Canada, First Nations

Prehistory

Once, scholars believed the only source of entry to the Americas from other continents was on foot over Beringia, or the Bering land bridge, prior to or after an ice age. Today, they are open to the possibility of shoreline and boat migrations from the Atlantic Coast as well as the Pacific. Prior to European contact, these tenacious First Nations populations had creatively and resourcefully assimilated environmental lessons and thereby dwelt in accordance with their homelands. Depending on their home regions, their customs and lifestyle differed.

The Arctic People. The Inuit (“the People”) include the Labrador, the Ungava, the Baffin Island, the Iglulik, the Caribou, the Netsilik, the Copper, and the Mackenzie; they speak in three dialects: Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, and Inuvialuit. Derived from the xanthomelanous Paleo-Eskimo ancestry of the Dorset and Thule cultures, these people occupied areas of arctic climate around 2000 BC. Small migratory hunting groups with patriarchal leaderships used acute navigational skills and developed ingenious adaptations to their harsh tundra environment. They built semisubterranean dwellings with a central hearth. Their conical summer huts were constructed of skins, as were their boats. Whales became their staple, apportioned among the villagers to provide food, fat for burning oil, bones for housing, and runners for the dogsleds. Walrus, polar bear, seal, and caribou were also hunted. Intricate carvings on bone and ivory by both ancient and contemporary arctic peoples are internationally renowned.

The Eastern Subarctic People. The linguistic Eastern Algonquian tribes—the Cree, the Innu (Montagnais-Neskapi), the Ojibwa from Labrador, and the Kutchin from Quebec to Ontario—are seminomadic hunters. The men hunted caribou, moose, or buffalo, while women and children remained at a camp. Traditionally, these people traveled in small bands with no chief, but with guidance entrusted to a patriarchal leadership. Garments were intricately embroidered with dyed quills. The Grand Medicine Society (the Midewiwin) of the Ojibwa was a healing arts society with members of both sexes.

The Eastern Woodlands People. Following seasonal game, the seminomadic Eastern Algonquian hunters of the Appalachian Highlands—the Chippewa (Ojibwa), Malecite, Micmac (Mi'kmaq), Montagnais, and Nipissing—relied on the caribou, deer, bear, seals, and walrus to provide food, clothing, bones for bows and arrows, and other implements for their survival. They also gathered berries and nuts and used sap from birch and maple, birch bark for their canoes, and bent saplings for shelter frames, with coverings of strips of sewn bark.

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