| The Native people living in the Churchill area today are predominantly the Chipewan and the Swampy Cree. Traditional Culture - Technology The Aboriginals of the region made ground stone knives and axes as well as stone adzes. Most of the primary tools expected in a Subarctic Aboriginal culture occurred in the lowlands area: bone awls, sewing needles (with tubular needle cases of hollow bird bone), bone fleshers, skin scrapers, and beaver tooth chisels. Preparing caribou skin, the basic clothing material, was along process. Women fleshed the hide as it lay pegged on the ground and shaved the hairs while holding the skin against a log. Once the hide was soaked in a brain mixture, rinsed, dried, stretched, and smoked, it was ready for tailoring. Tanning seal and white whale (beluga) skin required similar hard work, compared to which cleaning the skins of hares and cutting them into strips to make garments and blankets were relatively simple. The West Main Aboriginals employed the full complement of northern lines and cords, made from rawhide, dressed hide, sinew for garment sewing, willow bark and spruce root. Because the "strike-a-light" method of fire making was difficult, fire was carried in the form of a glowing pole or glowing tinder stored in a birch bark container. | ||
| Traditional Culture - Subsistence Fish may have formed the dietary mainstay of former times. The Aboriginals had a variety of techniques and implements to catch them, including:
| ||
 | The bow, arrow, and lance furnished the principal hunting weapons. Simple bows, in height sometimes reaching to a standing man's forehead but usually smaller, were strung with bark or babiche. Arrows were fitted with antler, bone, or stone points suited for particular types of game. Deadfalls caught black bears and many smaller furbearing animals. Traps fitted with falling trapdoors were built in water to catch beaver, an animal also taken by nets and sometimes simply by a man's crashing into its dwelling. | |
| Snares were used to take geese, ducks, hare, and larger land animals. In caribou hunting, groups of several families cooperated constructing surrounds or driving the animals through a narrow valley. Individual hunters also hunted them by semicircular tracking and by running them down in soft snow, techniques that later came to be used in moose hunting.
Heat-drying enabled meat and fish to be preserved; sometimes the dry meat was pounded, larded with grease, and enriched with berries. Grease rendered from seal blubber was added to dried fish; fish or meat without fat was little relished, whether fresh or dried. For boiling, the usual method of preparing meat and fish, people used clay-covered woven spruceroot ketttles and caribou stomachs. Farther north, soapstone cooking vessels were used as well. The sexes followed no special order in eating, a task in which wood or bone knives served to cut the meat and horn or wood spoons to transport food to the mouth. Among the few magically conceived food taboos that encumbered eating were those requiring women to avoid certain parts of game animals in order that hunters might take game again. Check Out The Cree Recipe Section | ||
 | Traditional Culture - Structures The basic dwelling is frequently described as a conical lodge with a three pole foundation on which a series of poles was laid to support a further cover that varied with the time of the year. It might consist of bark, skins, brush, or, for winter use, earth (pieces of turf),for which the underlying poles must be set close together to support. The floor of a winter earth lodge was excavated a foot or so below the ground surface. The outside of the lodge would be packed with snow for further insulation. | |
Other nonresidential structures included:
| ||
| Traditional Culture - Clothing and Adornment Men always wore breechcloth held in place by a belt. Depending on some extent on the season, they completed their attire by choosing items from and assemblage that included:
Women omitted a breechcloth except during menstruation. They wore a long dress or smock to which they added:
| ||
 |
Dress remained quite plain until late furtrade times when elaborate bead work came into use. Quill and bead decoration extended even to the breechcloths of men. | |
| Men plucked facial hair and women their eyebrows. Both sexes painted the face, tattooed at least the hands and part of the face with sinew thread rubbed in charcoal, pierced the ears for ear plugs and braided their hair. On the north coast, they also bored a hole in the nasal septum and wore a bead. Tattooing was a time-honored custom, usually begun a year or so before marriage and completed a year or so afterwards. The tattoo patterns were intricate and painful to do. | ||
| Traditional Culture - Travel and Transportation Transportation altered with the sharp swing of the seasons. During time of open water, Aboriginals hunted in small canoes and moved family possessions in larger traveling craft. Both were covered with birch or spruce bark. The vessels also ventured into the salt water. Wintertime, goods were loaded on toboggans made of tamarack and pulled by human power, for the small dogs used in hunting lacked strength to haul those vehicles. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the northern coastal people used larger dogs for pulling sleighs. Elongated snowshoes, some seven or eight feet long, made of tamarack and filled with lacing of babiche facilitated travel and hunting in soft snow. | ||
| Traditional Culture - Games, Music and Crafts Games were played by adults and children. Some, like cup and pin, ball-in-the-air, football, lacrosse, pull tug-of-war, and string figures, required simple equipment; but there were also sports that relied solely on physical skill. Children played hide and seek, scaled stones, played hunting games and amused themselves with buzz toys, bull-roarers, toy bows, carved wooden dolls and pea shooters. Evenings, people told stories, sometimes about the culture heroes like Wisakedjak. Although singing and dancing were sometimes recreational, they might also be devoted to serious purposes, for example, when men sang or danced to obtain success in hunting. | ||
 | Birch bark biting is a pass time among the Cree women. Traditionally women did birch bark biting for amusement and pleasure. They folded down and folded again pieces of peeled birch bark into approximately 9 x 13 cm sized pieces. They would gently bite the bark to form detailed and precise patterns. The resulting artwork formed a pattern to be used for beadworking on headbands, kneebands, shirts and dresses. Cree women often held contests to see who could make the best designs. | |
| The use of coloured porcupine quills to decorate bark and leather is unique to the Native people of North America. Caribou hair was also used by the more Northern people. A single porcupine has between 20 - 40 thousand quills between 1.5 and 3 cm in length and vary in thickness. They became an important trade item. Quills were used in four methods: weaving, sewing, plaiting or wrapping. Quills were softened by being soaked in water and were either used in their black and white natural state or dyed using various barks, roots, flowers, and berries. Quill weaving was firmly established in the lives of the Cree. | ||
| Traditional Culture - Social Organization The household frequently consisted of two nuclear families, each headed by brothers or by men who had married sisters. A household might also be a temporarily extended family created through bride service, after which residence was bilocal or neolocal. Cross-cousin marriage and polygamy were practiced. Wife exchange and sexual hospitality were common and divorce was easily secured. | ||
| Traditional Culture - Political Organization In the late seventeenth century, it was noted that Aboriginals who visited the Forts to trade chose several chiefs to take charge of the trading for their people. A chief spoke for his hunters, requesting the trader's kind consideration and process at least no higher than those charged to other Aboriginals. Bands of from 2 to 10 families recognized the authority of leaders who, on the basis of expert knowledge, advised their followers where to hunt and fish and helped them make other advantageous decisions. | ||
| Traditional Culture - Beliefs The Aboriginals believed in two kinds of divination. Scapulimancy belonged to the first type (pape'we'win or good luck), which was matter of fact in nature and Montagnais-Naskapi, which was receiving information from nonhuman helpers in dreams or shaking tents. The second type called (mite'wiwin) and belonged only to the Shamans called (mite'w). Both men and women attempted to become shamans by securing nonhuman helpers through dreaming, but apparently men made the more earnest efforts. Some men acquired extraordinary power through dreaming and became renowned for success in divination, curing, and possibly even sorcery. The Cree believed in a personal supreme being called Manito'w or Kihci-manito'w. Another being Windigo (wi'htiko'w) was a cannibalistic being whose tracks travelers unexpectedly encountered in the forest. The most ceremonial activities were those following the killing of a bear and involved carefully depositing the animal's skull (sometimes painted) into a tree. Other animal bones were also reverentially disposed of in order to retain favour with the species and thus to continue to kill game. Other rituals included seclusion of menstruants (during their menses only) and widows. Not all curing depended on the agency of a shaman. People also resorted to a considerable variety of herbal medicines, each suited to a specific ailment. Additional curing procedures, sometimes employed in shamanistic contexts, included sucking, confession, sweatbathing, and administration of enemas. When a person died, relatives washed the body and provided a birch or spruce bark shroud in which to bury the extended corpse or, if it was winter, to cache it on the ground surface. Eating utensils, bones of game animals, clothing, and weapons were placed on the grave or hung from a crossed stick. | ||
| New Culture/Fur Trade Period Starting in the late seventeenth century and accelerating during the next 200 years, the coastal Cree Aboriginals substantially redesigned both the adaptive and expressive components of their way of life in response to the opportunities and pressures of the fur trade and of the missionaries. To obtain trade goods, Aboriginals took up the specialized pursuit of fur trapping, which in turn worked changes in resource utilization and societal arrangements. Missionary teaching planted new ideas that also called for a host of adjustments in many cultural domains. Implements formerly made by the Aboriginal were sooner or later replaced in whole or in part by ready-made equipment bought at the store. Metal cutting tools were quickly substituted for those of bone, antler, and stone. Fishnets and snowshoes lacing were eventually made with cotton and twine instead of native cordage. The steel trap became the mainstay of trapping, replacing native deadfalls. Canvas replaced bark as the sheathing for canoes and the canvas tent became the common dwelling. Firearms altered and eased subsistence hunting; especially, they allowed the Aboriginals to rely on waterfowl as a seasonal staple food. Besides fish and other native food resources, flour, tea, sugar, oatmeal, and other imported food items from traders assumed a major place in the diet. Tobacco and alcohol were much desired, especially tobacco, which was easier to obtain. Manufactured garments (like the parka) and cloth changed traditional Aboriginal apparel in practically every respect except the moccasin. For working in the coastal marshes, traders introduced imported Eskimo-made sealskin boots and later rubber boots. In winter, hands and feet were protected by woolen duffel. New forms of personal adornment appeared, especially colourful beadwork. Euro-Canadian cultural influence affected recreation through the diffusion of board games (checkers, fox and geese), card games, and new kinds of music, instruments, and dancing. In the realm of social life, polygamy and wife exchange disappeared and the incidences of cross-cousin marriages decreased dramatically. Decimation of large game led large winter bands to split up into smaller units of one, two, or three families to whom sovereign Hudson's Bay Company assigned trapping territories. | ||
| The Early Cree as a Nation: ("The Canadian Aboriginal" a history since 1500) In less than three decades, the Hudson's Bay Company was to leap frog the French trade in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence area by establishing contact with the Crees. The fur trade gradually moved westward, drawing more and more Aboriginals into the economic system of the Europeans and permanently altering their material and non-material culture. By the late seventeenth century, the Cree began to feel the full impact of the new culture in the physical presence of the white man arriving in the Hudson Bay area. The ramifications of white impact are perhaps nowhere better illustrated in Canada than in the case of the Crees. The Cree were a migratory people traveling from Ontario to the Rockies. They split into two distinct groups - The Woodland and The Plains. Through their repeated contact and intermarriage with the white man, another distinct group was created - The Métis. In the seventeenth century there was no distinction. The Cree lived in the area south and southwest of the Hudson Bay, in the Lake Nipigon area and along the Eastmain River. By the mid-seventeenth century some of the Crees were already involved in the fur trade. They rendezvoused in the summer with middlemen such as the Ottawas and Nipissings. In their practice of coming to the shores of the lakes in summer and returning to the interior in the winter, they followed an established pattern like the eastern Algonquins and the northern Athabascans. This was a practice that had been theirs from the beginning of their time, that would change with the fur trade. Many of the northern tribes kept this lifestyle until the twentieth century. The Crees were eager to get trade goods, and by 1670 some of them were dependent on traders for part of their food supply. The commodity desired and available at posts like the Sault was corn; it was nutritious and easily transported. The coming of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670 altered the situation of the Crees. Not only did they now have a choice of French or English goods, but they also became middlemen. They went very quickly from being on the extreme edge of trading relations to being in direct contact with their European source of goods. The Crees quickly became allies of the Hudson's Bay Company and entrenched as middlemen in the trade with the more remote peoples. The Cree jealously guarded this new position. They readily adapted to new weapons a, tools, and utensils, and the trading trip to the Hudson's Bay Company post became an important annual event. Armed with guns and seeking furs, they pushed into the prairies making alliances with some bands to fight other bands. They also fought their Athabascan neighbours and their life-long enemy the Chipewyans. The Cree wanted to keep the Chipewyans from having any first hand contact with the Company. They succeeded with their control in the north except where the Chipewyans were concerned. The Cree served as guides for the French and English traders in the plains regions and into the north for exploration. However, the Chipewyans also served as guides into the as yet unexplored Arctic in search for minerals, furs, and the elusive Northwest Passage. An uneasy peace was established between the Cree and Chipewyans by the mid 1700's. The Chipewyans focused their attention on their natural enemy, the Eskimos, and allowed the peace to stay. By the 1730's, some Cree were firmly permanently established out on the Prairies. They had wealth and power from their alliance with the white man. By the late eighteenth century they attracted many followers from other bands including, Assiniboines, Ojibways, Dakotas, and Athabascans. During the 1770's, the Cree acquired horses through their new relations with the Blackfoot and the Assiniboine. An increase in population sent them farther westward. With their deep involvement in the fur trade they needed new sources and new areas to exploit to keep their power and wealth. By the mid-eighteenth century the Cree were in "economic subservience" to the European economy. Their livelihood depended on the fashionable European fur craze. The continued Cree expansion served to irritate the other bands producing upheaval as they pushed westward. The practice of counting "coup" on an enemy became firmly established along with horse stealing. Counting "coup" referred to the elements of chivalry or honour in Aboriginal warfare, by which a man gained prestige through acts of conspicuous bravery. Such an act might be to enter an enemy camp, touch a member of that group and return safely. The horse became the most useful animal, but also the symbol and standard off wealth and prestige. Through the possession of horses a man could show his heroism and his generosity. Stealing horses from enemy groups and sharing them with one's own group doubly established an individuals's prominence. Social distinctions were made as a result. Horseless individuals or families attached themselves to those with horses, and together these formed a band. Young men whose fathers owned horses were not obliged to take part in the exciting but sometimes dangerous parties raiding for horses. Social mobility, however, did allow a young man of a poor family to raise in wealth and status as he acquired horses. Social pressure also came into play with the wealthy young men as they were taunted with being called "women" if they did not go on the raids. Wealth and liberality, along with leadership ability in war, were necessary for chieftainship. Not only must the chief be willing to give away his greater wealth, he must also forego revenge and retaliation, which were a common man's right. A chief must be willing to give away his own property to heal a breach between quarreling parties for the greater good of the band. The distinction between the Plains Cree and the Woodland Cree came into play through this expansion. The Cree that headed out to the Prairies established themselves as the Plains Cree while the Cree that stayed in the North around the James Bay and Hudson Bay area called themselves the Woodland Cree. There is an optimum period in the relationship of any primitive people in their dealings with the white man. This might be described as the period of time when the aborigines have sufficient of the white man's material civilization to "ease the burden of life," but yet not enough to disrupt their way of life. Examples of this would be:
The Woodland Cree were such a group. The Woodland Cree were involved at "work" they were competent to do for most of the year. His way of life was not too greatly disturbed. He had few contacts with the whites and then mostly with missionaries, traders or trappers. The Cree were still largely governed by their own tribal law and the white man's law and order had little to do with them. The Aboriginals Chiefs and lesser leaders were men of importance in their respective communities. They were consulted on all important matters because both the missionary and the trader required the active co-operation of the Aboriginals in their respective spheres. If the Cree were treated with dignity and respect, they were most reasonable and co-operative. If confronted with belligerent and domineering white men, the Cree was able to return a like attitude. As it was not uncommon, at this time, for there to be one or two white trappers or missionaries and three or four hundred Cree of other Aboriginals in the area, it is unreasonable to believe that the white man treated the Aboriginal poorly. The white man's arrival did cause a new and deadly problem for the Aboriginal population. The coming of the Hudson's Bay Company had its impact on Cree society in specific ways which altered its character.
It is important to remember that the changes of the Crees from a forest hunting people to a prairie-dwelling horse-nomad people, and the sweeping changes their culture underwent did not cause them to cease to be Aboriginals. Many if not most of these changes were the product of the coming of the European's tools, weapons, domesticated animals, and diseases, as well as their economic patterns. These traits the Aboriginal had woven together into patterns uniquely his own, but he had been able to it in an atmosphere of remoteness and away from outside pressure that faces todays Native People. As the Crees were moving westward into the prairies, another Algonkian-speaking people, the Blackfoot, were moving north and west from Saskatchewan. The acquisition of the gun in the early 1680's had been an important factor in setting the Crees in motion westward. This also resulted on pressure for the Blackfoot. The entire effect was like dominoes. The Blackfoot in turn applied pressure on the Kutenais and the Shoshones. The most easterly band of Blackfoot called the Siksika located mainly in Alberta found themselves to be in constant conflict with the Cree. As the competition for furs increased, so did the violence. The Blackfoot took a dim view to other Aboriginals or whites trapping in their area. They were prepared to supply the food for the Forts and also the furs, but they had no desire to share the land or animals with others. Economic motives for warfare increased. Horses, women, and trade were all motivations for raiding parties from all tribes. In the late eighteenth century and in the early nineteenth century some Blackfoot, Crees, and Assiniboines were at peace with one another. They hunted together and intermarried amongst the three tribes. European influences both encouraged and discouraged warfare. The missionaries, traders, and the administrators urged an end to fighting, but the economic arrangements created and the pressure for fur trade items led to a continuation of the rivalry and warfare was the outcome. By the 1870's, the Aboriginals saw the dangers of the influx of American traders dealing in alcohol and the trade rivalries introduced with the withdrawal of the Hudson's Bay Company monopoly in their area after 1870 forced further changes on the Native Peoples of the area. White law was introduced into the area with the coming of the R.C.M.P. The Blackfoot and Sarcee allies signed Treaty 7 on September 22, 1877. The Sioux took up permanent residence in Canada in the 1860's. This was one more group to war against for the Cree and other related tribes. Because of the American Revolution, the American Civil War, and the American Government's dealing with the Sioux, they migrated to Canada to the Fort Gary settlement and refused to return to the United States stating they were being cheated in their land deals. Despite American efforts to have returned, they remained in Canada. Another major influx occurred in late 1876 and early 1877 with the arrival of Chief Sitting Bull and Medicine Bear and their bands. With the Native population increasing and the many varieties of offshoot bands, they began to be forced to the north by the Cree and the necessity for search for food and game as the buffalo disappeared. Many of these people, Chipewyan, Sekani, Beaver, Slave, Dogrib, Tahltan, Sarcee etc. dispersed to the Peace River area and then spread out into various regions. They borrowed cultural elements from their new neighbours, the Eskimos and the west coast Aboriginals. The remaining members of some of these tribes can still be located in the Yukon and Mackenzie Rivers area. The largest group of these peoples were the Chipewyans. The Chipewyans occupied the largest territory in the north. The Chipewyans and the Crees became natural enemies immediately. In the beginning the Chipewyans were at a disadvantage against the Crees. The Crees had guns and forced the Chipewyans farther north. This situation altered after 1717 with the arrival of the Hudson Bay Company trading post at Churchill. The Chipewyans met with the Europeans and as a result armed themselves. With their newly acquired power, they pushed north and attacked the Eskimos. They also attacked the Cree and when the Cree realized they were equal in power now, they backed off. The Chipewyans ruled in the north. In 1715, peace was declared between the Chipewyans and the Crees but it was a delicate peace. Intermittent fighting broke out and they held an unhealthy contempt for one another until the late 1760's. The smallpox epidemic in 1781 caused the death of 90 per cent of the Chipewyans. All the Aboriginals were affected by smallpox but no group lost as many as the Chipewyans. As the opportunities for fur trading increased, the Aboriginals divided their hunting between subsistence and commercial. The yearly cycle of migration, for the Cree and other tribes, now included regular visits to the most accessible trading post. Weapons, tools, clothes, and food from the post came to be included in the material culture of the Aboriginals. Many families had a regular residence at the posts and hunted and trapped in an area convenient to their location, ending their nomadic life. By the 1860's, Aboriginal administration was in place. This was to be another change for the Aboriginal and their way of life. The Aboriginals elected a chief and headman, and these men then signed the treaty by which their land was alienated. Efforts were made by the Cree Chief Big Bear to unite the Aboriginals in a common front against whites to demand better treaty terms. Big Bear hoped that the Crees, acting together, would by their unity be able peacefully to achieve redress for their grievances and solutions to the problems which they were then facing. He was not successful. In 1885, many members from the former Cree Nation, rose up and stood with Riel. Rivalries and differing aims prevented the fullest co-operation among the groups that did in fact take up arms. After this last fighting, the Aboriginals slipped into obscurity. Land and the whole pattern of cross-cultural misunderstanding due to differing values and life styles had contributed to the course of events. The Aboriginals were shoved aside and "out of sight" soon became "out of mind." This is a very controversial issue and to this day is still in dispute. | ||
EMAIL: aurora@cancom.net AURORA BOREALIS © Copyright 1997 All Rights Reserved C.A.A.E. Churchill, Manitoba, Canada Phone: (204) 885-3330 Fax: (204) 831-5348 Email: aurora@cancom.net | ||