First Nations Story

Background and Context
What to Expect in the Literature
Featured Stories
Further Reading
How to Cite

Background and Context

Although a written literature in what is now New Brunswick began with the arrival of the French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534, the First Nations peoples of the area had established their own narrative traditions long before the arrival of the Europeans. These first peoples did not belong to a culture of writing, however, and did not rely on written accounts for their history and story. Rather, they relied on oral traditions to pass their knowledge from generation to generation.

The history of the pre-European Maritime region, as historians Margaret Conrad and James Hiller explain, is divided into Early, Middle, and Late periods. The Early Period began with the earliest known settlement in the region, established in Debert, Nova Scotia, over 10,000 years ago (Conrad and Hiller 6). It is probable that people lived in the Maritimes before that, but the acidity of the region’s soil has decayed archaeological evidence, and many sites that were once on land are now underwater, making it difficult to establish longer timelines. As a result, little is known about the very early peoples called the Paleo-Indians. The Middle Period, spanning from 6,000 to 3,000 years ago, is better understood. It was dominated by two traditions. The first was the Archaic tradition, a tradition practised by people living in semi-permanent coastal villages (6-7) who fashioned technologies to support inland and saltwater hunting. Their harpoons and other tools may have been used to make sea-worthy canoes. The second was the Susquehanna tradition, a tradition practised by people around the Bay of Fundy who pursued inshore fishing and deer hunting (7). The Late Period, beginning 3,000 years ago and concluding with the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century, saw the introduction of the Middlesex tradition (8). Central to that tradition were burial mounds initially developed by the Adena people of the Ohio River Valley, though Middlesex sites have been identified “from Delaware on the Atlantic coast to Kentucky and Indiana inland, from Michigan and northern Ontario to the Maritime provinces,” including two on the Miramichi River in New Brunswick (Leavitt 147). The Middlesex tradition was characterized by long-distance trade, as evidenced by consistencies in the construction of smoking pipes, spear-points, and blades despite the vast geographic distance between peoples.

From these historical periods and traditions developed three distinct Aboriginal groups in New Brunswick: the Maliseet along the Saint John River, the Mi’kmaq along the east coast, and the Passamaquoddy in the southwest. According to Robert M. Leavitt, these New Brunswick groups “chose to settle in places near the animals and plants they depended upon for food – good hunting or fishing spots. If one resource failed – if, for example, there weren’t enough salmon one spring – they turned to something else” (135). Writ larger, the Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, and Passamaquoddy belong to a more expansive group comprised of five separate nations, known as the Wabanaki Confederacy. Although the nations of that confederacy are culturally and linguistically distinct, they share narrative characteristics manifest in their legends and creation stories. In Wabanaki culture, particularly in pre-colonial times, these legends and creation stories were considered to be sacred and true, comparable to the revealed truths of the Bible and Qur’an for Christians and Muslims. Indeed, some scholars believe that the concept of “fiction” and “fictional story” was only introduced with the arrival of Europeans (Leavitt 16).

When the First Nations peoples of what is now New Brunswick made contact with Europeans in the sixteenth century, the Aboriginal presence clashed with colonial interests. The Europeans were ravenous in exploiting the resources of the New World, especially the furs on which First Nations depended for food, clothing, trade, and survival. The treaties that followed promised to bring balance to this exchange, but most agreements further disempowered the First Nations. According to Andrea Bear Nicholas, the treaties not only disempowered Aboriginal peoples but also became a precedent for other tools of conquest. Oral traditions themselves, she says, were altered to ensure the success of the colonial project:

For Indigenous Peoples, language is not just a form of communication, but also a priceless archive in which the knowledge necessary for survival is embedded. It is oral traditions that connect Indigenous Peoples to their lands, and it is oral traditions that, therefore, need[ed] to be destroyed if Indigenous people [were] to be effectively disconnected from their lands. (19)

One tactic that disempowered First Nations peoples was the deliberate (or careless) falsification of their stories, which began when North American ethnologists and folklorists started to record Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, and Passamaquoddy stories in the mid nineteenth century. While some recorders brought sensitivity and accuracy to their translations – Rev. Silas T. Rand, who worked as a missionary with the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island from 1847 to 1889, was particularly responsible, reading back his English translations to Mi’kmaq storytellers to ensure that no details had been lost or mistranslated – others were not so careful or ethical, as critic Thomas Parkhill illustrates. Charles G. Leland and Joseph Barratt, for example, shaped their translations according to pre-conceived notions of First Nations culture, introducing elements that occur nowhere in oral narratives. One of the notable examples that Parkhill describes is that of Leland’s story about Glooscap’s birth, which has no basis in more reliable oral sources. Despite being falsified, these stories slowly became ingrained in First Nations culture, furthering harm.

Another way that the oral traditions of the first peoples of New Brunswick were undermined was through linguistic and cultural assimilation. Language, as the medium of story, was essential to the oral traditions of the First Nations, and thus as vulnerable to alteration as the content itself. Indeed, Rand notes in the introduction to his book Legends of the Micmacs that he “never found an Indian, either man or woman, who would undertake to tell one of these stories in English. [He] heard them related, in all cases, in Micmac” (v). Further evidence of this point is the fact that the Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, and Passamaquoddy share their literature almost exclusively in their ancestral languages.

As more Europeans came to Canada, and as Canadian law and bureaucracy advanced, more First Nations peoples began to learn English and French, the languages of the colonial officials. To this day, Aboriginal languages are excluded from Canadian government texts, except in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. In New Brunswick, Aboriginal students were discouraged from speaking their native language in favour of learning the languages of Empire (English or French), causing the number of native speakers to decline. This decline, coupled with the falsification of legends and creation stories, threatened the oral traditions of the First Nations peoples of the province.

The colonial legacy has left its mark: many important legends, creation stories, and tales have been lost or altered – and with that a history has disappeared. Today, First Nations scholars and activists are seeking to preserve their languages and stories, and citizens and governments are working with First Nations leaders to reverse some of the legacies of colonialism.

Works Cited

Bear Nicholas, Andrea. “The Assault on Aboriginal Oral Traditions: Past and Present.” Aboriginal Oral Traditions: Theory, Practice, Ethics. Ed. Renée Hulan and Renate Eigenbrod. Halifax, NS: Fernwood, 2008. 7-43.

Conrad, Margaret R., and James K. Hiller. Atlantic Canada: A Concise History. Don Mills, ON: Oxford UP, 2006.

Leavitt, Robert M. Maliseet and Micmac: First Nations of the Maritimes. Fredericton, NB: New Ireland Press, 1995.

Parkhill, Thomas. “‘Of Glooskap’s Birth, and of His Brother Malsum, the Wolf’: The Story of Charles Godfrey Leland’s ‘Purely American Creation.’” American Indian Culture & Research Journal 16.1 (1992): 45-69.

Rand, Silas T. Legends of the Micmacs. 1894. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1971.

What to Expect in the Literature

The literature of First Nations peoples is rooted in traditions, forms, and histories that are unfamiliar to non-Indigenous readers. First Nations literature is oral, meaning that it is meant to be spoken and heard in its original language, and it is also utilitarian, a storehouse of knowledge from which the First Nations draw. For our purposes, the stories in this curriculum are presented in written form and in English translation; however, it is important to remember the differences between oral and written traditions, and to consider these stories, as much as possible, within the context of the First Nations, rather than that of Europeans or settler communities.

Two stories in this module (“How the Wabanaki Confederacy Began” and “Glooscap and His Four Visitors”) carry Christian undertones, likely introduced to the tales before they were recorded and translated. These Christian echoes reflect both the flexibility of First Nations orality – stories would adapt to new and changing circumstances – and the ways in which European influence altered, and often harmed, their culture.

Language is key to the oral traditions of all Indigenous peoples. In the introduction to his still-relevant Legends of the Micmacs, Rev. Silas T. Rand noted that none of the Mi’kmaq he met told their stories in English, despite knowing the language well (Rand would read back his English translations to the storytellers, who would offer corrections). Part of the tragedy of Canada’s colonial legacy with the First Nations, then, is linguistic assimilation. As knowledge of Indigenous languages declined, so too did knowledge of First Nations history and society.

How to Cite

Use of material in the New Brunswick Literature Curriculum in English is restricted to scholarly, research, or educational purposes only. Use should include appropriate citations. The following citation is an example of how a researcher should cite the author pages for “Glooscap and His Four Visitors”:

Tremblay, Tony, James William Johnson, and Alexandra Cogswell. “Glooscap and His Four Visitors.” New Brunswick Literature Curriculum in English. Fredericton: UNB Libraries, 2020.

The following citation is an example of how a researcher should cite the module pages for New Brunswick First Nations Story, the module within which “Glooscap and His Four Visitors” appears:

Tremblay, Tony, James William Johnson, and Alexandra Cogswell. “New Brunswick First Nations Story: Background and Context.” New Brunswick Literature Curriculum in English. Fredericton: UNB Libraries, 2020.

First Nations Story

Contents

Background and Context

What to Expect in the Literature

Featured Stories

Further Reading

How to Cite