While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Micmac (Migmak, 'allies'; Nigmak, 'our
allies.' Hewitt). The French called them Sourigeois. An important
Algonquian tribe that occupied Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and Prince Edward
Islands, the north part of New Brunswick, and probably points in south and
west Newfoundland. While their neighbors the Abnaki have close linguistic
relations with the Algonquian tribes of the great lakes, the Micmac seem
to have almost as distant a relation to the group as the Algonquians of
the plains (W. Jones). If Schoolcraft's supposition be correct, the Micmac
must have been among the first Indians of the north east coast encountered
by Europeans, as he thinks they were visited by Sebastian Cabot in 1497,
and that the 3 natives he took to England were of this tribe. Kohl
believes that those captured by Cortereal in 1501 and taken to Europe were
Micmac. Most of the early voyagers to this region speak of the great
numbers of Indians on the north coast of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick,
and of their fierce and warlike character. They early became friends of
the French, a friendship which was lasting and which the English, after
the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, by which Acadia was ceded to them, found
impossible to have transferred to themselves for nearly half a century.
Their hostility to the English prevented for a long time any serious
attempts at establishing British settlements on the north coasts of Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick, for although a treaty of peace was concluded
with them in 1760, it was not until 1779 that disputes and difficulties
with the Micmac ceased. In the early wars on the New England frontier the
Cape Sable Micmac were especially noted.
The missionary Biard, who, in his Relation of 1616,
gives a somewhat full account of the habits and characteristics of the
Micmac and adjacent tribes, speaks in perhaps rather too favorable terms
of them. He says: "You could not distinguish the young men from the girls,
except in their way of wearing their belts. For the women are girdled both
above and below the stomach and are less nude than the men. Their
clothes are trimmed with leather lace, which the women curry on the side
that is not hairy. They often curry both sides of elk skin, like our buff
skin, then variegate it very prettily with paint put on in a lace pattern,
and make gowns of it; from the same leather they make their shoes and
strings. The men do not wear trousers they wear only a cloth to cover
their nakedness." Their dwellings were usually the ordinary conical
wigwams covered with bark, skins, or matting. Biard says that "in summer
the shape of their houses is changed; for they are broad and long that
they may have more air." There is all evident attempt to show these summer
bowers in the map of Jacomo di Gastaldi made about 1550 given in vol. III
of sorne of the editions of Ramusio. Their government was similar to that
of the New England Indians; polygamy was not common, though practiced to
some extent by the chiefs; they were expert, canoemen and drew much of
their subsistence from the waters. Cultivation of the soil was very
limited if practiced at all by them, when first encountered by the whites.
Biard says they did not till the soil in his day.
According to Rand (Micmac First Reading Book, 1870),
they divided their country, which they called Megumage, into 7 districts,
the head-chief living in the Cape Breton district. The other six were
Pictou, Memramcook, Restigouche, Eskegawaage, Shubenacadie, and Annapolis.
The first three of these formed a group known as Sigunikt; the other three
formed another group known as Kespoogwit. In 1760 the Micmac bands or
villages were given as Le Have, Miramichi Tabogimkik, Pohomoosh, Gediak
(Shediac), Pictou, Kashpugowitk (Kespoogwit), Chignecto, Isle of St Johns,
Nalkitgoniash, Cape Breton, Minas, Chigabennakadik (Shubenacadie),
Keshpugowitk (Kespoogwit, duplicated), and Rishebouctou (Richibucto). The
Gaspesians are a band of Micmac differing somewhat in dialect front the
rest of the tribe.
In 1611 Biard estimated the Micmac at 3,000 to 3,500.
In 1760 they were reported at nearly 3,000, but had been lately much
wasted by sickness. In 1766 they were again estimated at 3,500; in 1880
they were officially reported at 3,892, and in 1884 at 4,037. Of these,
2,197 were in Nova Scotia, 933 in New Brunswick, 615 in Quebec, and 292 on
Prince Edward id. In 1904, according to the Report of Canadian Indian
Affairs, they numbered 3,861, of whom 579 were in Quebec province, 992 in
New Brunswick, 1,998 in Nova Scotia, and 292 on Prince Edward island. The
number in Newfoundland is not known.
The Micmac villages are as follows:
Antigonishe (?)
Beaubassin (mission)
Boat Harbor
Chignecto
Eskusone
Indian Village
Isle of St Johns
Nalkitgoniash
Kespoogwit
Kigicapigiak
Le Have
Maria
Minas
Miramichi
Nipigiguit
Pictou
Pohomoosh
Restigouche
Richibucto
Rocky Point
Shediac
Shubenacadie
Tabogimkik.
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