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8/6/2019 29186297 Ethnohistory a Lost Chapter American Ethnography http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/29186297-ethnohistory-a-lost-chapter-american-ethnography 1/24 The Souriquois, Etechemin, and Kwĕdĕch--A Lost Chapter in American Ethnography Author(s): Bernard G. Hoffman Source: Ethnohistory, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter, 1955), pp. 65-87 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/480689 Accessed: 26/03/2010 09:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=duke . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethnohistory.

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The Souriquois, Etechemin, and Kwĕdĕch--A Lost Chapter in American EthnographyAuthor(s): Bernard G. HoffmanSource: Ethnohistory, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter, 1955), pp. 65-87Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/480689Accessed: 26/03/2010 09:12

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=duke .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethnohistory.

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SOURIQUOIS, ETECHEMIN, AND KWEDECH--A LOST CHAPTER

IN AMERICAN ETHNOGRAPHY

Bernard G. Hoffman

University of California at Berkeley

One of the most challenging and basic problems encountered by

ethnographers attempting to use early historical sources relating to the

North American Indians is that of group identification. The student often

finds that his earliest material concerns native groups whose names bear

no resemblance to those used later for peoples in the same area. It then

becomes a matter of importance to associate the early ethnic groups with

the later ones, and to do so critically. This paper deals with one such

problem encountered with respect to the Indians of the Maritime Prov-

inces of Canada, specifically with the tribes referred to in early docu-

ments as the Souriquois and Etechemin; from a consideration of this

problem we then proceed to the identification of a legendary group in

the same region known as the KwNedhch.

When the French first attempted to colonize Nova Scotia, theyfound the country inhabited by Indians whom they designated as the Souri-

quois. With the end of French rule this name disappeared from the his-

torical records and a hiatus exists in the sources relating to the native

inhabitants of Nova Scotia and neighboring territories. With the initia-

tion of the official English records the term Micmac comes into use todesignate the inhabitants of this region, and a question arises as to the

exact relationship between the Souriquois and the Micmac.

In this particular case the problem is easily resolved, for vocab-

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Ethnohistory

ularies exist both from the Souriquois (the word-list in Lescarbot's His-toire de la Novvelle France), and from Micmac.2 By comparison we

can establish beyond doubt that the Souriquois were the ancestors of the

Micmac Indians.3 At the time of Samuel de Champlain and Marc Lescar-bot the Souriquois or Micmac occupied approximately the same area as

they did 200 years later, namely all of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward

Island, Cape Breton, and most of New Brunswick north and east of the

St. John river. Before 1600, however, the Souriquois did not seem to

be in possession of the southern part of the Gaspe Peninsula, and their

movement into Newfoundland began only after about 1750.

The Micmac language is part of the Algonquian family of languages;these languages are spoken in the eastern half of North America -- i. e.,the Labrador Peninsula (Canada east of Hudson Bay), New England andthe Maritime Provinces, the Virginia tidewater, the Great Lakes-Ohio

region and the western Great Plains above and below the international

boundary. Within the Algonquian stock Micmac shows closest affiliationwith the so-called Eastern Algonquian languages, comprising: Micmac,

Malecite-Passamaquoddy, Penobscot-Abnaki, Mahican-Pennicook, Nip-

muk- Pocumtuck, Massachusett-Nauset-Wampanoag- Cowesit, Narragan-sett-Niantic, Mohegan-Pequot-Montauk-Quinnipiac-Naugatuck, Delaware,

Nanticoke-Conoy, Powhatan, Pamlico, and Chowan.4 Although not ex-

pressed explicitly in the literature, Micmac, Malecite, and Passama-

quoddy may fall together into a somewhat larger unit than presented a-

bove--namely, as Micmac-Malecite-Passamaquoddy. We conclude thisfrom statements by Truman Michelson to the effect that (a), Micmac andMalecite are mutually intelligible, albeit with difficulty, and (b), that

Passamaquoddy and Malecite are so similar as to bepractically

identi-cal.5 Like Abnaki, Micmac shows a close relationship with the Central

Algonquian languages (e.g., Fox and Menomini), in which respect thesetwo languages are somewhat aberrant in the Eastern Algonquian category.6More recently, Frank T. Siebert has summed up the linguistic positionof Micmac in the following words:

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Souriquois

... in grammatical pattern Micmac approximates the otherNortheastern languages, Arapaho-Atsina, and to a less de-

gree Central Algonkian. Micmac would seem to form adefinite sub-type by itself, at the same time fitting margin-ally into a loose Northeastern division, and showing rela-

tionships to a few languages in the west. . .

The linguistic divisions and groupings listed in the foregoing para-

graph are those recognized by linguists, ethnographers, and historians

of the 19th and 20th centuries. Although generally accepted, they are in

need of certain revisions in special cases. One of these cases concerns

the so-called Etechemin tribe.

According to the early sources,8 the Souriquois were bordered on

the south by a tribe known to them as the Etechemin, a large and power-

ful group extending from the St. John river to Casco Bay in the present

state of Maine. Opinions vary as to the affiliations of this group--some

authors have considered the Etechemin as identical with the Abnaki,

others have identified them with the Penobscot, or with the Malecite, or

as "an unknown group. " Of all these speculations the latter hits closest

to the mark; all such speculations, however, suffer in that the only body

of information capable of resolving the problem has been ignored. This

information consists of two fragmentary Etechemin vocabularies dating

from the beginning of the 17th century. The first of these vocabularies

is in Lescarbot's Histoire de la Novvelle France, and consists of the

numbers from one to ten.9 The second is in Samuel Purchas' version of

the Rosier account of George Waymouth's voyage to the Penobscot in

1605. 10 This second vocabulary seems to have been collected from a

group of Indians whose chief was known as "Bashabe" or "Bashabez;"

this individual is well known from other sources (such as Champlain,Lescarbot, Pierre Baird, and John Smith) as having been the chief of

the natives living at the mouth of the Penobscot. Champlain providesthe key to the identification, remarking in one passage that, "the Indians,

who had conducted me to the falls of Norumbega river [the Penobscot],and who had gone to inform Bessabez their chief, and other Indians ..,"

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Souriquoi s

Around the year 1617 the New England coastal tribes were ravaged

by a series of epidemics introduced by European fishermen, and large

sections of the New England coast were completely depopulated. Accord-

ing to Thomas Morton, who gives us the most complete account of this,

...It fortuned some few yeares before the English came

to inhabit at new Plimmouth in New England; that uponsome distast given in the Massachusetts bay, by French-

men, then trading there with the Natives for beaver, theyset upon the men, at such advantage, that they killed manie

of them burned their shipp then riding at anchor by an Is-

land there, now called Paddocks Island inmemory

of Leo-nard Peddock that landed there (where many wilde Anckies

haunted that time which hee though had bin tame), distri-

buting them into 5. Sachems which were Lords of the

severall territories adjoyninge, they did keepe them so

longe as they lived, onely to sport themselves at them,and made these five Frenchmen fetch them wood and

water, which is the generall work they require of a ser-

vant, one of these five men out livinge the rest had learnedso much of their language, as to rebuke them for their

bloody deede, saying that God would be angry with them

for it; and that hee in his displeasure would destroy them;but the Salvages (it seems boasting of their strength, )replyed and say'd, that they were so many, that Godcould not kill them.

But contrary wise in short time after, the hand of

God fell heavily upon them, with such a mortall stroake,that they died on heapes, as they lay in their houses and

the living; that were able to shift for themselves would

runne away, & let them dy, and let their Carkases ly above

ground without burial. For in a place where many inhabited,

there hath been but one left a live, to tell what became ofthe rest, the livinge being (as it seems) not able to bury the

dead, they were left for Crowes, Kites, and Vermin to pray

upon. And the bones and skulls upon the severall places of

their habitations, made such a spectacle that as I travailed

in that Forrest, nere the Massachusetts, it seemed to mee

a new found Golgatha... 13

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Ethnohistory

Fig. la. Tribal distributions in the Maritime Peninsula before 1600. Rulingindicates Iroquois languages; stippling Algonquian languages. In the lattercategory square dots designate undifferentiated northern Algonquian dia-lects and languages. Kwe'dech occupation of the northern St. Lawrenceshore has been carried only to the Saguenay, but may have extended far-ther east.

This story of decimation is confirmed in several other sources,

such as that of Francis Higginson.14

Higginson tells us that "their sub-

jects above twelve years since were swept away by a great and grevious

plague that was amongst them, so that there are verie few left to inhabit

the country. . " Since Higginson wrote in 1629, this would date the plague

as of 1617. Of even greater interest, however, is the account deriving

from Captain Thomas Dermer's visit to Monhegan (slightly up the coast

from the mouth of the Kennebec) in 1619, in which year there were "found

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Souriquois

,; AREA CLEAREDI OF INDIANS

i

_: ?

Fig. lb. Tribal distribution in the Maritime Peninsula region in 1700.Areas settled by the English are shown in solid black; those inhabited bythe French are indicated by black dots.

some antient Plantations not long since populous, now utterly void. " In

other locations Dermer found "remnants, but not free from sickness. " 5

From these references we conclude that this plague of 1617 was generalalong the entire eastern New England coast, and that Massachusetts (or

Almouchiquois) and Etechemin tribes were largely exterminated by it.In John Smith's time the Tarentines or Micmac 16 were separated from

the New England tribes by the Etechemin; after 1617 this barrier or buffer

no longer existed and the New England tribes suffered heavily from Mic-

mac raids. Mourt tells us in his Relation or Journal. . that "the sachin,

or governour of this place [the Plymouth area], is called Obbatinewat,

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Ethnohistory

and though he live in the bottom of the Massachuset Bay, yet he is under

Massasoyt. He used us very kindly, he told us, he durst not then remain

in any settled place, for fear of the Tarentines. . . 1l7 Although the name

Etechemin appears in use after 1617, considerable confusion is present

concerning its application, and we have no sure evidence that it is being

applied to the direct descentants of the pre-1617 Etechemins.

The tribal distribution as we reconstruct it for the early historical

period (i. e., pre-17th century) for the New England region is shown in

Fig. la, while that for the following century appears in Fig. lb. Because

of the great decimation of population which took place in the early his-

torical period, and because of the extensive changes in the tribal popula-tions and the tribal boundaries, we cannot validly combine the known

distributions from these two centuries. Unfortunately, most maps of

tribal distributions for this area attempt to do this very thing, and many

misconceptions have arisen as a result of this combination of noncompa-rable materials.

One important question remains to be discussed with respect to the

early neighbors of the Micmac. Early historical sources frequently men-

tion the Micmac's fear of the "Iroquois." Chrestien Le Clercq, for ex-ample, cites the story of an Indian woman who,

. . Falsely alarmed, in common with the other Indians withwhom she was encamped, and believing that the Iroquoishad invaded the country in order to ravage for a third timethe Gaspesian nation. . . embarked with very much hastein her birch canoe, in order to cross the river, and, havingabandoned it to the will of the current. . lost herself pur-posely in the woods in order to escape the fury of her ene-

mies...18

In folklore collections, descriptions of warfare between the Micmac andthe Iroquois form an important element, and are often too circumstantialto be completely fictitious. In such tales the enemy tribe is often desig-nated as "Mohawk." 19 Against the accounts by Le Clercq and Micmac

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Souriquois

narrators, is the fact that no historical source seems to exist in support

of an Iroquois or Mohawk attack upon the Micmac after 1600. A question

thus arises regarding the reliability and veracity of the Micmac legends,

and the origin of the Micmac fear concerning the Iroquois.

The key to the problem is contained in material by two well known

authors--Silas Tertius Rand and Jacques Cartier. Rand's Legends of the

Micmacs contains many legends of Micmac conflict with the Iroquois,

which form a more or less complete history in two versions. In abstract

these legends are as follows.

First Version

In ancient times the Kwe^'eches and the Micmacs in-habited the same country, on terms of friendship and amity.But in time a quarrel arose; two boys, sons of the respec-tive chieftans, quarrelled, and one killed the other. Thiswas the beginning of a long series of conflicts, in which theMicmacs, being the more numerous, were usually victorious.

During those wars a celebrated chief arose amongthe Micmacs whose name was Ulglmoo, of whom many strangethings are related. He drove the Kw'deches out of the regionon the south side of the Bay of Fundy, they having been com-pelled to cross the bay in their flight from the enemy; and heurged them on farther and farther towards the north, finallydriving them up to Montreal.

The Kwed'e'eches having retired to Goesomaligeg [FortCumberland or Beausejour], and from there to Tantama orTatamalg [Sackville, at the northern tip of Cumberland Ba-

sin], before their enemies, and thence on beyond Petgot-goiag or Petitcodiac River, Ulgimoo built a mound andfortification at the place now called Salisbury, on the Pe-

titcodiac River. The mound still remains.Ulgimoo lived to be a hundred and three years old;

having died twice, and having come to life after having beendead all winter. He was a great magician, and shortly be-fore he died for the last time defeated singlehanded a Kwe-crch war party of several hundred men.

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Ethnohistory

Second Version

On the two opposite banks of the Restigouche, near

its mouth, were two towns--one inhabited by Micmacs,and the other by the Kwe-eches. They were at peace witheach other, and frequently attended each other's festivals.

On one occasion the Micmacs had attended a festivalof the Kwe'de'ches; and while the children were engaged insome sort of game, a child of the Micmac party was killed.Nothing, however, was said about it at the time, and it waspassed over as an accident. Not long afterwards, the Kwe-deches- were invited to a feast by the Micmacs, and whilethey were playing tooaadijik the Micmac boys took the oc-casion to kill two members of the other side. Nothing wassaid of the matter, however, and it was passed over as anaccident; but the young folk laid it up in their hearts, andawaited an opportunity for revenge.

Spring came, and it was the time for the annual salmonrun. This year it was the turn of the Micmacs to exploitthe first and best fishing ground, which was a considerabledistance up the river. Fifty of the younger men thereforeleft, and prepared for their task. After they had gone theson of the Kwedech chief determined to exact vengeance onthem. Collecting a band of warriors without the knowledgeof his father or of the old men, he went upstream by landto ambush the fishing party.

At this time the Micmacs were spearing salmon bytorchlight. Afterwards they came ashore and began pre-paring the fish for their suppers, to the accompaniment ofmuch joking and laughing. Suddenly a shower of arrowscame at them from all sides, and all of them were killedexcept one old man named Tunel--who was a powwow or ashaman. Although he had great supernatural power he hadbeen surprised; otherwise he would not have been hurt. As

it was, he was struck in the side by an arrow, and justmanaged to run to the river and plunge in. There he hidamong the boulders on the river bottom, and since his mag-ic power had returned he could stay there as long as hewanted. The Kwedeches hunted for him for a long time,and eventually found where he was hiding, but they couldnot reach him with their spears. The next day he managedto elude them, and passed down the river to his village.

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Souriquois

When the Micmacs learned of the massacre a meet-

ing was held with the Kwe'diches, and the demand was madethat they retire from the place within three days or try thefortunes of war. Since the Micmac were much the stronger,the Kwec'dches decided to withdraw, and immediately be-

gan preparations. Before they left, the chief of the Micmacmade a farewell visit to the chief of the other tribe. "Wewill continue to be friends, " he said. "You will once in awhile think of the place you have left; and when there comesover me a lonely longing to see your face again, I will make

you a visit; and when you wish it, you can come down andsee us" [i. e. , this is a declaration of war in ironic politespeech]. The whole village then departed, and went by

easy stages to Canada, travelling onward till winter, thoughwith long intervals of rest. They halted for the winter onthe borders of a large lake. There a Micmac war partycaught up with them, and in the ensuing battle most of theKwediech warriors were killed.

Thirty or forty years later, when the children of theKwedefches had become men and warriors, an attempt wasmade to avenge this defeat. A war party left for the Mic-mac country in the winter, but at the Restigouche river itencountered a very old and powerful Micmac magician [the

Ulgmi'oo of the first version?] who killed so many of the in-vaders before surrendering that the latter decided to returnhome. The Kwe'deches tried to torture their prisoner, buthis power was too much for them and finally they had torelease him.

About a year later the Micmac magician or shamandecided to lead a war party against the Kwed'eches. Hetherefore went to the Micmac chief and told him that hewas filled with a great longing to visit his friends who hadtreated him so kindly during his captivity among them.The council was immediately summoned, and the modest

request of the shaman stated and debated. "Our comrade,"said the chief, "hankers for a visit to his friends." Theydecided to gratify him. "How many men do you wish toaccompany you?" they asked. "About thirty or forty," hereplied. His request was soon complied with, and the warparty began its journey to the Kw-edech country. Theytravelled by canoe at their leisure, going round by the open

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Ethnohistory

sea, entering the St. Lawrence, and thus proceeding upinto Canada. The party stopped occasionally on its way

to hunt. As the group approached the enemy's country,its members moved cautiously, and encamped for the last

night on a high hill that overlooked the Kwe'dech village.

This village was located on a stream bottom just arounda sudden bend in the river. From the noise in the villagethe raiders ascertained that a war party had just returnedfrom a successful attack on the Micmacs. Overcome with

rage, the old shaman who was leading the invading grouprushed into the ceremony, seized the scalps that were be-

ing danced over, and escaped. Recovering from their sur-

prise, the Kwe'cdeches seized their arms and prepared forbattle. The following morning the battle was joined andthe Kwe'deches were defeated, but the Micmac warriorsreturned home sadly diminished in numbers.

A long time later, the Kwedech again attempted to

avenge their losses. One of their great war chiefs, knownto the Micmac as Wohooweh, gathered together a party of

some fifty warriors. These warriors travelled by canoeto attack the inhabitants of the Miramichi region. Near

Tabusintac, however, they were surprised by the Micmacchief Mejeiabagadaslch, Ulg'i'moo's younger brother, who

invited them to a formal trial of arms with his warriors,an invitation which they couId not refuse. A duel betweenthe two chiefs opened the trial, and the Kwedech chief was

killed; the remaining Kwedech warriors fought bravely fora while against odds, but finally surrendered and madethe peace which brought the Micmac-KwedIech war to anend. 20

The incidents of the Kwedtech war as they appear in the legendary

materials have an interesting localization. The boundary between thetwo tribes is pictured as once having been along the Restigouche river,

with the Kwedech occupying the area to the north, including the Gaspe

Peninsula. This is a most unusual location for "Mohawks, " since the

known area of residence of this tribe is some 600 miles to the southwest.

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Souriquois

The concept that the Kwedech were "Mohawk" or "Iroquois" constantly

reappears, however, and has to be explained. The problem has been

summedup by

William F.Ganong,

who tells usthat,

. .. Although there are many traditions as to the incursionsof the Mohawks (Iroquois) into the country of the Micmacs,there is not, so far as I can find, any actual historical re-cords thereof. Several of these Micmac traditions are givenby Rand in his Legends of the Micmacs, (169, 200, and else-where). It is sometimes stated that the Restigouche (e.g.,by Rand, op. cit., 200) or according to others, the Nepisi-quit (e. g., Cooney, in his History of Northern New Brunswick,

170) was at one time the boundary between Mohawks and Mic-macs; and if Hale's theory turns out to be true, that the tribewhich Cartier found at Gaspe were not Micmacs but Huron-Iroquois, then there may be some historical basis for thisstatement. There is a legend that the l'Isle au Massacrenear Bic took its name from a massacre there of Micmacsby Iroquois. The fear which the Micmacs had of the Mo-hawks is mentioned several times in the Jesuit Relations(Thwaites' edition, XXVIII. 37, XLV. 73), and even per-sists to this day...21

The association between the Kwecreches and the natives encountered

by Jacques Cartier in Gaspe Bay in the course of his 1534 voyage referredto above, is the key to the problem. It can be shown that these Indians

were, in fact, Iroquois-speaking, although their language was not Mo-hawk or Huron and was probably distinct from the other known Iroquoistongues. Furthermore, Cartier's account gives us the impression thatthis was a group traveling in what they regarded as home territory andthat they were not expecting attack. Although inhabitants of the

perma-nent village of Stadacona at the present site of Quebec, they objectedwhen Cartier erected a cross on Gaspe Point. The chief, says Cartier,

. . . made us a long harangue, inaking the sign of the crosswith two of his fingers; and then he pointed to the land allaround about, as if he wished to say that all this region be-

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Ethnohistory

longed to him, and that we ought not to have set up thiscross without his permission...22

Cartier's account also informs us that these natives had journeyed to

Gaspe Bay for the express purpose of engaging in mackerel fishing, and

that they formed a large group of some 300 men, women, and children.

Other Cartier documents confirm the fact that these people derived from

Stadacona; Andre Thevet adds the interesting information that these na-

tives informed Cartier that "they descended the Great River from Che-

logua [probably Hochelaga, at the present site of Montreal], in order to

make war on those first seen [the Micmac of ChaleurBay]...23

The

Iroquois chief of Stadacona, named Donnacona, told Cartier quite a little

about their war with the Indians to the south and east, for we read that,

... Donnacona showed the Captain the scalps of five Indians,stretched on hoops like parchment, and told us they were

Toudamans from the south, who waged war continually

against his people. He informed us also that two years pre-viously these Toudamans had come and attacked them in

that very river, on an island which lies opposite to the Sa-guenay, where they were spending the night on their wayto Honguedo [Gaspe], being on the war-path against the

Toudamans with some two hundred men, women, and chil-

dren, who were surprised when asleep in a fort they had

thrown up, to which the Toudamans set fire round about

and slew them all as they rushed out, except five who made

their escape. Of this defeat they still continued to complain

bitterly, making clear to us that they would have vengeancefor the same... 24

We thus find ourselves in possession of the following train of cir-

cumstantial evidence: (a), historical evidence that at the time of the

Cartier voyages the St. Lawrence Iroquois of the Montreal-Quebec-

Tadoussac region were engaged in an ancient war against southern In-

dians named by them Toudaman, whom they attacked on one occasion

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by proceeding down the St. Lawrence river to Gaspe Peninsula and then

turning southward; (b), legendary but consistent materials from the Mic-

mac of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to the effect that they were once

engaged in a bitter war with Iroquois Indians named by them Kwedech,that these Indians once had a village on the Restigouche, and that theylater lived north of the Micmac on the St. Lawrence. We are therefore

led to the hypothesis that the Kweclech were one and the same with the

St. Lawrence Iroquois, that they once held the south bank of the St. Law-

rence from Montreal to the Gaspe Peninsula, and that the name Toudaman

at least includes the Micmac.

From the legendary material it is impossible for us to determinewhen the Micmac-Kwedech war started, but we surmise that 1500 would

not be early. With respect to the end of the war we can be somewhat

more certain, for we have the following evidence: (a), the war was still

in progress in 1535-1536; (b), the St. Lawrence Iroquois disappeared asa tribe by 1603; (c), the Micmac claim no responsibility for this disap-pearance, which is consistent with their legend that the war was resolved

by a peace treaty, and with information from Lescarbot to the effect that

"some years ago the Iroquois assembled themselves to the number ofeight thousand men, and discomfited all their enemies, whom they sur-

prised in their enclosures"--these "enemies" being "the Algonquins, the

people of Hochelaga, and others bordering upon the great river. ,"25 SinceFrench maps dating from about 1580 and deriving from traders operatingin the Quebec region show Hochelaga (the St. Lawrence Iroquois villageat the present site of Montreal), we conclude that Hochelaga was probablystill in existance at ca. 1580. The end of the Micmac-Kwedech war canthus be dated as between 1535 and 1600. The fate of the Kwe'dech aftertheir "discomfiture" at the hands of the Iroquois is unknown, for no ref-erences appear after 1600 which definitely refer to them.

In ancient times, therefore, the Micmac were bordered on thesouth and west by the Etechemin, and on the north by the Kwe'dech orCanadian Iroquois. After the great plague of 1617 a large section of the

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Etechemin country was completely depopulated and was reoccupied byAbnaki- speaking peoples moving in from the west, and by Micmac- speak-ing peoples moving in from the northeast. The Abnaki speakers even-

tually coalesced into the Abnaki of the Kennebec and Penobscot drainages.Present linguistic knowledge is inadaquate, however, for us to decidewhether (a), the Etechemin speakers survived to become the ancestorsof the present day Malecite-Passamaquoddy speakers, or whether (b),the Etechemin speakers became extinct, and Micmac speakers movedin from the north, to become the present day Malecite and Passama-

quoddy. Eckstorm presents some material indicating that the Etechemin

may still survive as the Malecite-Passamaquoddy.26As has already been shown, the disappearance of the Canadian

Iroquois or Kwediech seems to have occurred by 1600. After this datetheir territory in the vicinity of Quebec was occupied by Montagnaisspeakers, while that near Montreal seems to have been left as a no-man'sland between the Algonquian tribes of the St. Lawrence and the Iroquoistribes of New York State. While the Micmac occupied the southern partof the Gaspe Peninsula, the northern part seems to have been shared asa winter

hunting ground with several other northern tribes.

FOOTNOTES

1. Pp. 114, 117-120.

2. Rand, Dictionary.

3. See Ganong in Lescarbot, History of New France, pp. 120-124, fn.

4. Voegelin and Voegelin, Linguistic Considerations, pp. 188-189; Map of North American Indian Languages.

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5. Preliminary Report, p. 289.

6. Idem.

7. Review: Lemons Grammaticales, p. 333.

8. E.g. Biard, Missio Canadensis, in Jesuit Relations, vol. 2,p. 69; Biard, Relatio Rervm, in Jesuit Relations, vol. 2, pp. 205-207;Lescarbot, La Conversion des Savvages, in Jesuit Relations, vol. 1, pp.71- 73; Champlain, Les Voyages, in The Works of Samuel de Champlain,vol. 1, pp. 297, 299, 325.

9. Lescarbot, The History of New France, p. 114.

10. Hakluytus, vol. 4, pp. 1659-1667.

11. Champlain, Les Voyages, in The Works of Samuel deChamplain, vol. 1, pp. 293-294, 297.

12. Biard, Missio Canadensis, in Jesuit Relations, vol. 2,p. 69; Biard, Relatio Rervm, in Jesuit Relations, vol. 2, pp. 205-207;Champlain, Les Voyages de Sievr de Champlain, in The Works ofSamuel de Champlain, vol. 1, p. 321; Champlain, Les Voyages de la

Novvelle France, in The Works of Samuel de Champlain, vol. 6, pp.43-45; Lescarbot, La Conversion, in Jesuit Relations, vol. 1, pp. 71-73; Lescarbot, Histoire, in The History of New France, p. 114; Smith,A Description of New England, in Force, Tracts and other Papers,vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 5-6, 15.

13. New England Canaan, in Force, Tracts and other Papers,vol. 2. 5, pp. 18-19.

14. New-Englands Plantation, in Massachusetts HistoricalSociety Collections, series 1, vol. 1, pp. 122.

15. Thornton, Ancient Pemaquid, p. 163.

16. Siebert, Review: Penobscot Man, p. 278.

17. In Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, series 2,vol. 9, p. 57.

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Ethnohistory

18. New Relations, p. 150.

19. E.g. Albert, Histoire du Madawaska, pp. 12-15.

20. Rand, Legends of the Micmac, pp. 294-297, 200-211, 216-

218, 212-215.

21. Ganong, in LeClercq, New Relations of Gaspesia.

22. Biggar, The Voyages of Jacques Cartier, p. 65.

23. Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique. Nouvelle

edition, p. 401.

24. Biggar, The Voyages of Jacques Cartier, pp. 177-178.

25. The History of New France, pp. 117, 268.

26. Old John Neptune.

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