. Speck’s 1927 analysis in his article entitled Huron Hunting Territories in Quebec. By using and comparing various historical sources, and taking into account demographic data, the author questions the notion of exclusive family hunting territories for the Hurons of Lorette. As Tanner and Morantz for the Cree people, Paul states that the Hurons of Lorette had adopted an adaptative strategy in moving over all the nation’s hunting territory. The Hurons of Lorette did not have a family hunting territory system, properly speaking, but instead had a flexible area hunting system in which individuals and male hunting groups were moving relatively freely over decades and generations.

The Rules of Alliances and the Huron Occupation of the Territory
Jean Tanguay

The present article looks at the Huron territorial occupation from an "international" point of view: that of their agreements with allied Nations for the association with and use of the Laurentian territory. The author verifies more precisely if the rules of alliances were a deciding factor in the manner which the Hurons, who took refuge in Québec in 1650, were able to access new territories for their subsistence activities. This study distinguishes itself in that way from already published reseach on Native territoriality, particularly that by Frank G. Speck who, at beginning of the 20th Century, looked at the manner of use and sharing of the territory within certain Native Bands in Québec. The study of these agreements and the logic that supports them offer, in particular, a new understanding of the means of access and sharing of the hunting territories among the Nations domicilied in the St. Lawrence Valley between the 17th and 19th centuries. It also demonstrates to what point these Nations went to protect a certain political and judicial autonomy which would have allowed them to distribute or hold in common a very large portion of the territory, this despite the territorial claims of the French and English colonial powers.

The Tradition of Commerce Among the Hurons of Lorette-Wendake
Denys Delâge

The history of commerce among Hurons of Lorette-Wendake near Québec city during 1650-1950, illustrates a process of embracing modernity at the same time as this small community upheld influences supporting resistance and cultural creativity. Hurons, who had previously lived from the products of agriculture, quickly adjusted to new realities by making hunting their main activity, adding crafts and the selling of Huron goods. Hurons have learned to take advantage of their differences and of the proximity of the city: it is their entire culture that they have activated in their interaction with the Other, through diplomatic and touristic visits from the beginning of the 18th century on that "theatralised" dialectic of Self and Other ? the Hurons presenting themselves the way they were represented by the Other. Hurons nowadays are like Euro-Canadians in many respects (phenotypes, religion, language and architecture), but they are different in terms of their identity, professions and crafts, political status and history. Hurons have become successful in making a living from their differences, and in marking the modern world in their own way. The first Huron entrepreneurs emerged in Lorette around 1830-40, which situates their community in the avant-garde of Canadian Indians for a century and a half. Similarly, they are avant garde in the progress they have made in education and in their access to political institutions. Beyond the history of Hurons and of their commercial life, this article, based on original archival work, examines questions of identity and modernity.

The Hurons and the Conquest: A New Look at "Murray’s Treaty"
Alain Beaulieu

Until now, we knew very little about the role of the Hurons in the final events of the Seven Years War. We could only find a few references to them in the French documentation, relative to the period. However, the recent discovery of an 1828 document which uncovers aspects concerning the Hurons’ oral tradition related to this troubled period, fills the gap. Transmitted by the Huron chief Petit Étienne, then 91 years old, this oral tradition permits a better understanding of the history of the Hurons of Lorette for the period ranging from the French defeat on the Plains of Abraham (September 1759) to the surrender of Montréal (September 1760). Once re-inserted into the larger context of the British diplomatic efforts to ensure the neutrality of the Indians resident in the St. Lawrence Valley, the testimony of chief Petit Étienne is interesting in that it sheds light on the options exercised by the Hurons in the last months of the Seven Years War. The document shows in particular that the Hurons had kept alive for many decades the memory of their encounter with General James Murray, an encounter that followed directly the treaty of Oswegatchie (August 30, 1760). These recollections show clearly how important this meeting with General Murray was to the Hurons. On the other hand, the story of Petit Étienne also supports the position of those who consider that the document General Murray gave to the Hurons on September 5, 1760 cannot be regarded as a treaty but should be looked at instead as a safe-conduct that was to facilitate the return of the Hurons to their village, abandoned the previous fall.

Indians and the Criminal Justice System in Québec: the politics of administration during the British Regime
Helen Stone

This article is extracted from a study prepared in 1996-1997 and is relevant to both historical and legal as well as sociological disciplines. It concerns the administration of criminal justice in Québec as it relates to the Aboriginal peoples inhabiting the missions in that province and also includes some material on Aboriginal persons outside the province, from what was known as the “ unorganized territories ” to the west. The article compares this judicial administration with that applied to non-Aboriginal persons inhabiting the Québec, Montréal, Trois-Rivières and Detroit areas. The period in question is the second half of the 18th century, with some analysis of early 19th century. Archival sources consulted include the following at the National Archives of Canada : Civil Secretaries, Governors and other officials’ papers, Public Accounts, Sheriffs and related Gaol papers, War Office, and records of Indian Affairs. Archival sources consulted at the Archives nationales de Québec consist mainly of the pièces judiciaires : i.e., those legal papers connected with the court process, such as the plumitif du greffier, warrants, grand jury lists, petit jury lists, writs of habeus corpus, indictments, coroners’ inquest testimonies, other depositions, and petitions.
The study found that although the criminal justice process in Québec was set up to deal with the individual and his/her crime, in the case of Aboriginal persons this process was often attenuated by the government's need to recognize political alliances with Aboriginal tribal units and their federations. In the latter part of the 18th century, leniency appears as a fairly regular occurrence in criminal justice administration. Due to the declining political power of Aboriginal tribes after the War of 1812, justice was eventually delivered on an equivalent basis to both White and Aboriginal persons.

The Hurons and Enfranchisement: Maintaining a Distinct Identity at Lorette in the Twentieth Century
Patrick Brunelle

This article analyzes the sense of identity held by the Hurons of Lorette at the beginning of the twentieth century, at a time when the processes towards enfranchisement of Indians were accelerating. The text covers a period little researched in Huron history and a reality little discussed by scholars. Having progressively lost their hunting and fishing grounds and adopted handicrafts as their main economic resource, the culture of the Hurons of Lorette was transformed during the centuries which followed their settlement of this small reserve in 1697. The proximity of the town of Québec and the frequent contacts with its population hastened their francisation and adoption of the Catholic religion. At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, the federal government multiplied its efforts to induce bands, it deemed sufficiently assimilated, towards enfranchisement. However, despite the cultural changes and the pressure being exerted on them, the Hurons refused enfranchisement. Starting with a sense of a distinct identity, they continued to see themselves as different from other Canadians and refused to abandon their Indian status and their reserve.
First undertaken as a study in history, this research borrows also from anthropology and sociology (Gérin). It uses principally the journal of the Huron Chief Pierre-Albert Picard (1916-1920), as well as a variety of monographs and articles on the Hurons of Lorette (Gérin, Speck, Falardeau, etc. Also consulted were the newspapers of the time and archival documents, along with recent scholarly works, notably those by Eugene Roosens.

Research Note
Adams and the Birchbark Map of Chief Nicolas Tsawanhonhi Vincent
Jocelyn Tehatarongnantase Paul

The Hurons of Lorette were employed as guides and bearers for the Crown surveyors during most of the 19th century. Nicolas Tsawenhonhi Vincent, Grand Chief of his Nation, was used as a guide by Adams and Baby during their 1829 summer expedition. Those surveyors left us a map commonly called "Plan Vincent" which is, most probably, a copy of the birch bark map that Chief Vincent was carrying during the expedition. This map, which represents more than 300 lakes, riviers and streams, shows the exceptional topographical memory of this Native and demonstrates that the Hurons of Lorette were hunting along all the river drainage systems located between the Saint-Maurice and Saguenay rivers during the 18th and the 19th centuries.

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Is the Late Woodland Period at the Mouth of the Saguenay Iroquoian?
Michel Plourde

Archaeological research undertaken at the mouth of the Saguenay river since 1987 and related to prehistoric marine resource exploitation reveals three principal characteristics. These are the widespread use of ceramics, grinding tools and appalachian cherts, by the disposal of half of the culinary waste around the hearths, and by a very high proportion (95 %) of marine mammal bones among faunal remains. The author argues that this specialised subsistance pattern distinguished Iroquoian groups living in the St. Lawrence valley, and that it lasted for the entire Late Woodland period (A.D. 1000 to 1535).

Some Notes on the Ottawa River Ountchatarounounga Algonquin Band (also known as Onontchataronon)
James F. Pendergast

Primary documentary, cartographic and linguistic sources, together with current archaeological data, are examined with a view to assessing the hypothesis that the Ountchatarounounga Algonquin band of the Ottawa river being involved with the St. Lawrence Iroquoians prior to their dispersal ca. 1580. The archaeological data do not suggest that the Ountchatarounounga, who lived along the Cataraqui and Rideau rivers south of Morrison Island, were in contact with St. Lawrence Iroquoians. It is therefore possible that these Algonquins were not present in the Ottawa Valley before ca. 1580. Nonetheless, it is also possible that some St. Lawrence Iroquoian refugees from Hochelaga were assimilated by Ottawa River Algonquin bands after they had been dispersed. Maybe this is how their unidentified descendants came to tell Vimont in 1642 that their ancestors had once lived on the island of Montréal.

Looks on the Past : Reflection on the Identity of the Inhabitants of the St. Lawrence Valley in the Sixteenth Century
Roland Tremblay

Beyond the methodological difficulties that characterise the discipline of archaeology, the identification of past human groups takes place in a present-day context where conflicting interests may give rise to different interpretations of the past. This article explores and compares three current positions with regard to the identity of the inhabitants of the Saint Lawrence valley, whom Jacques Cartier encountered in the sixteenth century, viz. the anthropological position as put forward by archaeologists, the viewpoint of a Huron historian as well as the one of an anthropologist who has worked for the Mohawks. Possible articulations among these positions are suggested. The author expresses his conviction that it is useful to compare diverging interpretations with regard to a crucial element of native regional history ? if only to generate discussion among the communities involved, and to avoid chauvinism.

Boundary and Frontier in Prehistoric Mesoamerica: the Case of Honduras
José Dario Izaguirre

After a brief description of the concept of culture area, this article explores the dividing line between between the Mesoamerican and Intermediary culture areas documented in the archaeological literature. To do so, the author makes use of two concepts, namely boundary and frontier. On the basis of a list of culture traits from certain regions in Honduras and Nicaragua, he establishes links with one or the other culture area through time. He then demonstrates that the dividing line between the two culture areas is drawn, in fact, in an arbitrary fashion, thus impeding our understanding of the distinctive nature of this part of Central America which is still little known from an archaeological viewpoint.

The Archaeologist, Material Culture and the Question of Ethnicity
Norman Clermont

Human groups show who they are in the things they make. But since they make many different things, each one only contains a small part of the personality of its makers. Moreover, the objects finally unearthed by the archaeologist represent only a fraction of a given cultural production. They do not necessarily form a representative sample, nor do they include the pieces that can be considered as the most distinctive of the group in question. For this reason, it is often difficult to identify the ethnic and cultural characteristics of the group to which the makers of the pieces belonged.

Other articles

The Sacrificial Victims of Pampa de las Florès: Archaeological Contribution to the Study of Human Sacrifice in the Pre-Hispanic Andes
Peter Eeckhout

Analysing finds from grave sites discovered during excavations undertaken at Pampa de las Florès (Lurín Valley, central coast of Peru), the author discusses the meaning of prehispanic human mortuary remains whose placement and burial context appear to be unusual. While there seems to be little doubt about the fact that human sacrifices were involved, two interpretations can be envisaged : either the victims represented foundation offerings or they were meant as retainers for an individual with special status.

Atikamekw Social Organisation in the Nineteenth Century
Claude Gélinas

Drawing on data from the archives of the Hudson's Bay Company and those of the Oblates, the author traces the evolution of the different social units ? band, hunting group and family ? of nineteenth-century Atikamekw society in the wake of interaction with Euro-Canadians in Upper Mauricie. He argues that such interaction did not bring about substantial changes in Atikamekw social organisation, which remained centred around hunting groups comprising several extended families. On the other hand, contact with traders and missionaries did contribute to the transformation of bands into sociopolitical units, while prompting a reassessment of the qualities necessary in a band chief.

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Onontio, the Great Tree and the Covenant Chain : The Marquis de Beauharnois addresses the Kanehsata'kehró:non, August 1741
Louise Johnston

This article discusses the use of metaphorical language in Iroquois oratory with specific reference to a council held in 1741 between the Marquis de Beauharnois and the Kanehsata'keró:non. In his address Beauharnois employed three important Iroquois metaphors, the fire, the tree and the chain. As we shall see, he systematically extended these metaphors well beyond Iroquois custom and tradition. Like most Europeans, Beauharnois was concerned with the outcome of the council. He wanted to secure a permanent, binding alliance with the Kanehsata'keró:non and he fashioned his speech to this end. The critique of Beauharnois' speech centres on an analysis of the Iroquois concepts of process and renewal.

The Politics of Mourning : Onondaga Factionalism and the Death of Canasatego
Jon W. Parmenter

The life, death, and mourning of Onondaga headman Canasatego (fl. 1742-1750) provides an excellent case study of the nature of leadership in eighteenth-century Iroquois society. Canasatego likely came into prominence as a result of his oratorical abilities, as well as through his diplomatic ties to several Anglo-American colonies, especially Pennsylvania. Exploration of his brief public career and his mysterious death during a critical era of Iroquois history offers new insights into the ways in which the Iroquois managed their own system of factional politics and preserved a considerable degree of cultural independence in spite of pressure from competing European colonial powers.
 

An "Ill-feeling which is yet burning"
The roots of traditionalism and community division among the Kanien’kehaka of Kahnawake in the 20th Century
Gerald F. Reid

This paper examines the development of traditionalism and community division among the Kanien’kehaka of Kahnawake during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Attention is focused on three related sets of events : 1) the response of Kahnawakeró:non to the application of the Indian Act to their reserve in 1889; 2) the establishment of an order of teaching nuns in Kahnawake by the Department of Indian Affairs in 1915; and 3) local participation in the Council of Tribes, or Thunderwater Movement, between 1916 and 1920. A consideration of these events provides new insight into the traditionalist revival initiated within Kahnawake in the 1920s and 1930s.

Kinzua's Legacy : The Re-Empowerment of Seneca Nation Women
Joy A. Bilharz and Thomas S. Abler

An 1848 revolution on the Allegany and Cattaraugus Reservations in upstate New York created an elected council to govern the Seneca Nation, with voting in biennial elections restricted to adult male Senecas. Within one century the construction of the Kinzua dam and the loss of Allegany Reservation lands to the Allegheny reservoir mobilized women in the fight against the dam and the fight for federal compensation. These struggles brought widespread publicity to the fact that Seneca women were denied suffrage. Women were first given the vote in the Seneca Nation elections in 1964 and the right to hold Seneca Nation office in 1966. While no woman has yet served as President of the Seneca Nation, the leadership roles played by women in the more recent and complex world of Seneca Nation politics is examined.

The "Condolence Law" and the Structure of the League
A Review-Essay of William N. Fenton’s The Great Law and the Longhouse : a Political History of the Iroquois Confederacy
A. Brian Deer

After looking at the structure of Fenton's book and its sources, this reviewessay examines a number of issues from an Iroquois point of view. The reviewer discusses the problematic distinction between the Iroquois "League" and "Confederacy". He then examines the differing ways that the Iroquoianists (on the one hand) and the Iroquois people (on the other)  view the Great Law of Peace, the Condolence Ceremony, and the Two Row Wampum. He discusses the politics of terminology, and sees evidence of Edward Said's "Orientalism" in the work of certain Iroquoianists. After nothing the lack of information on Iroquois women in this work, he concludes that this very thick book "will be consulted more often than actually be read".

The Jesuit Relations of New France
Guy Laflèche

Because of the regularity of their publication (each year from 1632 to 1673) as well as their sheer  number (sixty volumes), the Jesuit Relations hold an important place among the written sources documenting the Heroic Period of New France. These "relations" are nothing like travel accounts but rather evidence of the widespread genre of pious journals. Paradoxically, however, these popular writings represent for us nowadays major primary sources for the anthropological study of seventeenth-century French America. It is therefore timely to assess the rediscovery of the collection, with a special focus on critical studies, the various editions that appeared between 1840 and 1940, as well as thirty years of religious studies preceding the publication of modern editions from 1972 on. We thus rediscover the initial thrust of these "historical documents" which were, above all, books that made for good reading!

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Diabetes Among the Native Peoples. The Situation in Three Innu Communities
Bernard Roy

This paper draws on the results of Health Services Evaluations of the innu communities of La Romaine and Natashquan, and on the preliminary results of a research on diabetes among the innu of Betsiamites. It develops a critical anthropological perspective on the current understanding of the diabetes epidemic among indigenous populations. The demonstration rests, among other things, on the concept of internal colonialism which brings out the political dimensions intimately linked with the genesis of this disease, classically associated by medicine to a faulty genetic inheritance among indigenous peoples and, by social sciences, to the acculturation process. The paper stresses the importance of resistance to White power for an understanding of diabetics' non-compliance to treatments prescribed by the biomedical sphere. This non-compliance can then be seen as a choice putting into play behaviours seen by public health officiels as being "at risk", but viewed by large segments of the population as codes and symbols of indigenous identity, resulting from the interbreeding that took place during the last decades.

News the Inuit Way: "Qagik", A Tool for Cultural and Political Empowerment
Kate Madden

This article shows how the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation succeeded in its attempt to utilize television to help strengthen Inuit culture through the development of a regularly scheduled newscast produced by and for the Inuit in Canada's Central and Eastern Arctic. This program, "Qagik",  operated within a distinct Inuit context and embodied Inuit values. A textual analysis of "Qagik" demonstrates that IBC was able to create a distinctly Inuit approach to news during its formative years from 1983-1985, which clearly derived from and reflected Inuit culture. Its presence in a television environment dominated by southern Canadian and U.S. programming models served to reinforce the validity of Inuit culture to Inuit and to the outside world. In that sense, Qagik functioned as a significant tool for cultural empowerment. In that process, "Qagik" also encouraged political empowerment through newly revitalized Inuit efforts to increased levels of self-government, including the development of a quasi-independant province called Nunavut which, until April 1999, was a division of the Northwest Territories.

When the Raven Speaks : First Nations Radio Broadcasting in British Columbia
Michael Seberich

First Nations radio stations have repeatedly been the interest of anthropological and communication studies. Interestingly enough this has not been the case for First Nations radio activities in British Columbia. This article tries to close this gap by presenting an initial history of the use of radio among the First Nations of BC, from the 1920ies until the 1990ies. Furthermore, it gives an overview of the different radio stations that broadcasted First Nations radio shows in 1996 and 1997. The article describes the formats of these shows and introduces some of the people that were involved in their production. These facts help to give some tentative answers to the more specific use of radio among First Nations in BC and the political implications of this media.

Déjà-vu in British Columbia: From Potlatch to Delgamuukw
Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff

This article brings some aspects of the Delgamuukw case to the attention of the francophone readership by viewing it from the point of view of the struggle against the potlatch launched at the end of the nineteenth century. The author seeks to highlight their historical, political and discursive continuity, which has contributed to perpetuating a fundamentally colonial relationship between Indigenous peoples and the non-indigenous sector in British Columbia. On this basis, the author shows how legal cases involving Northwest Coast communities bring into focus some of the ambiguities of recent jurisprudence with regard to the future role of Aboriginal peoples as such within the framework of Canada’s multicultural project ? a project torn between the celebration of "distinctive Aboriginal cultures" and the preservation of vested economic and political interests.

Cheval Debout, an Indian from France ?
Olivier Maligne

Is it possible to choose one’s culture, even to invent it? That is what indianophiles seem to do. These persons admire Amerindians so much that they come to identify with them and recreate their ways of living, often without any contact with them. The case of the Frenchman who self named Cheval Debout (Standing Horse), though extreme and atypical, illustrates perfectly the strength of Indian myth, and the construction of an “ Indian universe ” as an alternative way of life. In the end, this attempt to realize the myth, to live it in every day life, makes indianophilia switch from simple representation to practically created culture, into utopia.

A cautionary tale about a harvest and a hunt: differentiating the Inca from the colonial chacu
Daphne S. Kelgard

The paper discusses the difference between the Inca institution known as the chacu and the Spanish colonial practice also called the chacu. Apart from an interesting clarification of the prehispanic methods for harvesting the fibre of the vicuña and guanaco, the discussion exemplifies the importance of a critical reading of the sixteenth-century documentary sources, particularly when they are used in reference to the Inca. The confusion between the Inca chacu and the colonial chacu clearly illustrates the ways in which Spanish colonial distortions of Andean practices and meanings can themselves distort our understanding of prehispanic Andean cultural practices.

Late Paleoindian Occupation in Gaspé Peninsula : Research Results From La Martre
Éric Chalifoux

This article presents the results of the archaeological research conducted on Late Paleoindian occupation in the La Martre area on the northern shore of the Gaspé Peninsula. Archaeological assemblages of three major excavated sites are described and the author presents the results of the preliminary work on three quarry sites located in the vicinity of La Martre. In a regional perspective, he discusses the chronology, nature and function of the occupation, the subsistence and settlement patterns of the first inhabitants of the La Martre river valley 8 000 years ago.

Research Note
The Inksetter Site Stone Pipe. A Testimony of the Subarctic Algonkians Symbolic World
Marc Côté

This research note reports the discovery of a soft stone pipe in the Inksetter site (DcGt-42) during an archaeological survey. The pipe shows anthropomorphous etchings. This is also an opportunity to present cone-shaped steatite (soapstone) objects which are believed to be 3D representations of the spirits of the shaking tent.

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Tragedy and Travesty: the Subversion of Indigenous Sovereignty in the United States
Ward Churchill

The suppression of Indigenous sovereignty by various nation-states is one of the more vexed and ubiquitous issues of the late twentieth century. It is also one of the least understood. Using the United States as a lense through which to examine this pervasive phenomenon, the author seeks to unravel the history of juridical convolution by which colonizing powers have sought to create the illusion that they are fostering Indigenous self-determination even as they diminish and deny it.

Chukotka: Exemplifying the Indigenous Issue in Russie
Yvon Csonka

The situation of the Indigenous peoples of Chukotka, in particular Chukchi and Eskimo, is presented here as an example which is typical for the situation prevailing in Russia. These peoples belong to the category of so-called “ numerically small peoples ” that the Soviets used to target for specific “ development ” measures. Because of the significance of these past policies for today’s situation, a historical approach is indispensable. As to the present day, the central government is little concerned with the economic welfare or legal standing of Russia’s Indigenous peoples. On the Indigenous side, the current “ revival of tradition ”, although partly a response to economic need, must also be seen as a vehicle for the affirmation of cultural identity. The emerging Indigenous movement lacks, however, the means, the experience and the agenda that would allow it to assert itself politically. The basically pragmatic proposals of the pro-Native Russian intelligentsia, in turn, leave little hope for the near future.

Autochthony in Taiwan’s Soil
Fiorella Allio

Taiwan’s little known Austronesian population of 380 000 is divided into a dozen ethnic groups which have to date not adopted the Chinese language. For 350 years, they have resisted against the massive Chinese colonization of the island and the policies of forced assimilation imposed on them by successive regimes. The Indigenous rights movement has grown rapidly over the last ten years as a result of political liberalization and the increase of social movements. But the institutional and budgetary improvements thus gained have not permitted to solve the precarious situation Indigenous people face at the level of the local economy and as far as their fundamental rights are concerned; nor have they allowed them to preserve their social and cultural otherness.

Orang Asli and Malays: Equity and Aboriginal Title in Malaysia
Patrick Sullivan

In the international debate on the rights of Indigenous peoples, some limit the right of self-determination exclusively to states and relegate the issue of Indigenous rights to the realm of non-discrimination, while others consider that Indigenous peoples can claim the right of self-determination no less than presently dominant peoples. In Malaysia, the debate has not reached that stage, however. The (“Aborigenes”, “original inhabitants”) are deprived of exercizing their right of self-determination as the first inhabitants of the territories they have occupied from time immemorial in the Malay peninsula. But at the same time, they do not fully enjoy Malaysian rights of citizenship. In seeking to explain this situation, the author addresses, among others, the issue of native title.

The Native Title Act and the Continuation of Colonialism in Australia
Jason Behrendt

This article offers a legal analysis of the adopted by the Australian federal government in the wake of the famous  decision. This decision handed down in 1993 by the Australian High Court rejected the doctrine of  and recognized native title. The author argues that it signalled an opportunity to redefine constructively the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia. In principle, the can facilitate such a process. In reality, however, the Act reasserts the colonial relationship by protecting every convenience that the doctrine of has provided to non-Indigenous Australians.

Kanak Territory and Indigenous Identity
Nicolas Guillemard

This article describes the way in which Kanak identity is constituted, as well as the grouping together of the Indigenous people of New Caledonia according to the right of first occupant. In precolonial times, this right was of fundamental importance in the structuring of the different Kanak communities. Colonisation, which deprived the island’s Indigenous inhabitants of their territorial rights, nevertheless provided the institutional framework and historical means to invent and claim a common culture. After World War Two, invoking the image of first occupant has become a tool of mobilisation in view of asserting claims for Kanak independence.

Other articles
Impact of La Grande Hydroelectric Complex on Indigenous Communities
Pierre Senecal and Dominique Égré

This article offers the first summary of the impact, in human terms, of the construction and operation of the La Grande hydroelectric complex and related agreements on the Aboriginal communities involved. It is based on various reviews, both comprehensive and sectorial, that summarize impact assessment studies carried out since the seventies. The authors describe first of all the biophysical repercussions resulting from the hydraulic infrastructure and access roads, which have mainly affected the use of animal resources. They then turn to the economic, occupational administrative, psychosocial and cultural repercussions generated by the complex in Cree, Inuit and Naskapi villages.
 

The “ petit commerce ” between Amerindians and inhabitants of Trois-Rivières
Jan Grabowski

In 1667 the judicial authorities in Trois-Rivières opened an inquiry into liquor trade with the Indians. The court proceedings involved a large number of local habitants. Despite its limited chronological focus, this study attempts to look into the relationships between the French colonists and their Amerindian neighbours. It is suggested that local trade involved a considerable number of colonists and had an undeniable impact on the creation of a common ground between the two societies. Unlike the traditional fur trade, dominated by merchants and their middlemen, the local trade involved habitants, their wives, children and servants. Amerindians traded not only furs but, most of all, food and indigenous handicrafts for local consumption. These judicial proceedings shed light not only on trade, but also on Franco-Indian cultural exchanges during the colonial period.

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Archaeology in Space: Reflecting on Mediation between Man and Nature
Pierre Dumais and Jean Poirier

In their day-to-day professional practice, the authors have often had to tackle the study of archaeological facts at a large geographic scale. It soon turned out that at this level traditional functionalist approaches were not helpful in providing an explanatory framework. Hence the need for new theoretical and methodological approaches in spatial archaeology. The structural approach described in this article derives from a fusion of anthropology and geomorphology, which considers space as an object of knowledge and appropriation by prehistoric human groups. The different methods that are set out here for the study of space offer a new geographic backdrop against which it is possible to elaborate anthropological models that go beyond the realm of human subsistence activities.

Sketch of the Algonquian Sacred Landscape.
A contextual study of rock art sites in the Canadian Shield
Daniel Arsenault

A critical consideration of the complex ways, both material and symbolic, by which some Algonquian-speaking communities of hunter-gatherers used to cope with their natural environment in the past can allow the working out of an archaeology of cultural landscapes. From a reappraisal of some theoretical tenets and methodological tools used in archaeology today, the author argues that there are other means for setting up an analytical framework adapted to the archaeological study of aboriginal ancient landscapes. More specifically by making use of relevant data yielded by a contextual analysis of the natural setting of pictograph (rock art) sites located throughout the Québec boreal forest as well as of clues given by Native oral traditions about shamanistic experiences and religious representations, this essay tries to sketch some aspects of Algonquian sacred landscapes in the past, including the sacred spaces and sacred locales specific to the performance of some ritual practices and the display of major visual symbols.

Dynamic Structural Geography Meets Archaeology, Anthropology and Ethnohistory
Gilles Ritchot

According to dynamic structural geography, any occupation at the earth’s surface must not only be rationalized by practice. Moreover, through the latter, a position that is brought about by a trajectory must be endowed with economic value. This trajectory, in turn, expresses political control over mobility correlated to a proprietary prohibition that is vested axiologically ? a route that has just started to be explored. Consequently, when archaeology, anthropology and ethnohistory address the relationship that societies without a written language have with their environment, they are still reduced to inadequate concepts. Until the appropriate theory has been worked out, the phraseology thus deprived does not necessarily succumb to trivial reductionism. It may well be elaborated in such a way that the reductionism is question is uncovered and thus laid open to criticism which, indeed, is timely. In Québec, research on Amerindian cultures would have

The Shield Woodland
Norman Clermont

Without doubt, the cultural groups subsisting in the Subarctic since prehistoric times (still to be dated properly) developed variable and detailed modes of adaptation that nevertheless seem to be structurally immutable, at least at first glance ? which may explain their characterization as relevant examples of survival. Yet a growing number of discoveries lead one to think that these groups’ cultural development was neither impermeable nor achieved in splendid isolation, for they have always been in contact with other groups living elsewhere. The author argues the importance of considering their dynamism in a wider context that privileges osmosis over contrast. While pottery finds in the Subarctic are still rare, they are no longer exceptional. They point to frequent contact and thus raise the issue of a general exchange of cultural information. This is what is implied in the concept of Shield Woodland.

The Nature of Time in Archaeology
Daniel Chevrier

Time is the fundamental heuristic device of archeology, but archaeological theory has relatively little control over it. After a brief review of the principal components of time, this article addresses the basically univocal character of archaeological theorizing with regard to the temporal dimension of its object of study. On this basis, an approach is formulated that is grounded in the understanding of major processes of change to which any culture has to adapt in the course of its history.

Other articles
Aspects of the Economic Organisation of the People of Weymontachie in the 1820s, Based on Charter Company Account Books
Claude Gélinas

Using account books of the Hudson’s Bay and King’s Posts Companies, the author documents the nature and evolution of economic behaviour among the people of Weymontachie in the 1820s. He proposes a specific methodology to analyse his sources with a view to revealing native trading habits and providing a general description of hunting, trapping and fishing activities. The results offer insights into the impact of the establishment of trading posts in the Upper St. Maurice region on Indigenous material culture and the subsistance economy.
 

Research Note
The silence of the Mohawks... or the Media?
The press coverage of coroner Guy Gilbert’s inquiry into the Oka crisis (1990)
Matthieu Sossoyan

This article shows that coroner Guy Gilbert’s inquiry as well as the testimony of a number of Mohawk and police witnesses were not dealt with objectively in the Québec printed press. Ordered after the Oka crisis of 1990, the Gilbert inquiry was meant to clarify the sequence of events that precipitated the shootout between Mohawks and officers of Sûreté du Québec, including the subsequent death of corporal Marcel Lemay. The author demonstrates that, although the coroner concluded that police played a central role in this affair, the two most important French language papers in Montréal tended to eclipse police responsibility while incriminating the Mohawk witnesses.

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“That is how they grab it”: Celestial Discourse in Dunne-za Music and Dance
Robin Ridington

Among many of the North American First Nations, the circle of discourse includes non-human persons and forces of nature as well as human beings. This paper talks about the place of music in the ceremonial practice of the Athapaskan Dunne-za of Northeastern British Columbia. It describes how songs “brought down from Heaven” by people known as Dreamers are used to facilitate communication between living humans, the spirits of people who have gone before, and animal persons or forces of nature. It explains the celestial images that empower the language of Dunne-za ceremonial performance in relation to myth and the vision quest. The paper concludes with a discussion of how contemporary Dunne-za maintain the spirit of traditional practices while adapting to allow participation in a world system.

Magical Sticks and Masked Hunchbacks : play, magic or ritual?
Nicole Beaudry

Among the Dene of the Northwest Territories, and more specifically among the Northern Slavey, the author has encountered descriptions of two activities defined as “games” by informants. Although their playful attributes are obvious, these games contain several elements related to shamanistic and ritual practices. Surprisingly, there seems to be only one reference to these games in the ethnographic literature about Athapaskans. Thus the author relies mainly on information she collected between 1988 and 1992. The juxtaposition of informants' statements allows her to reconstitute a description of each game. In spite of scarce material about older times, the author follows a few leads for analysis, hoping among other things to verify links with other traditional Dene games and rituals.

Post-Modern Raven and Tutchone Athapaskan Tradition
Dominique Legros

Over the last three or for generations, to bridge the gap that separates their narrative of the world creation from their present-day living conditions, the Tutchone have made additions to their cosmogenesis. However, these additions neither compromise the Athapaskan cultural content of their most sacred narrative, nor do their seek to convey ideas related to modern technology, Christianity or even the postmodern condition. Rather, these additions reveal how The Story of Crow contained from the start all Western ideas and concepts (such as submarines and speedboats, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, cultural anomie, and so forth). Moreover, it is in this manner that the Indigenous narrative remains relevant in the context and for the benefit of today’s Tutchone world.

Marmots, Women and Guardianship: Spiritual Transformation and Shamanism
Robert G. Adlam

This article explores various aspects of shamanism among the Athapaskan-speaking Tahltan of northwestern British Columbia. It focuses on the processes of spiritual transformation that shamans undergo according to orally transmitted stories and songs. The author addresses one particular oral narrative, namely the story of “The Man Who Became a Marmot,” as well as the songs that accompany it. Although the article is centred on the bringing forth of one particular shaman, the tale speaks more generally to the conduct that is appropriate with regard to the forces shaping shamanistic identity and to the concerns these raise in the community.

The Kaska Concept of Nitsit and the Shifting Value of the Incest Prohibition
R. F. McDonnell

This paper examines a special case of rule transgression among the Kaska of southeast Yukon. Through an examination of Kaska symbols and social dynamics the paper attempts to illuminate how transgression of the incest prohibition can assume either a positive or negative semantic value. Central to the interpretation is the argument that Kaska group formation does not issue from the rule-category considerations usually associated with kinship. Rather, the bonding agent of Kaska “bands” follows from the moral deployment of individual capability. In this regard, the essay has a bearing on most other Subarctic societies and on so-called “band” societies generally.

Searching for Caribou
Henry S. Sharp

This article explores the behaviour of a small group of Mission Chipewyan sojourning near a lake in the Northwest Territories to hunt caribou and make dry-meat. The hunters know by experience that caribou usually arrives in the area around 1 August. The late arrival of the caribou highlights a series of differences in the hunters’ behaviour, reflecting their age, their degree of experience, their social position and ? most significantly ? to what extent each of them has maintained the traditional belief that animals are persons endowed with supernatural powers.

Northern Athapaskan Languages: An Introduction
Keren Rice

Athapaskan languages present many intricate and complex problems to a linguist. This article addresses some aspects of northern Athapaskan languages, investigating language classification, sound systems, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The author describes the consonantal systems and the particularities of the vowels in some of these languages. She then analyses the nominal vocabulary, the postpositions and the highly complex system of verbs, as well as a series of interesting syntactic properties.

Dene Archaeology in the Beverly Caribou Range of Northern Canada
Bryan Gordon

For 2600 years, Dene hunters and their Taltheilei ancestors of the Beverly range of Canada’s Northwest Territories have depended on, and been influenced by, caribou seasonal migrations. Having examined the historical record according to which the Dene conformed to a seasonal cycle in response to Caribou movements, the author shows that prehistoric evidence agrees with historical observations. Archeological sites extend from the calving ground in the North over the migration route south towards the forest, their size mirroring caribou density. They are small near the calving grounds, and large and stratified at major water crossings at the tree line where the herds used to converge. In the forest, they are again small, indicating the herds’ scattering in winter time. While tool traits are unique to each stage of tradition, their similarity reflects a common seasonal lifestyle over time.

Political and Social Aspects of Knowledge Claims Among Anthropologists and the Dene
Jean-Guy Goulet

The paper examines the classic ethnographic identification of discrete Northern Athapaskan tribes and tribal territories and shows how the Handbook's labels are to a significant degree the product of convenient ethnographic convention. The paper also shows that tribal names used by local Dene populations to identify themselves to outsiders when speaking English shifted as the relationship between Dene and Euro-Canadians changed. The assertion that there is a Dene Nation representing the interests of Northwest Territories' aboriginal peoples or the presentation of oneself as a reincarnated hereditary chief are both means by which aboriginal express the identities of distinct, self-governing First Nations. The paper concludes by arguing that anthropological expertise should serve to promote the understanding of how the notions of self-governing aboriginal societies are developed or hindered and the understanding of political processes in their real social contexts.

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The Montagnais People: Available Data and Recent Evolution
Jean-Pierre Garneau

Most of the information concerning native populations is found within two major sources: Statistics Canada and the DIAND Indian Register. Thanks to the data provided by these agencies, it is possible to trace the evolution of the Montagnais populations over the last 300 years. It also makes more sensitive analyses possible, especially concerning age and sex group representation, the fact that the reservation is an attractive residential center and the consequences of Bill C-31. However, this data is still not perfectly validated. This article indicates biases which must be considered and it suggests means to improve on the available data.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind; Newfoundland’s Governance of the Innu of Labrador
Adrian Tanner

The Indians and Inuit of Newfoundland and Labrador have a different legal and administrative relationship with the Canadian government from those living elsewhere in Canada and Québec. This article examines the historic origins and currrent implications of this situation for the Innu of Labrador. Before 1949, when Newfoundland joined Canada, the Innu were ignored by governments, and rarely seen by missionaries or traders. Since then, although Canada has had a constitutional responsibility for them, it has avoided direct administration. The Indian Act has not been applied, and this divides Labrador Innu from those based in Québec. The province administers some federal funds intended for Innu communities under a policy applied inconsistently, of treating them the same as other citizens of the province. Under current arrangements the Innu suffer from some of the worst social conditions of any aboriginal group in Canada.

The Montagnais and the Canadian Specific Claims Policy
Jacques Frenette et Denis Brassard

The last in-depth review of the Specific Claims Policy dates back 15 years (1982). Nonetheless, experts on native issues have hardly acknowledged it and very few researchers pay it any attention. The available analyses only concern a small number of texts and excerpts contained within general writings about native peoples. Following many years working for the Montagnais Bands and the Conseil des Atikamekw et des Montagnais, the authors of this article are in a position to comment on the policy and its application among the Montagnais, especially with regards to claims motivations, to the settlement process and to the grievances this policy provokes. However, one conclusion emerges at once. In spite of the recent update of the Specific Claims Program, the federal government remains in control. The odds are that discussions will go on for a long time before a rapid and transparent settlement mechanism is put in place. Meanwhile, further specific claims will augment the hundred others still pending.

The Wildlife Harvest of the Mamiunnuat at the beginning of the 1980s
Paul Charest et Gordon Walsh

This article presents the main results of a study concerning the wildlife harvest of the Mamiunnuat, or Montagnais of the Middle and Lower North Shore, done in the years 1982 to 1985. A non random sample of 73 % consisting in 290 hunters has provided detailed informations on their catches. The data obtained shows that in terms of the number of catches harvesting is done mainly during the fall (47 %), in areas far removed from the main permanent settlement (57 %) counted per edible food weight and by hunters older than 35 (53 %). In food weight, the total harvest for the year 1983 was 108 170 kg, averaging 0,24 kg per consumption unit per day, in comparison with 0,41 kg for the James Bay Cree.

Fauna Management in the Eastern Portion of Minganie Following the Opening of Road 138
Richard Dominique

In 1997, road 138 will link the eastern part of Minganie to the rest of the national network. With this new link, local social controls and isolation will not be sufficient anymore to regulate the habits of wildlife users. This article gives a review of the situation, examining positive and restrictive variables of a partnership in wildlife management between local Quebecers and Montagnais.

Territorial Services in Masteuiatsh: in support of Montagnais harvesting activities and participation in wildlife resource management
Martin Côté

In recent years, the Montagnais of Masteuiatsh, a reserve located at Lac-Saint-Jean, have faced many problems relating to their wildlife harvesting activities. In view of potential local take-over, the Mashteuiatsh band set up an administrative office (le Bureau des services territoriaux de Mashteuiatsh) appointed by the Band Council to sustain, promote and supervise the community’s wildlife harvesting activities. The implementation of such an administrative office has thus permitted to the Band to get more involved in the management of wildlife resources. In this instance, the Services territoriaux office offers an interesting exemple of co-management between an aboriginal band and a provincial office and provides an institutional base required for the development of Montagnais political autonomy.

Technology and Culture Among the Montagnais of Mingan: Tap Nomenclature
Daniel Clément

This article concerns Montagnais terms used to designate traps and parts of traps. It aims at showing the Montagnais vision of their own trapping devices. The author offers different definitions of the word “trap” and discusses the literature on traps and the Montagnais’ nomenclature of traps and parts of traps. In the last sections, differences between old and new traps are examined. Transformations and continuities in the use of terms can indicate the role trapping is actually playing within Montagnais culture.

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Peace-Making and the Encounter of Cultures in New France in the Era of Louis XIV
Gilles Havard

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century New France, treaties of peace and alliance were the product of a crosscultural encounter that did not lack ambiguity. Indigenous people, especially when concerned with recovering their prisoners, did not sign peace treaties for the same reasons as Europeans. Nevertheless, the protagonists of these encounters sought to accommodate each other in a mixed diplomatic setting which fostered concessions, borrowing, and an exchange of friendly services. While this interaction hardly gave rise to genuine acculturation, the parties involved built middle ground that is properly “new world”. Although the French authorities pursued objectives of imperial expansion and the subjugation of Indigenous peoples, Franco-Indian interdependence did not result in the conclusion of unequal treaties.
 

Hymn-Singing in the Vernacular in the Missions of New France and the Conquest of Indigenous Languages: an Unknown Link
Paul-André Dubois

This article tackles the advent and evolution of vocal liturgical music in the missions of New France in the first half of the seventeenth century. On the basis of pre-1650 missionary accounts, the author offers an analysis of the data collected, and recounts the history of religious singing from initial attempts to translate prayers into Indigenous languages to the appearance of the first repertory of Gregorian hymns practiced in various missions and seminaries in the late seventeenth century. The focus of the article lies on the missionaries’ conquest of Indigenous languages as the prerequisite for the appearance of a catechistical vocal repertory.

Alliances and Treaties of 1760: Reflecting on a Historiographic Debate
Stéphane Paquet

This article reflects on the debate regarding the problematic of treaties and alliances between Indigenous peoples and the British colonial authorities in the crucial context of 1760, with a focus on the rhetorical dimension of historiography. Analysing both Denis Vaugeois’s work on and the report submitted by Denis Delâge to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples under the title , the author weighs the role of ideological preconceptions in the shaping of a problematic, the formulation of hypotheses and the reading of the sources. Must history as a discipline resign itself to the fact that it is incapable of tackling research domains where much is still at stake under present conditions?

Research Note
Which are the Seven Nations of Canada? Some Ideas on an Equivocal Denomination
Alain Beaulieu, with Jean-Pierre Sawaya

Over the last few years historians have shown renewed interest in a “confederation” of Indigenous peoples whose existence had almost entirely been forgotten by the end of the nineteenth century, namely the “Seven Nations of Canada”, including the “settled” Indians of the St. Lawrence Valley. However, in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources, the terminology “Seven Nations” remains ambiguous, for it may refer either to all “settled” Indians or only to the Iroquois of Kahnawake and/or Akwesasne. This research note explores the ambivalence of the denomination “Seven Nations” and suggests two possible hypotheses for explanation.
 

Indigenous Leadership and Official Indigenous Policy in Southern Brazil
Silvio Coelho dos Santos

In Southern Brazil, Indian reserves have traditionally been occupied and controlled by members of the Kaingang and Xokleng peoples. Official policy has favoured the cooption and submission of Indigenous leaders, thus permitting the illegal extraction of natural resources on reserved land by regional interests. Recently, these leaders have started to gain access to bureaucratic functions within the federal Department of Indian Affairs of Brazil (FUNAI) and to win seats on city councils. The individual appropriation of the scant resources available on reserve by these leaders has fostered social strife and internal divisions. New policies and covenants are needed to allow the Indigenous people of Southern Brazil better participation based on equality and accountability.

Professional Training in an Indigenous Setting: the Case of Hydro-Québec and the James Bay Cree
Nick Bernard

This article deals with culture contact in the context of energy resource development in the North. Looking at initatives undertaken by Hydro-Québec in the eighties, the author addresses the difficulty of formulating and applying a professional training programme in the James Bay territory. Focusing on the programme submitted to the James Bay Cree under the and the  he explores the laborious cultural translation of Québécois and Cree conceptions of wage labour, professional training, space, and time.

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Does the Shaman Really Believe in what he does, and why?
Robert R. Crépeau

This article addresses a recurring question in the anthropological study of shamanism. The shaman’s scepticism with regard to his performance constitutes a distorting mirror for the anthropologist, as is illustrated by the Kwakiutl shaman Quesalid, who was Boas’s main informant . In this article, the issue is addressed in light of the ethnography of the Kaingang of Southern Brazil. The Kaingang regard shamanism as guided knowledge which originates from special relationships the shaman establishes with a animal-helpers in the virgin forest. Since both the Kaingang and the Kwakiutl view the interaction between various ? human and non-human ? realms as parts of an integrated whole constituted by a common environment , one is led to think that that a holistic approach is best suited to tackle Amerindian conceptions of shamanism.

Structure and Variation in the Ethno-Pharmacological Knowledge of the Nahua of Sierra Norte de Puebla (Mexico)
Pierre Beaucage and Elizabeth Tabares, Taller de Tradición Oral del CEPEC and Grupo Youalxochit

The purpose of this article is to measure the content and structure of knowledge of medicinal plants on the basis of three surveys in neighbouring Nahua communities. The earlier two surveys reveal that knowledge is widely circulated among men and women. The third survey, conducted by women among women, allowed to refine the data obtained, and shed a different light on the complex structure of knowledge itself: diseases seem to be grouped into specific sub-categories, and their causes are hierarchized, as is their treatment, ranging from herbal medicine to shamanistic cures. The difference in ethnopharmacological knowledge between men and women can be correlated with the important role women play in health care, particularly at the level of the family.

“The Bear’s Own Berry” : Ethnobotanical Knowledge as a Reflection of Plant /Animal Interrelationships in Northwestern North America
Nancy J. Turner

A survey of published and unpublished ethnobotanical materials reveals a rich knowledge base relating to the perceived interrelationships among plants and animals in a number of Aboriginal languages and cultures in northwestern North America. Although these interrelationships have never been systematically documented and studied over a broad geographical, ecological and cultural region, many insights are seen from these materials relating to the foods and medicines of animals, the synchronicity of plant and animal life cycles, and the nature of plant applications in the care and feeding of livestock. Over one hundred plant species are reported to be foods of animals, nine to be used by animals medicinally, and nineteen to be ecological indicators for animal life cycles or habitat. The encoding of this information in the languages and narratives of peoples, and the complex philosophical basis or belief systems that underlie the knowledge are also discussed. This type of knowledge is highly relevant to ecosystem management and co-management of lands and resources.

Using Animal Resources in the Late Middle Woodland (500-1000 AD)
Evelyne Cossette

The analysis of middens from the Hector-Trudel site in southern Québec, occupied intermittently between 500 and 1000 AD, suggests that Late Middle Woodland subsistence strategies were characterized by long-term seasonal occupation during the warm season. This article presents an economic calender of the hunting and fishing practices carried out in close proximity of the site. Accrued evidence suggest that only a few mammalian species (such as the black bear, white-tailed deer, moose and beaver) were exploited at some distance of the camp, and that hunting activities were mainly scheduled in spring and autumn. Fishing took place all through the summer at different fishing sites located near the camp, with occasional peaks in catch.

The Turquoise Flutterer and the Cold Priest: Nahua Deified Plants and Ritual Practices in Alarcón’s Treatise on the Superstitions (1629)
Dominique Raby

Undoubtedly, the by the ecclesiastic judge Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón in 1629 is the key reference for the study of the ritual use of tobacco ( L.) and of the hallucinogenic plant (L. ) among the Nahua of Mexico. This article distinguishes different domains lying within the religious universe of the Nahua in order to demonstrate that, although both plants are used with the same purpose by priests of the official prehispanic religion and those who resort to magic, their “personality” is viewed as fundamentally different in each case. Moreover, among those who practice magic the use of tobacco and is better understood in light of the competence of either commoner or professional. In this case, each plant owns a “supernatural personality” in agreement with the deities that preside over the practitioner’s area of competence.
 

Amerindian Contribution and Spanish Tradition: Indigenous Plants of North America in North American Works of Materia Medica (19th c.)
Carla P. Aguirre-Marco

This article tackles the contribution of North American Indigenous peoples to materia medica and modern therapeutics in the United States. Having analyzed several relevant nineteenth-century medical works, the author notes a marked penchant to ignore the Spanish contribution, both in the conveyance of North American plants to Europe, and their subsequent study. Moreover, some of the works under consideration disregarded the borrowing of indigenous medical knowledge and pharmacopeia by White settlers on the western Frontier. The author concludes that these tendencies stem from the isolationism which was then prevalent in the United States and that the situation changed as North American science progressed toward the twentieth century.

Research Note
A Prehistoric Presence of Butternut in the Saint-Laurence Estuary
Roland Tremblay

Carbonized fragments of butternut shells (L.) were found on a Late Woodland period site on an island in the Saint-Lawrence estuary, more than one hundred kilometers outside this tree’s natural geographical range. Historical and archaeological evidence concerning this food product among some northeastern Iroquoian and Algonquian groups is examined. These data are brought to bear upon the Iroquoian identity that has been attributed to the site on the basis of a ceramic pot directly associated with the plant remains. The marginal presence of butternut in this region, however limited it may be, underscores certain aspects of Eastern Saint-Lawrence Iroquoian technology, economy and ecology.

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Beyond Corn Fields: Migrations and New Faces of Indianity in Mexico
Pierre Beaucage

In this article the author examines the notion of native identity in Mexico's urban environment. He first addresses the issue of class identity development among the thousands of recent city-dwellers of native origin at the expense of their ethnic identity, following the industrial expansion that took place between 1940 and 1970. The author then considers the effects of the ensuing economic stagnation which, conversely, favored the maintenance of community links. This happened at the same time as further native migrations occurred throughout the territory and even beyond the US border. These phenomena, together with the expansion in the fields of education and communications, have resulted in a redefinition of native identity. This now gives rise to further questioning about the place alloted to the Indians within Mexico state and society.

Green Cloth and Red Casinos: Gambling and the Statement of Native Identity in American Economy
Nelcya Delanoë

In parallel with the incredible development of gambling since the 1980s, American federal agencies, for the first time in their history, have undertaken to help the Natives reinforce their economy, their autonomy and their sovereignty. This, by granting them legal rights to open casinos on their lands. The Natives concerned by this process have welcomed the growth of gambling palaces and of electronic money machines in the reserves as if they were a sort of "return of the buffalo". The case study of the Pequos, a small Connecticut nation that was nearly extinguished in the 1950s and who today owns the world's most important casino, leads to an examination of this double paradox: on the one hand, gambling as a means of economic development; on the other hand, the statement of Native identity which is based on the American

Montagnais Language in Mashteuiatsh
Lynn Drapeau and Lorraine R. Moar

This article aims to present the results of a sociolinguistic survey conducted in 1993 in the Montagnais community of Mashteuiatsh. The survey shows that the future of the Montagnais language is seriously threatened in Mashteuiatsh. The proportion of Montagnais speakers is declining and Native language use among family members and in social networks decreases steadily with age. On the other hand, competence in and exclusive use of French tend to generalize. An examination of language revitalization experiences elsewhere in the world will help devise a global and coherent community plan.

Medicinal Plant Use Variability Among the Totonacs
Paul Roy

This paper investigates the use of medicinal plants by a Totonac community in Mexico. Interinformants variation in knowledge and praxis has long been discarded by researchers as an irrelevant factor. However, recent studies suggest that intracultural variation has much to offer in order to come to a better understanding of the principles behind classificatory processes in traditional societies. Variation as well as consensus are shown through a comparative analysis of plant uses by the totonac informants Finally, the significance and implications of intraculturalvariation in medicinal plant use are explored.

The Heavenly Bear Theme in Micmac Narrative
Claire Dubé

In 1900, the ethnologist Stansbury Hagar published a Micmac story in which the plot follows the rhythm of seasonal events. Based on the Heavenly Bear theme, this story features seven "hunting-birds" associated with heavenly cyclical constellation movements: Ursa majoris, Bootes,  and Corona Borealis. In Northeast America, few scholars have payed attention to native knowledge about astronomy. This article provides an occasion for the contextualisation of Hagar's work by comparing Micmac narratives with narratives from neighbouring peoples. It shows that the Heavenly Bear theme was relatively widespread among Iroquoian and Algonquian peoples south of the Saint Lawrence River.

Research Note
The Lac Simon Rock Paintings
Gilles Tassé et Jean Picard

This article presents the Lac Simon rock painting site which has long escaped the attention of researchers. In spite of their erosion, several paintings were reconstructed with the help of a special recording technique: photographic reduction and tracing. The great majority of the reconstructed images represents sketches of horned creatures and one canoe with figures. The authors have drawn with Algonquian mythology. In addition, they recommend having recourse to dating procedures that take advantage of the most recent techniques.

Rechearch Note
Why the Attikameks Abandoned Kikendatch: The Hidden Story
Peter Leney

The move by the Kidendatch Attikamek band to Obedjiwan early in this century is widely blamed on the 1918 flooding of Kikendatch when the reservoir behind the Gouin dam was formed. However, this explanation is incorrect. Archival evidence clearly shows that these Indians moved to Obedjiwan with their Hudson's Bay Company's Post as early as 1912, and that this move reflected a desire by both parties to retreat deeper into the wilderness to flee encroaching white civilization that threatened to undermine their traditional relationship.

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[Memorandum on the Iroquois Nation]
Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumonot

This document attributed to the Jesuit Chaumonot was written in 1666. The author presents a list of Iroquois families and mentions the animal (or in one case the plant) to which each of them is associated. He also mentions several aspects of Iroquois war expedition, notably the preparations, the return and the treatment of the prisoners. The text is accompanied by illustrations relating to its content and which were probably made by Chaumonot. Each illustration is explained by the author.
 

Treatise on four-footed and amphibious animals, found in the Western Indies,
and
North America and Natural History of the Western Indies (extracts)
Louis Nicolas

This paper is a collection of extracts taken from two late seventeenth century works by the Jesuit Louis Nicolas and chosen for their ethnographic content. Essentially, they are depicting the close relation Natives held with their surrounding environment, that is to say with the land and amphibious animals, the birds, the fish and the plants. Drawings accompanying the text were probably made also by Nicolas

Nation Iroquoise. Abrégé des vies et Moeurs et autres Particularitez de la Nation Irokoise laquelle est divisée en Cinq villages. Scavoir Agnez Onney8t Nontagué Goyog8an et Sonnont8an.
Iroquois Nation. Summary of Lives, Customs and other Particularities of the Irokois Nation...
Anonymous

This document, written by an anonymous author, probably dates from around the end of the seventeenth century. It contains various ethnographic data related to the Iroquois of the Five Nations, notably on religion, shamanism and mortuary practices. Also, the author pays particular attention to the motives negotiations and preparations involved in Iroquois war expeditions.

Relation of the Life and Customs of the Savages.
Summary of the Life and Customs of the Savages of Canada
Anonymous

This document by an anonymous author may have been written in 1723. It is of particular interest for the attention given to women's roles and status in Native societies. The author presents interesting details on childbirth, the love life and gender-based division of labour. Aspects of native religion are also described, notably beliefs surrounding death and mortuary customs. Other subjects addressed are war, justice, and diet are briefly discussed.
 

Articles
Mi'kmaq in the Parish Registers of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon Islands, 1763-1830
Charles A. Martijn

The archipelago of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon is located just off Newfoundland's South Coast. Beginning in 1764 more than one hundred Mi'kmaq individuals are mentioned in the eighteenth century parish registers of these French Islands. Newfoundland Mi'kmaq families visited them regularly in order to benefit from the ministration of Catholic priests, and to obtain a variety of goods from local civil authorities, initially in the form of traditional gifts but increasingly so in exchange for furs and caribou meat. This paper discusses some of the social, genealogical and ethnohistorical data provided by twenty-two baptismal, six marriages and seven burial records.

The First Land Claims of the Upper St. Maurice Indians? Some comments on an 1814-1815 petition
Claude Gélinas

In this paper, the author argues that the Têtes-de-Boule Indians who addressed a petition to the Canadian political authorities in 1814-1815 for a grant of land on the St. Maurice River, just north of Trois-Rivières, were not, as it has been assumed so far, members of the nation of the same name that occupied the Upper St-Maurice region at the time. They were probably descendants of a group of nomadic Indiens that established itself in the vicinity of Trois-Rivières around mid-eighteenth century and whose original location is not known.

The Origin of Viger Reservation: an 1826 petition by the Maliseet
Laurence Johnson

In 1826, a group of New-Brunswick Maliseet presented a petition to the Governor General of Lower and Upper Canada. They were requesting land in the Lower St. Lawrence area. The author describes this five page document as well as the role of the individuals implicted. She also examines the reason behind their desire to emigrate to Lower Canada and why they received a favorable response to their petition. This grant became the first Indian reserve in Québec created by the Canadian authorities.

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A Look at Some Linguistics Changes in Algonquin since the Time of Colonization
Diane Daviault

This article presents a descriptive overview of some linguistic changes in phonology morphology and morpho-syntax which have entered Algonquin since 1670. This comparative study is based on data from the 1670 grammar of Father Louis Nicolas, Jesuit missionary. The contemporary data which provides the comparative element comes from the author's field studies collected between 1978 and 1982.

How to Quantify in East Cree
Marie-Odile Junker

The goal of this paper is to illustrate the different means available in the Cree language, especially the dialect spoken in Mistassini, Quebec, to express quantification. Languages, like French, express quantification almost exclusively with lexical quantifiers: pronouns, adjectives, adverbs. In East Cree, however, quantifier expressions not only include lexical quantifiers such as misiwe, ishkan, eshikum, taht, mihchet, mistahi, pasch, apishiish, which have specific properties, but also the morphological procedure of reduplication of both numerals and verbs. It is shown that these Cree quantifiers create various interpretations which depend on cognitive universals typical of quantification contexts, such as the mass-count distinction, the plurality of the subject of distributive sentences, duration, frequency or intensity

Writing as a Factor in the Development of the Innu Language
José Mailhot

Writings in the Innu language (Montagnais) published since 1970 are examined here from the perspective of the oppositions between oral and written literature, bilingualism or unilingualism, transcribed or edited, symbolic or real. This analysis will result in the formulation of the necessary conditions for Innu writings to contribute to the development of the language.

Teaching Grammar in Native Language School Programs
Robert Sarrasin and Bonnie Dinnison

The teaching of the Native language in the Indian schools leads the teachers to become interested in the teaching of grammar. This is the case among the Atikamekw where the first three years of primary school are given entirely in the vernacular language to 40% in the child’s fourth year The study of grammar has as its aim to master certain elements of the written code. In the context of Indian languages, three aspects must be considered. First, one must identify the elements of the grammar which are indispensable to knowing how to write. Then one must determine the distribution of these elements in the program of study. Finally, one must draw out the pedagogical approaches adapted to the structure of the language and not simply reproduce those of French grammar. This article presents some general considerations on the process of learning grammar, with particular reference to the Atikamekw mother tongue program.

The Language Teacher’s Intuition or the Linguist’s Truth?
Danielle Cyr

Nearly all Amerindian language teachers are native speakers of these languages. If not, they have acquired through a family setting a nearly native speaker fluency. When it comes to teaching material development, Native language teachers rely either on their own intuition of the language or on still partial linguistic descriptions produced by linguists. Two major problems may then arise: 1) What happens when the language teacher comes to teach a part of the grammar still not described? 2) What happens when the teachers intuition conflicts with the available linguistic descriptions? The analysis of a precise case, namely the place given to Montagnais nominal determiners in the grammatical descriptions and in the teaching material reveals how some yet not described parts of speech are likely to be unconsciously dropped from the teaching program. This case study also brings to light how the intuition of native speakers can yield to the linguist's truth.

The Moon is our Grandmother: the Notion of Truth as an Agent of Assimilation?
Danielle Cyr

Truth is a construct. Through pure sciences, where observation tools are fabricated in the prolongation of our five senses, observed objects are those which can be captured by those tools. In social sciences and philosophy, where descriptive methods are fabricated in the prolongation of our cultural or ideological perceptions, those who do not belong to our culture are described in the light of who we are. This being said, science and philosophy as producers of truth are essentially a product of the Western culture. For most of the thinking establishment of our times the only available truth is made in the Western world. Yet today more and more non-Western thinkers criticize our methods and our truth producing practices. Using the linguistic description of Algonquin languages as a basis, this paper discusses some pitfalls in the construction of truth, especially when culturally based truths are mistakenly taken as natural truths.

Other articles
Eschatology and Configuration of South American Mortuary Rituals: the Importance of Identity Relations Between the Living and the Dead
Claude Gélinas

In this paper, the author argues that the representation of the world of the dead constitutes a determining factor in the configuration of the mortuary rituals in South American societies. A comparison of secondary burials in the Andes and Amazonia, in the light of Hertz’s theory, shows that some differences exist between ritual practices in these areas and that they can best be explained by eschatological principles, and more precisely by the nature of identity relations prevailing between the living and the dead.

The Composite Creature in Mesoamerican Art: a Tentative Iconographic Interpretation
Caterina Magni

Within this study on the composite or ”fantastique“ creature, the author provides an example of graphic and semantic stability in Mesoamerican art. Having classed the composite creatures of Olmec art in three categories, that is those of feline characters, reptilian and feline-reptilian, she demonstrates the survival of Olmec representations from the Formative period within certain later cultures (in this case, Teotihuacan), thereby suggesting a cultural continuity within Mesoamerica.

Native Women Incarcerated in Mexico
Elena Azaola G.

This article surveys the situation of Native women actually imprisoned in Mexico and tries to identify the problems confronting them. Statistics are presented showing its extent and the author draws out the similarities and differences which are to be found between the population of Native women incarcerated and the general group of women in the same situation. She draws on personal accounts of some Native women concerning the application and administration of justice, their conditions of imprisonment as well as their views of life for after they leave prison.

A Measure of Their Own Stature: A Statistical Tool for the Montagnais
Jean-Jacques Simard

What are statistics for, and how should one go about them? This paper tries to answer such questions, originally asked by a Montagnais political association. As a general historical rule, the way people measure themselves and the way they govern themselves are closely related. No matter what their intended purpose, statistics have to be scientifically reliable. Only then can they really help argue about, plan or correct public or private policies and programs. The parameters of top-notch statistical research are discussed before concluding that all depends on the leaders facing up to their duties.

The Indians at War (1500-1650)
Gervais Carpin

If the traditional historiography has never questioned the existence and importance of warfare amongst Indians before and after the arrival of the Europeans, it does, nonetheless, represent the Indians without either a science of war or a political science. Furthermore, there is a recent trend in suggesting that these Indian wars sally forth from the minds of academics and are a spectacular historical fraud. As historian, this author questions his primary sources of data, the texts of the 16th and 17th centuries which, besides the traditional vendettas, describe palisaded villages, advancing armies, a besieging war and a war of movement. According to him, any research on the causes of Indian warfare which does not take into account this kind of warfare in its development of interpretation and theory, will find itself confronted with a problem of reliability.

Fishermen and Hunters at the Dawn of a Revolution: The Subsistence Strategies from AD 500 to AD 1000
Evelyne Cossette

Late Middle Woodland subsistence strategies are investigated through the analysis of archaeozoological assemblages from the Hector-Trudel site located at Pointe-du-Buisson (Southwestern Québec), dated from AD 500 to AD 1000. The comparative analysis of these samples suggests that a broad-based economy had already been adopted at the beginning of the Late Middle Woodland period. More importantly, this strategy seems to have remained unchanged until circa AD 1000. The richness and diversity of the assemblages indicate that, prior to the adoption of horticulture, there was not a tendency towards diversification of the subsistence base, nor towards the broadening of the range of resources exploited or an intensification of hunting effort.

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The State of Health among Northern Québec Cree and Inuit People : Some Statistical Indicators of the Recent Trends
Jean-Jacques Simard et Solange Proulx

Until now, the evolution of health among Québec Cree and Inuit had rarely been considered from a global perspective. Previous research was mostly concerned with particular problems or were tied to government policies and programs. This article presents a broader analysis of health among these native populations, based on statistical indicators covering the period between 1970 and 1990. Beyond mere epidemiological considerations, the authors emphasize the ecological and sociological situations of specific communities. They want to know to what extent changes in health and sanitary conditions (for example : an increase in youth population, youth pregnancy...) might lead to social upheavals that would increase other disruptions already occurring in these northern regions.

Health Care on a Montagnais Reservation
André Tremblay

During the last decade, agreements were reached between the federal Government and many Native bands concerning their responsability towards health care and social services on their reservations. After describing negotiations with the Conseil attikamek-montagnais, the author outlines the present situation. He then reports on a survey of the mental and physical health of a Montagnais reservation population and traces a profile of the use of the services, including traditional practices, on this populations’s health and of the priorities in services required. Band members feature a preponderance of depression symptoms related to drug abuse and to their attitude towards the issue of health.

Mental Health and Filiation Concepts among Elderly Algonquins from Kitigàn Zìbì
Louise Tassé

The author notes how the notions of health and sickness prevalent among the elderly Algonquins of Kitigàn Zìbì rely on different types of body control. The latter’s symbolic counterpart is related to the value granted by the community to the expression of cultural identity through traditional native occupations. Thus, when these elders speak of their health, they refer to a notion of old age that is quite different from the one prevalent in white populations. Neither disease nor disability, old age, for these Algonquins, is merely a state of fragility which should not prevent them from accomplishing what is important to them. Their desire to remain active is further enhanced by the extent to which the community values their role as elders.

Metamorphoses of the Social Convention in an Algonquin Community
Jacques Leroux

This article concerns community health at Grand lac Victoria. The author takes the position that historical mechanisms causing social de-structuration, whether economic or political, have led Algonquin communities to become withdrawn. Relating this to a deterioration in living conditions, the author blames the disintegration of the symbolic order for the various disorders prevalent in human relationships at Grand lac Victoria. He then shows how the local health team acted by allowing these disorders to be spoken about and how a majority of the population has engaged in a collective reflexion process. This has resulted in a series of measures against sexual abuse and gave a genuine voice to women, at all levels of social life.

The Inuit Notions of Healthy Body, Sick Body : a Strain between the Inside and Outside
Michèle Therrien

The reflexions offered in this article rely mostly on conversations with Taamusi Qumaq. According to the Inuit, understanding sickness and health requires constant shifts from one rational realm to another. Both body states, being neither experiences nor independant concepts, are related to a set of interpretations which are remarkably well expressed linguistically. Which words translate into sickness the image of a competent laborer who, devious as a robber, never acts in full daylight; how can a parallel be drawn between a storm and pain, or between health and stolen goods, or between an animal escaping a hunter and a sick person surviving a serious illness? These and other associations give access to Inuit rationality by integrating a practical vision of the world, a vision which emerges as one conceives of his body as the center of the universe.

The Kativik Health Care and Social Services Network : Complex Rethoric and Development and Management Practices
Francine Tremblay

This article is concerned primarily with assistance to the development of social and health care in a native environment. The author examines the practices and the rhetoric current in this domain, relying on eight identifiable major and persistent problems with developmental assistance and management of social and health care groups and institutions. This attempt to generalize from a specific intercultural experience presents a challenge since political concerns, although difficult to understand, nevertheless prevail. This explains why the rhetoric on this subject and its practices are so complex.

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Eros and Thanatos : Symbolic Relations between Sexuality, Fertility and Death in Moche Iconography
Steve Bourget

This article offers a fresh interpretation of a specific iconographic theme featured on Moche funerary potery from the north coast of Peru (100 BC to AD 700). The analysis of sexual representations enables us to explore certain aspects of the Moche conception of mortality and of the nature of the relations between the living and the realm of the ancestors. The author suggests that laws of inversion underlie the dialogue between the living and the ancestors, and that the tomb might have served as an instrument of communication between the two groups.

Where the Warrior-Gods Die but don’t Perish : Ancestor Worship in Inca Society
Claude Gélinas

In this article the author presents the institution of ancestor worship in Inca society as reported in 16th and 17th centuries Spanish chronicles. In the light of modern ethnographic literature on ancestor worship and sacred kingship, an analysis of the written documents reveals that this institution’s main objective was to preserve the image, the personality and the ceremonial symbols of the Inca kings, who were still considered the principal ancestors beyond their death. In this manner, the Incas were able to symbolically maintain their rulers’ sacred power and autority. Furthermore, ancestor worship fulfilled other needs relating to territorial ownership and social organization, for the entire society as well as for each of its clans.

Mummies, Saints, and the Politics of Burial in 17th Century Peru
Peter Gose

In this article the author analyses the conflict between the Catholic church and the Andean people over the burial of the dead in 17th century Peru. It is proposed that following the Spanish conquest the manner of disposal of the dead bodies became a sort of pretext that each party used to try to impose on the other its own mortuary ritual and the consequent political and economic concerns. The author also shows that far from being a merely religious matter, mortuary ritual became a battleground on which two different notions of civic order engaged.

Powerful or Powerless Ancestors?
Patrifiliation, Factionalism and Genealogical Manipulation among Aymara Herders
Catherine Lussier

The narrative of the genesis of a hamlet and of its constituent patrilines reveals the relative influence of historical ancestors still present within oral genealogies on the dynamics of group reproduction in the world of the living. This paper explores the causes and consequences of genealogy manipulation in a Aymara herders highland community. It is shown that in a context where patrifiliation is of prime concern, ancestors are jurally powerless to secure land ownership and in the face of unavoidable factionalism deriving from the intrusion of uterine lines. This paradox is partially resolved by the construction of symbolic stratifications based on periodically reshuffled pedigrees.

Ancestors and the Mountain Body-Metaphor Expressed in a Kaatan Funeral
Joseph W. Bastien

Andean burials, now and then, are performed with complex rituals that suggests a metaphorical understanding of the relationships between the living and the ancestors, land, ayllu and community. In this article, the author analyses different metaphorical aspects expressed through the recent burial ritual of a Kallawaya Indian of Bolivia. He also offers an alternative methodology for the interpretation of ancient grave sites.

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The First Intercultural Alliance: An Encounter Between the French and the Montagnais at Tadoussac
Camil Girard et Édith Gagné

In this article, the authors first analyze the facts recollected about the historical encounter between French and Native peoples at Pointe Saint-Mathieu, near Tadoussac, on May 27, 1603. The authors then examine the characters and events linked with this moment; with the help of certain  and letters patent, they examine the changes that then appeared in the manner in which France intended to administer its new territories in America. Finally, the authors evaluate this encounter which, considering the evidence, can in all likelihood be considered as the first alliance between French and Native peoples.

The Indian’s Juridical Status at the Time of Conquest : The Valladolid Debate (1550) and Vitoria’s Propositions
Roxana Paniagua Humeres

This article examines the discussions current at the time of the American continent’s conquest concerning the Indians’ legal status. The author first analyzes Vitoria’s contentions ? Vitoria being the main supporter of the opinion that it is necessary to create laws allowing the New Continent’s colonization. She then analyzes the Valladolid debate which took place in 1550 between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and places this debate within a historico-political context of European State reorganization. Las Casas advocates pacific means of evangelisation, takes the part of the Indians and makes a stand against a conquest war. Sepulveda fiercely stands against peaceful evangelisation. He justifies the conquest war by evoking the aristotelician theory on barbarians. The author insists on the fact that this debate constitutes a central axis for the discussions underlying the making of a law on Indian peoples.

Racism and Discrimination Towards Indigenous Peoples : Looking Beyond Charters
Pierre Lepage

Leaving aside individual case analysis, the author attends to the systemic dimension of discrimination and is of the opinion that discrimination towards Native peoples has a specific character distinct from the type of discrimination directed against other groups such as women, handicapped people, “visible” minorities, etc. In his analysis, the author refers to the Martínez Cobo report, a large-scale study stemming from the United Nations, and to the conclusions drawn from a United Nations seminar. In the second portion of his article, the author tries to demonstrate how a certain model of economic development might conceal insidious racism and discrimination and how certain laws concerning game, hunting and fishing might have a discriminatory effect on Native peoples.

The Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (n° 169) : The Outlook After Five Years
Lee Swepston

In this article, the author is giving an encouraging review following the adoption of the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (n° 169) five years ago by the International Labour Organization. In a rather detailed description of the Convention, the author is concerned with the implementation of international conventions as well as with the ILO’s supervisory system. He concludes by stating that Convention n° 169 is a vital step in the developing international law on the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples, its ratification having already produced positive results. This kind of instrument, according to the author, contributes to set a minimum level of conduct for governments and international organizations, while giving indigenous peoples certain tools that provide some protection with respect to their fundamental rights.

Aboriginal Peoples’ Rights to Land According to International Public Law
Pierre-Christian Labeau

Although the foundation of aboriginal land rights still need to be further articulated before they can be truly qualified as rights, the concept as found in international public law is evolving substantially. A survey of the jurisprudence from the International Court of Justice and from the Human Rights Committee, from the International Labour Organization Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and from the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples indicates that international law could soon recognize the possibility for aboriginal peoples to establish a distinct land regime within state legal systems and to participate in the management and development of natural resources on their own lands.

Conflicting views on Convention 169 Clauses in Bolivia
Jorge Vacaflor

In this article, the author analyzes the implementation process in Bolivia of the 1989 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (Convention 169). He is of the opinion that the original project concerning a was inadequate for making the convention clauses effective within the national context. According to the author, a real application of the Convention, as well as the respect of aboriginal peoples’ rights in Bolivia needs to be preceded by a reform of the Bolivian constitution and legislation.

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The Politization of Ethnic Identity and the Indigenous Movement in Brazil
Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira

This article presents the Indian problem in Brazil within a historical perspective. Starting from the notion of the universality of ethnic identity, a near-worldwide phenomena, the author outlines the particular characteristics of Brazilian identity and the dynamics of its recent evolution, characterized by the transformation of local and tribal identities into a generic pan-tribal identity. The article explores the role of the federal government and of the Catholic Church in the birth of the contemporary indigenous movement.

A Multi Voices Debate in Mexico : Native Peoples and the Nation
Pierre Beaucage

The Chiapas uprising, in January 1994, sheds light on the “Indian Problem” of a country whose elite, once again, turns its back on Mexico's deep Indian roots, dreaming of its integration within the First World. Since the Spanish Conquest, “indianness” has mainly been officially defined by White people, the criollos. However, we now discover how Mexico's Native people reacted to a colonial tutelage: by developing so-called “cultures of resistance” maintaining their distinct identities while adopting technical, political and symbolic elements of European origin. The recent “Indian Awakening” is certainly not a refusal of modernity. On the contrary, the actors themselves lay claim to modernity, but within a reordering of the Mexican State with full recognition of their political autonomy.

Toward a Detente with History. Confronting Canada's Colonial Legacy
Joyce A. Green

This article argues that Canada is an evolving colonial entity, created by colonial interests for the express purpose of extending and consolidating those interests at the direct expense of the indigenous peoples and their contemporary descendants. These relationships are perpetuated by mythologised history and judicial and political institutions that proclaim and defend this mythology-cloaked colonialism. Only explicit acknowledgement of its origins and constitutional and political consequences have the potential to lead to a “detente with history” and to a genuinely postcolonial future.

From Nation to Governmental Autonomy.
An Interview with the Québec Anthropologist Rémi Savard
Robert R. Crépeau

In this interview, Rémi Savard, a Québec anthropologist, reveals the multifaceted history of the relationships between Native and non-Native peoples in Québec and Canada. The definition of these relationships is much more than a semantic problem. It is a complex political problem that must be analyzed keeping in mind the lessons of history.

Denying the Other in the Nationalist Discourse of Quebecers and of Native People
Pierre Trudel

In his political analysis, the author wishes to illustrate how, during the period of strained relations between Quebecers and Native people following the Canadian constitutional crisis and the Oka crisis, each denied the Other, subtly or more directly. The article deals primarily with the Quebecers discourse on Native peoples but it also deals with the Native discourse on Quebecers. The author demonstrates that “the denial of the Other” system does not develop in isolation but that both discourses respond to one another. There are several forms of denial : the denial of the Other through the use of physical stereotyping; the denial of his history, his political and cultural identity; the denial of his territorial rights and finally, denying the Other by making him appear monstrous. The author ends by examining how the political and ideological context might be related to an increase in the importance of these prejudices.

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Sod Houses of the Strait of Belle Isle (1760-1850)
Réginald Auger

This paper presents the archeological and historical research related to sod houses found in the area of the Strait of Belle Isle. The historical context of the Inuit in the Strait of Belle Isle is exposed along with the state of the research on their cultural history. The author then presents the results of his fieldwork and of his analyses. Dates calculated from pottery sherds and from tobacco pipes found in those houses indicate these artifacts pertain to the period comprising the use of the Strait of Belle Isle by the Inuit and the beginning of the permanent settlement of European fishermen.

The testimony of an Inuit archaeological site from the baie des Belles Amours, Basse-Côte-Nord
Pierre Dumais et Jean Poirier

Two subterranean houses which are undoubtedly of Inuit origin have been found in a strategic area of the Québec portion of the Strait of Belle Isle. Evidence shows that these houses date back between the end of the 17th century and the middle of the 18th century. This site sheds new light on some obscure parts of the historical documentation and contributes to the debate on the Inuit occupation of the southern Québec-Labrador Peninsula initiated in the early 1980.

Protohistoric Period Glass Beads in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean Area?
Jean-François Moreau

Discovered in three sites of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, 834 glass beads indicate cultural transfers between Amerindians and Europeans. Specific methods have been elaborated to study glass beads pertaining to these « early contacts » during the first half of the 17th century in Iroquoian sites from Ontario. Geographical and cultural conditions that could give way to the application of these methods to the glass beads from Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean are looked at. Examination of the morphological attributes of these beads in the particular stratigraphical and spatial context of these three sites is undertaken in order to assess the validity of the application of the model elaborated in Ontario to the study of the « protohistoric » period in the Eastern Subarctic cultural area. In the light of these assessments, archaeological data seem to contribute to the question of intercultural transfer during the first half of the 17th century.

“ Obasatik Sagahigan ”, Historic occupations from DaGt-1
Marc Côté

Data collected on the DaGt-1 site in 1988 and 1989 during investigations by Corporation Archéo-08 have been analyzed. The data comprises 100,000 artifacts, fifteen features and a large number of samples. At least ten different occupations have been recorded at this site among which two pertain to the historical period prior to the middle of the 19th century. This paper presents the historical occupations and the related artifacts. The data sheds some light on some poorly documented periods of the Algonquins of northwestern Québec.

 Chemical composition determination of copper artifacts from Abitibi-Témiscamingue
Jean-François Moreau, R. G. V. Hancock and Marc Côté

Results of instrumental neutron activation analysis carried out on a limited series of copper-based artifacts from Abitibi-Témiscamingue suggest comparisons with results of INAA tests on extensive series of copper-based artifacts from neighbouring areas, namely southwestern Ontario and Saguenay—

From Projectile Points to Fire-stones: The Transformation of a Technological Tradition in Subarctic Québec
David Denton

This paper examines the effects of European contact as reflected in one element of the technological system of northern Algonquian groups from subarctic Québec and Labrador : the use and manufacture of stone tools. It is argued that Aboriginal groups in the area did not rapidly abandon lithic technology as a result of European contact. Archaeological data from two sites representing occupation in each of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries suggest that some groups chose to continue the manufacture and use stone tipped weapons into the 19th century. At the same time, there were transformations in the use of lithics over this period, including the abandonment of exchange networks of certain raw materials (probably in the 17th century), the decline in the manufacture and use of bifaces, and the manufacture of a new tool form (especially in the 18th and 19th centuries), the gunflint, from locally available stone sources. Throughout this long period stone continued to be used for the making of fire and for various domestic activities such as bone-crushing. The continued use of stone tools over this long period (albeit with significant transformations) has important methodological implications for archaeologists and for the classification of site survey data. It is recommended that more attention be given to the study of lithic tool use and manufacture for the post-contact period.

Indian settlement pattern at Fort McKenzie, Nouveau-Québec
Françoise Duguay

This paper studies the remains of the historical indian habitations found in the area of Fort McKenzie (1916-1948; 1953-1956). Two other sites (HeEf-7 and HeEf-9) from the same area are also described in order to establish a diachronic typology. First, a classification based on qualitative variables of the habitations is proposed. These variables are then quantified and each site compared accordingly. This permits to construct an archaeological model of the Indian settlement pattern. An ethnographical model of the land-use pattern is also presented and compared to the archaeological model. The contribution of this study rests on the observation, classification and interpretation of indian habitation remains for the purpose of documenting the sedentarisation process during the 20th century.

The paleopathology of historic societies or what history does not reveal
Robert Larocque

Until recently, paleopathologists had mainly been interested in the study of prehistoric populations. However, they now pay as much attention to historical societies. Since historical documents have become available, one might be led to believe that human skeletal remains have lost their exclusiveness in providing data pertaining to health status. Meanwhile, written documents about Amerindians of the 17th and 18th centuries cannot compete with skeletal remains on many standpoints : not only are they biased and subjective, but they also preclude gaining access to some pathological conditions that can be thoroughly investigated with skeletal remains. Despite the richness of historical documentation, human skeletal remains keep providing the paleopathologist with original and invaluable data necessary for reconstructing the health status of historical communities.

Research Note
The Indians at Pointe-à-Callière, Montréal
Pauline Desjardins

During the 1989 excavations at Pointe-à-Callière, in Montréal, indian artifacts with the same characteristics as those dating from Late Woodland occupations have been found in relation with European artifacts among which many were related to the fur trade. In this research note, these artifacts are described and the pedological context is examined. It is demonstrated that Indian and European artifacts are contemporaneous.

Other article
The Nature of Iroquois Attacks Against Ville-Marie : 1642-1667
Claude Gélinas

In this article, the author questions the accepted theory that the Iroquois attacks against Ville-Marie between 1642 and 1667 were motivated by economic gains, related to the control of the fur trade. A more detailed analysis of ethnohistorical data tends to demonstrate, instead, that the assaults against the French colony, in their form and nature, are more in accordance with the “mourning-wars” theory which suggests that the main objective of Iroquois warfare was to capture enemies in order to adopt or sacrifice them in the wake of death rituals.

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Towards a Chronology of Basque Occupation of the Saint Lawrence River Between the 16th and 18th centuries : A Return to History
Laurier Turgeon

This article attempts to refine the chronology of Basque sites in the Gulf and Estuary of the Saint Lawrence by drawing on the archaeological record and a wide range of historical sources (notarial records, correspondence, admiralty records and travel literature). A critical examination of these written records has provided a wealth of new information regarding the location and the period of occupation of a good number of Basque sites, information which was difficult to obtain from the archaeological record alone. Two rather distinct periods of occupation have been identified : the first running from ca 1540 to ca 1637 and the second from approximately 1710 to 1755. The historical sources have also provided new information on the seasonal migration of whales, particularly the bowhead whale, in and out of the Saint Lawrence Estuary. Chronological refinement will help establish temporal sequences of Basque material culture and of their long-standing trade with the native populations of the Northeast.

Fur Trade and Tribal Names : Some Amerindian Ethnonyms in the Northeast of Possible Basque Origin
Peter Bakker

The Basques were pioneers in the negotiation of contacts with the Amerindian people of the Northeast in the 16th century. This paper suggests that a number of tribal names in this region are of Basque origin. They were probably coined in the context of trade relations between Basque traders and fishermen and members of the coastal tribes, especially the Micmacs. The etymologies suggested are plausible to varing degrees. Ethnonyms combine, in many cases, Basque and Algonquian components. They entered into the language with the colonization of New France in the 17th century.

The Maliseet and the Fur Trade
Laurence Johnson et Charles A. Martijn

This article provides a sketch of Maliseet participation in the Fur Trade, from the initial contact period through to the 19th century. According to the authors, the important diminution of the Maliseet population as a consequence of epidemics during the course of the 17th century permitted the maintenance of local animal resources and the continuation of a subsistence economy based on hunting, fishing and trade. The arrival of Loyalist settlers in the Maritime Provinces during the 1780’s deprived the Maliseet of a territory almost exclusively exploited by them prior to this development. The environmental impact was considerable and led to a substantial decline in faunal resources. As a result, the Maliseet were obliged to diversify their subsistence activities.

Domiciliés Indians and "Fur Smuggling" in New France
Jan Grabowski

During the colonial period Amerindians settled in “reserves” around Montréal were the most important intermediaries in the illegal fur trade between the British and the French merchants. The domiciliés, as they were known, worked on their own account as well and pursued this commercial activity despite numerous prohibitions and ordinances issued by French authorities. Recognizing the military importance of the domiciliés and their crucial role in the Franco-Amerindian alliance, the colonial administrators put in place a parallel system of justice, one that focused the natives. While French participants in trade had to face steep fines and seizures of smuggled goods, Amerindians continued unmolested to carry the fur to the South and to bring “foreign merchandise”back to New France.

"Fully Sensible of Their Own Importanc": The Hudson Bay Lowland Cree and the Goose Hunt in the Eighteenth Century
Victor P. Lytwyn

The Hudson Bay Lowland Cree hunted migratory birds well before the arrival of European traders in the seventeenth century. While remaining a subsistence resource, geese in particular now became a commercial resource as well. If the introduction of firearms changed hunting techniques and the "Home Guard" Cree responded to the new market for this product, they were by all indications less willing to surrender control of the hunt (as well as the accompanying feasts). The hunt did not become more intensive until after 1780, as a result of the effects of the smallpox epidemic and new Company policies.

Trading Relations between the Hudson's Bay Company and the Montagnais of Betsiamites in the 19th Century (1821-1870)
Jacques Frenette

For the period before 1870, fur trade literature usually presents commercial battles occurring between large companies as advantaging Natives peoples : gifts and advances are easily granted, fur prices are increased while those on merchandises are lowered. In fact, according to the classical historiographic and ethnohistoric approaches, competition from independent traders has substantial effects only after 1870. Fur companies and their competitors then tighten their trading policies in order to cut on their overhead costs while keeping intact their sources of income. But, according to this author, the situation described in the fur trade literature does not apply to the Betsiamites area where the Hudson's Bay Company endures an acute competition from many “petty traders” before 1870, and where HBC trading policies, as those of its opponents, are not necessarily advantageous to the Montagnais.

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The International Decade of the World's Indigenous People
Russell L. Barsh

As the International Year of the World's Indigenous People came to an end, the UN General Assembly agreed in principle to extend the Year into a Decade. In light of the disappointing result of the Year, the changing geopolitical role of the UN, and its dwindling financial resources, what could realistically be accomplished during a Decade ? This article describes the issues concerning this Decade : the fate of the draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; the idea of a “permanent forum” for Indigenous Peoples to be created within the UN decision-making hierarchy; the visibility and participation of Indigenous Peoples in all aspects of UN work; the mobilization of the international resources for solving the “problems faced by indigenous communities”.

The United Nations Study on Treaties between Indigenous Peoples and States
Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff

The ongoing United Nations Study on Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arrangements between Indigenous Peoples and States brings to the fore two fundamentally different rationales. Each of these contributes in a specific manner to the debate which is taking place internationally regarding the status of indigenous peoples and their future relations with the States encompassing them. Without anticipating unduly the final results of the Study, the author endeavours to offer a first reading of the reports already available, with special reference to their objective, their outlook and their institutional framework.

The I.L.O. Convention n° 169 and Canadian Law: Some Significant Differences
Renée Dupuis

In her article, the author emphasizes some major differences between the Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (n° 169) adopted by the International Labour Organization in 1989, and Canadian law. The new convention’s provisions conflict with some fundamental elements of the canadian legal regime. Considering the gap between this new piece of international law and the domestic law, the author doubts that Canada will ratify the Convention n° 169, at least under the current canadian constitution and laws.

The Inter-American Commission Human Rights and Indigenous peoples
Carol Hilling

This article looks at the performance of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the area of Indigenous rights, through the general and special reports of the Commission. The Inter-American legal instruments for the protection of human rights contain no specific provisions concerning Indigenous peoples and individuals. Therefore, although other cases or situations studied by the Inter-American Commission may concern them, the examples chosen are ones which expressly deal with Indigenous issues. This study reveals the relative ineffectiveness of the Inter-American Commission in the past and stresses the importance of Indigenous participation in the drafting on an Inter-American legal instrument concerning Indigenous rights as well as the role that Indigenous organizations and individuals can play in the development of Inter-American case law through amicus interventions before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The Project for an Independant Indian State at the End of the 18th Century, and the Jay Treaty
Rémi Savard

Although the border between the United States of America and the Canadian colony had been defined by the Treaty of Paris (1783), British posts situated in the American territory were still operational. Consequently the British continued to have access to a fur reservoir and the Indians could still rely on British firearms to stop the invasion of their land. Of course, this position was untenable; Great Britain thus proposed the establishment of a neutral and independent Indian state south of the Great Lakes. American negotiators were opposed to this proposition but were forced, by signing the Jay Treaty (l794), to agree to some clauses still too much tinted to their liking with the recognition of an international status for Native American People.

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The Pre-confederation Treaty of the Huron-Wendat Nation: some thoughts about the "incarnation" of a modern reality.
René Boudreault

At different times, many treaties were signed in Canada and in Eastern United States between certain native Nations and the different governments that have followed one another since the time of contact. These treaties still define certain relationships between Nations and prompt several native Nations to claim their governmental autonomy. The treaty signed in 1760 between the Hurons and the British was recognized in 1990 by the Supreme Court of Canada. The analysis of this Judgment and of the negociations which will clarify Huron rights in modern times, should help to understand their importance.

Comprehensive Claims Negociation of the Dene and the Metis of the Northwest Territories: from Native Sovereignty to Political Will
Shirleen Smith

The Dènès and the Metis of the Northwest Territories have used two main forums to promote their aboriginal rights, including their right to self-government: the negociation of their comprehensive land claims and discussions regarding the constitutional future of the Territories. In this article the author analyses the results of these negociations and discussions. She also describes the general context in which aboriginal rights have been acknowledged and confirmed by treaties, and its influence on decisions the Dene and Metis have come to.

Land Claims Negociation of the Conseil des Atikamekw et des Montagnais: A Historical Account
Renée Dupuis

Renée Dupuis was legal adviser for the Conseil des Atikamekw et des Montagnais since its creation in 1976 up to 1991. In her article she describes the evolution of the land claims negociations of these two Québec native nations and analyses the tripartite negociation process put forward by the federal government. In addition to the Conseil and the federal governement, Québec government is involved when Québec territory is concerned and Newfoundland government when negociations bear on Labrador which is under Newfoundland jurisdiction since the 1927 Private Council of London judgment.

The Long and Difficult Portage of Territorial Negociation
Bernard Cleary

What is at stake in territorial claims negociations largely depends on the definition of the basic concept underlying a comprehensive land claim. A fundamental disagreement persists between the governments and the Natives: the former want to extinguish the aboriginal title to the land while the latter require that it be explicitly acknowledged. How important should reparation of the historic error that lead some Native Nations to surrender their territory be? The author who has acted as negociator on such matters, reveals the principles and conditions that must guide this social debate.

Yukon First Nations Comprehensive Land Claims
Victor Mitander

In this article the author first traces the portrait of Yukon First Nations and describes the history of the negociations which led to a final agreement. He emphasizes the fundamental principles that it contains, the problems met along the way and the strategies used to resolve them.

Convention de la Baie James et du Nord québécoisOpposing Views Concerning the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement
Robert Mainville

The  has forced Québec and the Cree people to come together and the diverging interpretations about it are particularly sharp when it comes to the territory's hydro-electric development. In the past conflicts have been avoided through complementary agreements which provided monetary compensation in exchange for native people's approval of hydro-electric development. But now a conflict appears inevitable considering that these monetary agreements are no longer acceptable to a native group such as in the case of the proposed development of the Great Whale project. In these circumstances, and in view to past experience as to the Agreement's application, it is best to revise it in depth.

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Abitibi-Témiscamingue Prehistory
Marc Côté

For the last eight years, archaeological research carried out in Abitibi-Témiscamingue by the Corporation Archéo-08 has been revealing something of the chronology of occupations, of the evolution in lifestyle, of material culture, and of the political alliances and economic networks of the ancestors of those who are designated as the Abitibis (Abitibiwinnis) and the Témiscamingues (Timiskamiginis) on the older maps. The author gives the results of this research concerning the cultural evolution of the Abitibi-Témiscamingue Natives who occupied in prehistoric times the communication channel formed by the lakes and rivers joining the James Bay and St. Lawrence River hydrographic basins. Although obviously incomplete, this description nevertheless provides hypotheses and clues for future research.

Algonquin Localization from 1534 to 1650
Maurice Ratelle

This article attemps to establish the historical context for Algonquin localization between 1534 and 1650 and to demonstrate that it has been structured by regular reorganizations. Entire populations disappeared due to wars, epidemics and flights, while others came to replace them. At the beginning of the 17th century, Algonquins coming from the Ottawa valley used the hunting territories of now extinct Iroquoian populations and penetrated as far as the Saint-Maurice where they met their Montagnais allies. Numerous attacks by the Iroquois led the Algonquins to entirely relinquish the Ottawa valley for several decades. These disorders have contributed to the disintegration of Algonquin groups, thus stimulating efforts towards a new unity.

Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg : Land and Economic Activities of the River Desert Algonquins (Maniwaki), 1850-1950
Jacques Frenette

In continuity with Frank G. Speck’s work concerning these matters (mainly from 1929), the author provides new data on the territory and on the economic activities of the members of the River Desert Algonquin band (Maniwaki). He introduces the subject by describing the main events which have led to the creation of the reserve in 1853. He then establishes the extent of the band’s territory for the period between 1853 and 1950. He analyses modifications of its limits and the causes of the disintegration of the family hunting territory system. Furthermore several additional family names are added to Speck’s list of the hunters of the band while the relative importance of agriculture as an economic activity of the Maniwaki Algonquins is documented.

Of Wampum and the Little People : Historical Narratives Regarding the Algonquin Wampum Record
Pauline Joly de Lotbinière

The Algonquin wampum legacy, which includes an oral tradition rich in accounts of dreams, visions and spirit beings, preserves a very strong connection between this people’s history and its current political concerns. Following in the Wampum Keeper’s steps as he narrates the story of the wampum’s history, this paper examines the oral tradition surrounding the legacy. The Keeper’s narrative contrasts with Western styles of historical discourse. The author argues that attention must be given to such non-western forms of historical representation as a balance to the dominance of Western cultural forms.

Algonquin Traditions and Legends from an Unpublished Document by Juliette Gaultier de la Vérendrye
Daniel Clément et Noeline Martin

A professional singer, Juliette Gaultier de la Vérendrye (1888-1972), was mainly known for her interpretations of the folk songs of the Indian and Inuit people as well as those of Quebecers and Acadians. Her relations with Mackenzie King, Marius Barbeau, Diamond Jenness and Edward Sapir in Ottawa have no doubt contributed to her success. Amongst the works she has left there is an unpublished collection of Algonquin traditions and legends (Baskatong Lake, Barriere Lake, Petite Nation) archived at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Nearly fifty texts from this manuscript are here translated and briefly commented.

nîbawiwinA Wedding in the Bush : Continuity and Change in Algonquin Marriage
Sue N. Roark-Calnek

This article examines Algonquin marriage (nîbawiwin) in its historical and contemporary contexts. It gives an ethnographic account of a marriage ceremony which took place in 1988 in the Barriere Lake Algonquin community, Parc de la Vérendrye, which restored and revived traditional Algonquin customs. This analysis considers marriage both as a social arrangement and as a symbolic cultural performance. Both in ritual form and in the social structure which it reflects and reproduces, Algonquin marriage may be considered as an evolving adaptive mechanism developping in parallel whith the historical transformations of Algonquin communities.

“Makwa Nibawaanaa”: Performative Features of an Algonquin Bear Dream Account
Roger Spielmann

This paper examines an Algonquin bear-dream account with an interest in discovering and describing some of the performative features of Algonquin narrative and expository discourse. By paying careful attention to the features of spoken discourse, the author describes that what at first appears to be common knowledge about Algonquin discourse and cultural knowledge transmission techniques reveals something previously unreported about the nature of Algonquin ethnography of speaking (the study of culture-specific techniques of verbal interaction). When these features are explored in the context of teachings about bear-dreams and compared with findings in a related dialect (Odawa), these observations enable us to better understand the relationships between performative features of Algonquian discourse, culture-specific techniques of transmitting cultural knowledge and Algonquin cosmology.

Val-d’Or Natives of Algonquin Origin : Migrants or City-dwellers?
Christiane Montpetit

The Native popoulation of Algonquin origin established in Val-d’Or is not homogenous. However it is possible to detect different degrees of integration to the urban context between Algonquins coming from reserves and Métis of Algonquin origin coming from the Abitibi-Témiscamingue towns and villages. For the moment, Algonquins may be considered as migrants whose urban experience is temporary while the Métis tend to establish themselves permanently in town. The author suggests that the explanation of this difference is to be found in each group’s cultural and historical antecedents and from the relationships they maintain with their roots.

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Recent Europeans as Non-pastoral Transhumants in Atlantic Canada
Philip E. L. Smith

A form of non-pastoral transhumance was practiced by many European settlers of the island of Newfoundland, Labrador, and the Lower North Shore of Québec from ca. 1700 until after 1950. The inhabitants of the coastal fishing villages left their homes in automn to spend the winters in camps established in the forests or other sheltered places. The principal motivation were to escape the cold, be nearer their firewood supply, hunt caribou and other game, trap furs, and manufacture items of wooden technology required in the fishery. In many respects this mobility pattern resembles that of aboriginal hunters-gatherers-fishers, with some of the same mechanisms operating. As a perhaps unique example of such transhumance by recent Europeans it presents an opportunity to examine the determinants of mobility and sedentariness from a different perspective in which "we" are "the Other".

Transhumance and the Saint Lawrence Iroquoians
Claude Chapdelaine

It is possible through historical and archeological data to define a form of transhumance practiced by the Iroquoians of the Québec City area. The exploitation of the natural resources of the Laurentidian maple grove and of horticultural products combined with the exploitation of the resources of the Saint Lawrence estuary, have led to seasonal mobility between these two ecological zones. On the other hand, the Royarnois site on cap Tourmente could have been a seasonal campsite. If so this could mean that another form of transhumance was practiced by a part of the population of a semi permanent village: these would have moved over shorter distance in order to use the brackish water ecosystem and the northeastern limits of the Laurentian lowlands.

People of the Pitpan and the Banana-tree : The Miskito Spatial Mobility
Pierre Beaucage

Described by some as "nomads" who made a living hunting and gathering, the Miskito of Nicaragua have been defined in recent monographs either as nearly self-subsisting fishermen-horticulturalists, or as a "purchase society" stranded in the middle of the jungle. Adopting an ethnohistorical approach, this article tries to show how native societies in Eastern Nicaragua redefined various times their relationship to space and environment since the first encounters with Europeans. These followed deep changes in the mode of subsistence as well as in the political-military and commercial relations with the outside: the latter would incite them to dwell on the coast, while the adoption of bananas and plantains as their main subsistence crop requires frequent travels up the rivers. In a shifting ethno-cultural situation such as that of Eastern Nicaragua, it is suggested that ethnic boundaries of the group may be best defined by reference to a specific form of territorial mobility.

Is There Any Transhumance in Prehispanic Mesoamerica ?
Louise Iseult Paradis

The word “transhumance” is absent from the archaeological literature on prehispanic Mesoamerica. Is this the result of a semantic problem or does it represent an actual historical reality ? After reflecting upon the concept of transhumance and with the help of a case study, an attempt is made to answer this question.

Economic Mobility and Sedentarism in Amazonia
Robert R. Crépeau

With data related to economic mobility of four Amazonian societies (Achuars, Canelos, Bara Makús, Yuquís), notions of sedentarism, nomadism and mobility are critically examined. It is suggested that a clear distinction between the concepts of sedentarism and mobility is central to a better understanding of the multidimensional aspect of the economic and social strategies characteristic of Amazonian societies.

Essay on Transhumance in the Nineties
Thomas F. Lynch

After thirty years of use in New World Archaeology, the occurrence of transhumance in time and space has been fairly well defined, at least in the Andes, but there is less agreement over its use as a general explanatory concept. Transhumance has been especially effectively studied through environmental and contextual archaeology in Argentina, Chile and Peru. The 1980's and 1990's have seen more interest in the origins of transhumance among specialized migratory hunters, rather than generalized foragers. Later use of Andean zonal complementarity, as in the notorious Inca and Tiwanaku control of vertical archipelagos, is most likely related in a developmental way. In this article, the investigation of the relationship between Archaic transhumance and the later, descendant systems of the central and south-central Andes, is presented.

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Preliminary Observations on a Recent Paleoindian Site at Rimouski (DcEd-1)
Claude Chapdelaine and Steve Bourget

Salvage archaeological excavations at Rimouski have exposed a late Paleoindian site. Radiocarbon dates support an occupation prior to 8,000 years BP. Characteristic artifacts of this site are comparable to others found on the Gaspé north shore suggesting cultural links between the two regions. A preliminary interpretation of the site is presented taking into consideration the prevailing environmental conditions of the period.

Two Montagnais Letters from the 18th Century
José Mailhot

Two letters written in Montagnais in 1785 and 1795 are part of the archival collections of the British Library of London. These business letters discuss economic activities and operations of a trading post. The author of this article shows that the letters were written and sent by the managers of the Îlets-Jérémie post to a Quebec merchant who was employed in the operation of the King's Posts. Linguistic analysis demonstrates that, in the 18th century, some Montagnais had achieved a high level of literacy and that the Montagnais language of this period was much closer to Cree than it is today.

Mâtsheshu (The Fox)
Daniel Clément

The Montagnais of Quebec know a great deal about foxes which they continue to hunt regularly. At Mingan, on the St. Lawrence River north shore, they have related their knowledge about these animals, a knowledge based on age-old tradition and real life experiences. In this article the traditional knowledge is compared to that of zoologists by theme including: taxonomy, physical description, habits and reproductive cycle. The comparison reveals elements common to both sources. Also considered are representations of the fox in Montagnais legends and beliefs. These are found to be based on the actual characteristics of the animal, as well as being excellent mnemotechnics.

Ritual Dietary Practices in Mochica Society: The Context of the Feast
Daniel Arsenault

Some dietary practices of the Mochicas, a prehistoric society in the Andean region, are well enough documented by archaeological and iconographic data that specific contexts may be studied. With the help of pertinent archaeological information the author proposes a "contextual" reading of the figurative illustrations of these practices, which are interpreted in terms of ritual feasting related to the Mochica mortuary context. In conclusion, it seems that sacred food in the mortuary context played a role in the mediation of social and political relations, particularly between phase III and phase V of Mochica history.

Political Reasons for Ignorance or Forbidden Ethnology Among the Waimiri-Atroari Indians
Stephen G. Baines

This paper reflects on the difficulties met by anthropological researchers to enter or re-enter Indian territories in Brazilian Amazonia, discussing in detail the case of the prohibition of research with the Waimiri-Atroari Indians. In recent years, the accelerated occupation of Amazonia has been taking place through a military/large company model, revealing a close articulation of interests between the federal government, the army and large mining companies. Many researchers have been denied authorization to enter their area of research. In other cases, the government administration, in collaboration with mining company interests, has resorted to calumnious campaigns, telling the Indians that the researcher is an agent of international mining interests, supposedly using Indians to try to prevent the advance of private Brazilian mining companies over Indian territories as part of a campaign against national sovereignty.

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The Arrival of the Great Cannibal: A story from the Carib Indians of Suriname
Frans J. Malajuwara

The author, a descendent of a Kalihna (Carib) family of official storytellers or “keepers of the words”, recounts a story from the oral tradition of his people. Strange beings emerge from the entrails of a monster that appeared suddenly in the ocean. Initially, their diaphanous appearance evoked sympathy, but the people quickly realized that these were cannibals from whom no one could escape. The White Man, this “scourge from the sea”, had arrived among the Caribs of Suriname. In his introduction the author notes that after three centuries of colonial domination, traditional distrust with regards to Whites is gradually diminishing. This attitude is no longer considered necessary for the protection of the Carib identity.

Remembering: A Micmac Story Told by the Grand Chief Gabriel Sylliboy
Collected by Albert D. DeBlois

This text is aboout the coming of the first Europeans to the shores of present-day Cape Breton (Nova Scotia), as seen through the eyes of the Micmac people. It is a story that has been passed down orally from generation to generation. The narrator describes the lifestyle of his people at the time of contact, and the changes that resulted from this initial meeting. He speaks, often humorously, of the introduction of western clothing and food, and compares them with the old ways of dressing, eating and coping with the vicissitudes of daily life. The narration concludes with a tale of high adventure. A Micmac seal hunter is rescued at sea, taken to England, and eventually returns home with a gun, gunpowder, flint and lead balls ? changing forever the way his people hunt.

The Arrival of Those Seeking Land: Stories and Sayings from the Montagnais of the Middle and Lower North Shore
Sylvie Vincent

As was the case elsewhere in America, the arrival of Europeans forced the Montagnais to adjust their representation of humanity. In addition, within a very short time period, the presence of these newcomers obliged the Montagnais to revise their occupation of space. There exists on the Lower North shore a tradition, a collection of stories and hearsay, about the arrival of the French in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as well as a way of interpreting the significance of this event. In this paper, the author describes this tradition, based on a series of interviews carried out between 1971 and 1990 in the region between Mingan and Saint-Augustin.

Edmond’s Drum
Jacques Leroux

An Algonquin tells her grandson about the first arrival of the French, the kidnapping of a young native, and their return, a few years later, with the child who has become an interpreter. According to oral tradition, this story serves as a prelude to a personal account on relations between Native people and Euro-Canadians. The remarks and recollections of the Elders resurface in the memory of the narrator. From this stream of memories emerge a number of concerns. Thus, faced with a traditional ecology and cosmography that were severely tested by the industry of the invaders, the narrator reflects on the transformations of Native culture, and stresses the role of maternal and foreign language within a problematic of “otherness” and ethnic identity.

The Thunderbirds Are gone: An Ojibwa Story (Big Trout Lake, Ontario)
Collected by Emmanuel Désveaux

The mythological tradition of the Native people who occupy the far north western interior of Ontario tends to deny the European presence, although first contact took place 300 years ago. Therefore, manufactured goods are equated with supernatural entities acquired in the course of ordeals of isolation and initiation. One story, that of Isaiah McKay, is an exception as it shines with lucidity. In it, history since contact is not only described as one of progressive alienation of Native people, but also as one of economic and then political alienation.

Encountering the Whiteman in James Bay Cree Narrative: History and Mythology
Colin Scott

Cree mythical and historical narrative about Whites is deeply concerned with exploring reciprocity as the human standard for inter-group relations. Categories on a spectrum from humanity to sub-humanity ? kin, ally, stranger, outlaw, cannibal ? are evaluated according to this standard. The schema is applicable to present political struggles with the state, as it was to earlier contacts with Europeans. The problematic of reciprocity implies a distinction between aboriginal and immigrant European nations, yet also advocates a universalist moral standard of egalitarian exchange which Europeans are challenged to respect.

We Are Always Discovering America: The Arrival of Europeans According to Cree Stories Collected at Whapmagoostui
Pierre Trudel

The arrival of a boat from Europe, the exchange of furs for European clothing, the gift of a curious hat, the origin of the word “Canada”, the shaking tent, the discovery and ownership of the territory, are all elements that appear in a Cree story of discovery told by John Kawapit of Whapmagoostui (Great Whale River) on the Hudson Bay coast in northern Québec. It seems, however, that these Europeans who arrived by boat were not the “first” to come. The analysis that accompanies this story places the text back in its cultural and historical context, as well as in the context of the interview during which it was presented. The author explores the hypothesis that this

Arctic Pygmies and Lecherous Giants or the Avatars of Images of the “Other” During First Encounters Between Inuit and Whites
Bernard Saladin d’Anglure

By comparing various facets of the image of the “other” developed by Whites at the time of their “first encounters” with the Inuit, with those that the Inuit fashioned on their part, on the subject of the newcomers, we initially find some resemblances, for example an attempt to insert the “other” in each group’s ancestry, by calling on a creation myth to explain the “otherness”. However, we find above all profound differences. While the Whites classify the Inuit in the sub-human world of dwarfs, animals and primitives, the Inuit classify the Whites in the super-human world of spirits, who appear at times in the form of lecherous giants with supernatural powers. This imbalance in the representations, previously pointed out by C. Lévi Strauss for the Caribbean region, may no doubt be related to other imbalances which led the Westerners to appropriate Arctic lands and territory in many other parts of the world.

Two Arrows in the Skull or How the Native Saw It All
Marie-Laure Pilette

As a result of the clash of cultures that accompanied contact between Whites and Native people, the Native way of thinking was forced to adopt foreign elements. However, these were incorporated within a Native system of representation. This strategy of cultural resistance proves to be rich in teachings on the phenomenon of culture change and on the degree of openess of Native cultures. Starting with the analysis of a Tuscarora creation story and its underpinnings, this paper attempts to isolate elements of this strategy, seen here as being on two levels ? the consideration of White teachings and the appropriation of these by Natives. The result is a triangular configuration presenting the White man, the Native as seen by the White man, and the Native as he sees himself. This entire scene is set out to remind us that the Native is not a dupe and that History should not continue to be written without him.

First contacts as Described in a Selection of Native Stories Published in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Denys Delâge

The author presents eleven stories, most of which were collected in the nineteenth century in the Great Lakes region. He then discusses these texts and their historical significance, separating what is original from recent additions, the truth from the improbable, and the “factual” from the interpretational.
Oral tradition proves to be very rich for the work of the historian, to whom comes the role of using all traces of the past ? found as much in objects as in documents and, finally, in memory. In fact, oral tradition can be a better source than written archives, particularly for groups who did not have access to writing. Oral traditions teach us about the cultures from which they originate, enabling us to experience their intellectual universe, their perceptions, their symbolism, and, above all, the way in which they represent the past.

Quebecers’ Speech Translated from Tchippewayan, and Other Geographical Dialects...
Jean Morisset

“On seeing this, I was gripped with anger; although a savage, I liked the French because my grandfather was French” (meaning “Canadian”). This phrase is contained in a story by a Métis Franco-Cree-Dene, published in 1886 by Émile Petitot. The author of this article uses it as a starting point, and goes on to reflect on the Canadian omnipresence (in the old sense of the term) in North Americaa, and on its many effects on Native cultures in the West. This influence was exerted, in particular, by means of a Métis culture, with its language that we are gradually discovering as well as its artistic contributions. A consideration of this influence leads the author to raise the often overshadowed question of the so-called purity not only of Native people, but also of Quebecers. It also raises the issue of those myths that are not “national” ones because they are masked, though for differing reasons, by official history.

The First Fur Trader
Dene Story Told by Louie Taniton
Collected and Presented by Nicole Beaudry

Situated at a time when the North Slavey Indians were constantly at war with the Chipewyans, the story presented here tells how the Chipewyans treacherously exploited the Slaveys in their trade with the Whites. The discovery of their deceit, thanks to the timely intercession of a Slavey woman, enabled Whites to get to know the Slaveys and to establish trading posts near them. Although the storyteller confirms the profitable trading relationships between the Whites and the North Slaveys, the story nevertheless points out several instances in which the Whites are shown to be gullible, dependent on Native labor, and eager (as they are still today) for stories such as this one!

New Encounters, New Myths? First Contacts in the American Northwest
Guy Buchholtzer

This paper presents three stories, Tlingit, Squamish and Kutenai, about the first encounters with Europeans, in this case the French, in the American Northwest. The author shows that each of these stories, although from Nations geographically distant from each other, displays a strong tendency to symbolically integrate historical facts and foreign cultural events into the Native mythological universe.

The Culture of the White Man: Naskapi Accounts
Collected by Jeanne Guanish-Vachon

Five people from Kawawachikamach, whose accounts were recorded early in the year 1992, present their thoughts about the effects of Western culture on their society and their way of life. The Naskapi interviewed explained that although they were at one time seduced by the goods and novelties brought by the White man, they are now more discerning. They appreciate the fact that they have access to the rest of the world, and they consider that certain goods and services are useful to them. However, the Naskapi also note that other contributions (alcohol, schools) have turned young people away from the Elders and from their culture. In the last analysis, some of them question if present-day life, with its relative ease, is not in fact more difficult than life in the past.

The Objects Exchanged Between the French and Amerindians in the Sixteenth Century
Laurier Turgeon, William Fitzgerald and Réginald Auger

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the nature of early contacts between the French and the Native people in Northeastern North America and, more specifically, in the province of Québec. Attention is focused on the study of material culture because it remains one of the main sources of information for this time period. During this period of early encounter, contacts were established and mediated primarily through the exchange of objects. This study emphasizes the contextual elements of exchange: the general framework of French activities in the Northeast, the evolution of trade in the sixteenth century, the geography of exchange, and the types and functions of objects exchanged. The goal is a clearer understanding of the mechanisms of exchange.

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Northern Iroquoian Population Growth and Its Implications for Their Origins
Dean R. Snow

Norman Clermont (1980) has proposed that Northern Iroquoian population growth was too slow to allow the possibility that they developed from a relatively small founding population after A.D. 900. This conclusion implies that the Northern Iroquoians must have already been numerous in A.D. 900, and that they must have developed out of an already resident Point Peninsula population. A new examination of demographic factors indicates that the Northern Iroquoians could have grown from a small founding population in the available time, even at the modest growth rates noted at the time of European contact.

First Signs of Europeans in Native Lands: An Example from the Southern Margin of the Eastern Subarctic
Jean-François Moreau and Érik Langevin

Ethnohistorical documents from the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century make only indirect reference to the existence of a travel route along the rivers in the southern margin of the Québec subarctic region, north of the Saint Lawrence. Until additional texts are discovered that provide first-hand observations, archaeology seems the discipline the most likely to corroborate this travel route by uncovering remains left by those who voyaged along it. Consequently, the analysis of artifacts from an archaeological site in the Lac Saint-Jean region is used to document the phenomenon of initial European intrusions into the Native world, and to identify the participants as well as the processes at work.

History of the Ojibway PeopleFirst contacts in “History of the Ojibway People”
by William Warren
A Transition Text Between Oral and Written Texts
Denys Delâge

In the second part of this article, the first appeared in issue XXII (2-3), an extract from History of the Ojibway People by the Metis historian William Warren is presented. Of specific interest in this text is the description of oral and written traditions. The utility of oral tradition in corroborating, completing, contextualising and contradicting written documents is demonstrated.

The Triumph of Iroquois Ideology : Kahnawake in the 20th Century
Gerald R. Alfred

This article traces Kahnawake’s political history since 1926 when a Grand Council was held in a specially constructed Longhouse and brought together several communities who had long lived separately but who were united in their resistance to governmental pressures against their social life and their ownership of territory. In the nineteen forties however, two parties opposed by their ideological approaches, the one traditionalist, the other assimilationist, signaled the beginning of an era of internal political division which became further complicated by the failure to stop the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Since 1950, several factions and ideologies were concerned with the re-creation of traditional political autonomy and with territorial claims through militant political action.

Research Note
Amerindian Names
Gilles Tassé

There has been a resurgence in the use of the nomenclature found in old French texts to identify Five Nations Iroquois groups. The author describes the differences between these and the English terms often used in French language Québec publications, and shows why the French terms are preferable. Originating from the Huron, they are closer to the original names used by the parties in question. The author also proposes a slight modification to the terms used in French for the English terms “Iroquoian” and “Algonkian” (or “Algonquian”) : Iroquoyen in place of Iroquoien and Algonquinien in place of Algonquien.

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Twenty Years of Disappointed Hopes
and
The Solutions We Recommends
Georges Erasmus

The first text by the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations outlines the land claims and struggles of Canadian Native People over the past 20 years. The author asserts that the citizens of First Nations had hoped to collaborate in building a Canada that would take into consideration their vision of the country. He applies the label of « racist double-standard » to the actions of Canadian Prime Minister, who tried to form an alliance with Québec in the constitutional debate, without doing the same for Native People. The author also denounces the many broken political promises made by the Conservative government, pointing out as one example how cutbacks in spending on education are at the basis of situations that are both aberrant and profoundly frustrating for Native People.
The second text presents the solutions Erasmus recommends for the problems of Natives in Canada. Proclaiming himself confident that the government will finish by accepting a form of political autonomy that would give the governments of First Nations political power comparable to that of the provinces.

Resurrecting the Peace : Traditionalist Approaches to Separate Justice in the Kahnawake Mohawk Nation
E. J. Dickson-Gilmore

This paper analyses the Mohawk traditionalists plan in the realm of justice at Kahnawake. The author examines the traditions that this plan claims to be copying, as well as the difficulties ensuing from the wish to fit these traditions into an historic context and places where they are unfamiliar. After first presenting the different viewpoints expressed on this subject at Kahnawake, the author questions the extent to which this plan for an autonomous, contemporary legal system could made to work effectively within the community. She concludes that it would be unrealistic to assume that unanimity must preside at Kahnawake on this question. A certain amount of disagreement is integral to the growth of a society, and this should be recognized as supporting the ultimate objective of autonomy, shared as much by the « conservatives » as by the « traditionalists ».

Pottery, ethnicity and St. Lawrence Iroquoians
Claude Chapdelaine

In this paper, the author analyses pottery made by Iroquoians of the St. Lawrence Valley, in order to define the distinctive character of these groups in the late prehistoric period. To support the ethnic identification of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, a comparison is made with pottery from an Iroquoian site in the Mohawk Valley. The important differences between these two pottery traditions are illustrated. The author concludes that pottery style is a valid ethnic indicator, conferring a specific cultural identity on the St. Lawrence Iroquoians.

Did the Mohawks discover Jacques Cartier ?
Pierre Trudel

Mohawk high school students in Kahnawake are taught in their school books that their ancestors occupied the site of Montréal in 1535, during the brief visit made by Jacques Cartier. However, Québécois students in colleges and universities are taught that Cartier actually met St. Lawrence Iroquoians, and that the Mohawks lived at this time further south, in what is now the State of New York. How can we explain this contradiction between archaeological data and what seems to be Mohawk oral tradition ?
The author first summarizes Bruce Trigger's opinion on the disappearance of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, then presents an overview of the Mohawk school manual's contents. Finally, he evaluated the debate in the context of the Oka crises, during which it was affirmed that Mohawks do not have territorial rights in Québec because they supposedly came to New France after the arrival of the first French colonists.

The Christian Iroquois of the « reductions », 1667-1770.
First Part : Migration and relations with the French
Denys Delâge

This paper presents the history of the Christian Iroquois established in the Montreal region from 1667, and covers the following century up to the American Revolution. The first part of the paper examines the religious, social and economic motives for the migration. The author stresses the Christian Iroquois'  role in colonial life, their demographic strength, and the nature of their interaction with the Euro-Canadian population. This is followed by an examination of the resident Iroquoians' status : including an analysis of the conflicts surrounding the trade with Albany, as well as the wider issues of war and justice. This leads the author to conclude that they were allies rather than subjects. Nevertheless, they did not completely escape the process of subjugation.
The second part of this paper ( to appear in the next issue) will analyze the Christian Iroquois' relationship with the League of the Iroquois and with the British, as well as with the other Native nations.

An Iroquoian dilemma : fight to become allied or become allied to fight
Marie-Laure Pilette

This paper examines the ambiguities associated with the concept of peace among Iroquoians of the 16th and 17th centuries. The historic circumstances that prevailed at the foundation of the Iroquoian League of Five Nations demonstrate that the notion of a League was inseparable from an expansionist ideology and recourse to war. The ambiguity of Iroquoian peace is in fact based on a profound antagonism with war. A very brief look at the phenomenon of 20th century Mohawk Warriors tends to confirm that this antagonism is still present today.

The « problems at Oka », or the history of a resistance, 1760-1945
Serge Laurin

The author retraces the history of a resistance. It is the story of a Native community that refuses to renounce the rights to what they consider to be their property, the Seigneury of Lac-des-Deux-Montagnes. They base this claim on their rights as first occupants and on the promises made to them by European colonizers. The initial conflicts between Sulpicians and Natives can be traced to immediately after the conquest. During the time period examined in this paper, Natives tried at times to impose their viewpoint by the method of fait accompli, while also pursuing legal and political channels. In addition, some of them abandoned the Catholic religion to become Protestants, and the Algonquins left Oka for Maniwaki. However, after virtually all the Sulpician buildings were destroyed in a fire that led to a series of court vases between 1877 and 1880, the Sulpicians also attempted to displace the Mohawks.

The Oka crises in light of historical ecology
Michel F. Girard

This article presents a historical overview of the oldest replanted forest in Québec. It is situated at Oka, on the territory where Mohawk Warriors and the Québec Provincial Police were involved in a confrontation during the summer of 1990. The author demonstrated that Euro-Québec and Mohawk populations collaborated on the planning of this forest, as well as on recent conservation efforts. During the last century, the Mohawks controlled access to the territory; however they were largely dispossessed. In 1936, the Sulpicians decided to sell these lands without consulting the Mohawks. In March of 1990, when the Municipality of Oka decided to unilaterally suspend the moratorium on the expansion of a golf course, Mohawk Warriors intervened at the barricades and blocked access to the territory. Despite the Oka crises, the author believes that ecologists and Native People should continue to collaborate in their efforts to protect this forest.

From the exotic to the banal : racism
Carmen Michaud

In this paper the author analyses the speech of directors of institutions representing political, legal, repressive and cultural elements of Québec society during the confrontation with the Mohawks in the summer of 1990. She demonstrates the racist character of the dominant ideology and she illustrated how, during the crises, an extremely negative image of the Warriors was gradually projected on the entire Mohawk community and, by association, on all first Nations. This served to overshadow the injustices endured by Native People over the past centuries.

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Art and Politics : Showing Yours Colors. The Case of Contemporary Native Art
Jacqueline Bouchard

This article examines two aspects of the relationship between art and politics : 1- the function of art as a vehicle fro ideology; 2- the function of art as a tool for symbolic competition. The author shows how contemporary Native painting cannot be understood as a political endeavor originating in a context of protest; nor is it the result of a desperate situation in which art becomes a response to injustices, conflicts and confrontations. Has not an exclusively functionalist reading of contemporary Native art resulted in a loss of semantic diversity ? Does this not reflect an ethnocentric attitude which confines « ethnic art» and deprives it of its « work of art » status that would give it autonomy.

Masked Art
Jacqueline Bouchard

In discussing contemporary Native art, this article renders visible a body of art objects whose emergence, so far, has made few waves within the field of Native studies. The author examines the roots of this ignorance and the value of a particular definition which prevents us from perceiving, or from « unmasking », the aesthetic or cultural continuum between the Native classical and contemporary periods.

Consociation and the Resolution of Aboriginal Political Rights : Example of the Northwest Territories
Michael Asch

This article illustrates the process of constitution building in the Northwest Territories. The author sheds light on the relationship between the Nation-States and the various ethnonational groups composing them. He offers a promising solution towards conciliating the respective rights of majorities and minorities to self-determination through the concept of direct consociation. In the current context of high constitutional tension, in which Canada finds itself under pressure to elaborate a Constitution based on the recognition of the continued existence of aboriginal political rights, this analysis contributes to a clarification of the issues at hand and the solutions that can be envisioned.

From Bad to Worse : Internal Politics in the 1990 Crisis at Kahnawake
Gerald R. Alfred

During Québec's « Mohawks Crisis » of 1990, public attention was focused on the land dispute and confrontation in the communities of Kanesatake and Oka. Yet the experience of Kanesatake, the other Mohawk community involved in the conflict, is much more instructive if one is to consider the broader causes and implication of the Mohawks' dispute with Québec society and their internal political problems. In fact, the key players on the Mohawk side during the Crisis were from Kahnawake, representing a small but militant faction which had its own agenda unrelated to the root causes of Oka-Kanesatake's land dispute. This faction manipulated support for Kanesatake's predicament and seized the opportunity to advance their own drive for political supremacy among the Mohawks. This story illustrated the type of problems which will continue to face Mohawk and Québec society unless the sources of the conflict are addressed by leaders in both camps.

The Christian Iroquois of the « Reductions », 1667-1770.
II- Relations with the League of the Iroquois, other Native Nations and the British
Denys Delâge

This text is the second part of an article which began in the last issue of Recherches amérindiennes au Québec. The relations of the Christian Iroquois with the League of the Iroquois, other Native Nations and the British are analysed. With the League, relations were tense from the beginning and became truly warlike from 1685 to 1696. However, an early peace between the two Iroquois factions was instrumental in forcing the French to also seek peace. The resident Iroquois conducted many missions within British colonies and played a central role in the Seven Fire Federation Which comprised the totality of the « reduction » Natives of the Canadian colony at the time.

Gepèg (Québec) : A Toponym of Micmac Origin
Charles A. Martijn

Ethnohistorical and ethnolinguistic evidence indicate that the name Québec derives from the Micmac word gepèg, meaning « narrows ». The St. Lawrence Valley was incorporated into the hunting territories of various Algonkian groups after its abandonment by horticultural Iroquoians during the second half of the 16th century. In the case of the Micmac, they extended their subsistence activities throughout the St. Lawrence estuary, venturing as far upstream as the present Québec area. This last area became one of the places along the river where European merchants and Natives met to trade furs over a period of Several decades before Champlain established his habitation there in 1608.

Apios tuberosa : A Matter of Words
Marthe Faribault

Within two centuries, the French and the Algonkians of Eastern North America were arriving at the same solutions when naming new realities. In the 17th century, the French discovered the food quality of the root of Apios; to name it they borrowed Algonkian names or transposed French names. In the same manner, in the 19th century, the Algonkians integrated into their life style the root called « patate » in Québécois (or « pomme de terre » in French). In naming it, they adopted terms from French or transposed traditional Algonkian words. This article traces the history of a number of Algonkian and French names fro these plants.

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The Long Conversion of the Pima-Papago
Donald M. Bahr

The conversion of the Pima-Papago of southern Arizona, U.S.A., and northern Sonora, Mexico, has taken place for longer than most of today's Pima-Papago know, namely for about 400 years. This essay explores that long process in order to argue that important parts of today's religion may not be native retentions from 400 years ago, but may instead be nativist reactions to ideas introduced by the first missionaries. The important parts referred the sacraments. The ongoing Pima-Papago conversion is interpreted as a battle, or a liturgical, theological war, over sacraments.

Dene dreams, songs and prayers : converging spiritualities
Nicole Beaudry

This article examines the prophetic movement found among the Dene people of the Mackenzie River region. This movement seems to be in keeping with traditional native spirituality. At the same time, however, traditional beliefs coexist with new religious ideas introduced by missionaries more than a century ago. In addition to a very brief account of missionary history in Denendeh, the author describes how Dene people use two sets of practices for the same occasion,, one Catholic and the other, native. The author demonstrates how the Dene prophetic movement constitutes a valuable example of the religious dualism or pluralism that exists among peoples who are said to have been transformed by the presence of a dominant ideology.

Demon Slaves or God Servants : Bororos and Salesian Mission in Brazil
Sylvia Caiuby Novaes

This articles studies the relationship between the Bororo native people of Brazil and the Salesian missionaries since the beginning of this century. The main strategies used by the Salesians in order to establish themselves among those native people are examined, as well the values that directed their missionizing efforts and the the consequences of these. Within a broader historical and anthropological framework, the author analyses of the changes that occurred within the Brazilian Catholic Church because of the Second Council of the Vatican. At that time, Brazilian society was ruled by a military government with a strong bias toward development. Finally, this article examines how the Salesian fathers adopted those changes and how this changed their traditional relationship with the Bororos.

The Acceptance of the Other : Conversion in Huronia
Norman Clermont

Conversion is both an individual act and a social phenomenon, that can be statistically analyzed in its multivariate nature. In this paper, the author examines this phenomenon using the biographies of three seventeenth century Hurons. In particular, the author illustrates a theme that existed at that time, the search for new order in events that seemed chaotic and confusing. This coherence in “messianic flight” included the following elements : a trivialization of everyday concerns, the importance of an ulterior spiritual order, predominantly ideological, and a special kind of proselytism.

Catholicism and Garifonas in Honduras
Pierre Beaucage

Scholars generally agree that conversion to christianity constitutes, together with the penetration of capitalism, one of the major vectors of socio-cultural change among native peoples. It is rather astonishing, then, that both missionaries and their various forms of preaching the Gospel occupy so little space in anthropological literature. Starting from fieldwork experience and based on ethnohistorical sources, this research notes outlines the three hundred ans fifty year old process through which the Garifona ("Black Carib") became "converted" to catholicism. Beyond the colonizers' political and religious strategies, attention shall be paid to the varied responses issued by the Amerindian people, from the first contacts in the Windward Islands, to their present-day Central American habitat. It will be shown that theses responses are coherent with the global strategy of "withdrawal-accomodation" which characterized the Garifona during most of their history.

The Salesian Missions and the Shuar People : Assessment of an Experiment
Juan Bottasso

The Salesian fathers have been working with Shuar Native people in Ecuador for over a century. During this period, several approaches were adopted, based on very different theological and anthropological theories. These have ranged from theories which assert that native people are savages who must first be civilized in order to merit Christianity; to theories that natives are people in their own right, victimized by the expansion of the Western society. This last approach has led the Salesian fathers to encourage the emergence of a strong Shuar political organization. Although it is too soon to draw conclusions about this political work, it is nevertheless true that, thanks to or in spite of the work of the Salesian fathers, the Shuars count among the most active native people in terms of political organization and defense of their aboriginal rights.

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