Mi'kmaq Landscapes (Vitality of Indigenous Religions Series)

215 Pages·2008·1.24 MB·English

by  Anne-Christine Hornborg

MI’KMAQ LANDSCAPES
This book seeks to explore historical changes in the lifeworld of the Mi’kmaq
Indians of Eastern Canada. The Mi’kmaq culture hero Kluskap serves as a key
persona in discussing issues such as traditions, changing conceptions of land,
and human-environmental relations. In order not to depict Mi’kmaq culture
as timeless, two important periods in its history are examined. Within the first
period, between 1850 and 1930, Hornborg explores historical evidence of the
ontology, epistemology, and ethics – jointly labelled animism – that stem from a
premodern Mi’kmaq hunting subsistence. New ways of discussing animism and
shamanism are here richly exemplified. The second study situates the culture
hero in the modern world of the 1990s, when allusions to Mi’kmaq tradition and
to Kluskap played an important role in the struggle against a planned superquarry
on Cape Breton. This study discusses the eco-cosmology that has been formulated
by modern reserve inhabitants which could be labelled a ‘sacred ecology’.
Focusing on how the Mi’kmaq are rebuilding their traditions and environmental
relations in interaction with modern society, Hornborg illustrates how environmental
groups, pan-Indianism, and education play an important role, but so does reserve life.
By anchoring their engagement in reserve life the Mi’kmaq traditionalists have, to a large
extent, been able to confront both external and internal doubts about their authenticity.
VITALITY OF INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS
Series Editors
Graham Harvey, Open University, UK
Lawrence Martin, University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, USA
Tabona Shoko, University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe
Ines Talamantez, University of California, USA
Ashgate’s Vitality of Indigenous Religions series offers an exciting cluster of
research monographs, drawing together volumes from leading international
scholars across a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. Indigenous
religions are vital and empowering for many thousands of indigenous peoples
globally, and dialogue with, and consideration of, these diverse religious life-
ways promises to challenge and refine the methodologies of a number of
academic disciplines, whilst greatly enhancing understandings of the world.
This series explores the development of contemporary indigenous religions from
traditional, ancestral precursors, but the characteristic contribution of the series is
its focus on their living and current manifestations. Devoted to the contemporary
expression, experience and understanding of particular indigenous peoples and their
religions, books address key issues which include: the sacredness of land, exile from
lands, diasporic survival and diversification, the indigenization of Christianity and
other missionary religions, sacred language, and re-vitalization movements. Proving of
particular value to academics, graduates, postgraduates and higher level undergraduate
readers worldwide, this series holds obvious attraction to scholars of Native American
studies, Maori studies, African studies and offers invaluable contributions to
religious studies, sociology, anthropology, geography and other related subject areas.
OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES
From Primitive to Indigenous
The Academic Study of Indigenous Religions
James L. Cox
ISBN 978-0-7546-5569-5
Karanga Indigenous Religion in Zimbabwe
Health and Well-Being
Tabona Shoko
ISBN 978-0-7546-5881-8
Indigenous Peoples’ Wisdom and Power
Affirming Our Knowledge Through Narratives
Edited by Nomalungelo I. Goduka and Julian E. Kunnie
ISBN 978-0-7546-1597-2
Mi’kmaq Landscapes
From Animism to Sacred Ecology
ANNE-CHRISTINE HORNBORG
Linköping University, Sweden
© Anne-Christine Hornborg 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Anne-Christine Hornborg has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
Hampshire GU11 3HR USA
England
Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hornborg, Anne-Christine
Mi’kmaq landscapes: from animism to sacred ecology. –
(Vitality of indigenous religions series)
1. Micmac Indians – Religion 2. Micmac Indians – Nova Scotia – Cape Breton Island
– Social conditions
I. Title
299.7’8343013
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hornborg, Anne-Christine.
Mi’kmaq landscapes: from animism to sacred ecology / Anne-Christine Hornborg.
p. cm. – (Vitality of indigenous religions series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-6371-3 (hardcover: alk. paper) 1. Micmac Indians–Government relations.
2. Micmac Indians–Religion. 3. Micmac Indians–History. 4. Indigenous peoples–Ecology–
Maritime Provinces. 5. Maritime Provinces–Environmental conditions. 6. Maritime
Provinces–History. I. Title.
E99.M6H67 2007
971.5–dc22
2007032841
ISBN 978-0-7546-6371-3
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.
This book could never have been written without all the
Mi’kmaq friends who kindly and generously have invited me
into their homes and lives during the years: Thank you.
Your spirit and friendship have taught me a lot, both
about being Mi’kmaq and being human.
Also, this work is dedicated to my husband Alf,
my children Christoffer and Sara, and
my grandchildren Elias and Ella.
We have travelled a long road together, and I
have always been in good company.
Near Cape d’Or he [Kluskap] fed his dogs with the lights of the moose;
large portions of this food were turned into rocks, and remain there to
this day; the place is called Oopunk. (Rand [1894] 1971: 293)
At Caraquet, you can see in the rock the bones and head of a
fish that Gluskap ate. (Wallis and Wallis 1955: 330)
I give you something that you can grasp … I come to visit you at your home in
Sweden. You let me in your house, … you feed me and you treat me good… In two
weeks I isolate you in your bedroom and say no, you can’t come in[to the rest of
the house], unless you ask me to come out of your bedroom, and if you want meals
I’ll cook them for you … And eventually you just become prisoners in your home
and that’s what happened to us. We are locked in our bedrooms. The reserves
are our bedrooms and our house is Canada. (Personal communication, Vaughen
Doucette, Mi’kmaq traditionalist, on the Eskasoni reserve, September 2000)
Contents
List of Figures, Tables and Maps ix
Acknowledgements xi
1 Introduction 1
2 On the Phenomenological Foundation of Indian Romanticism 13
3 ‘Till They Saw Him No More’ (1850–1930) 67
4 Interlude (1930–1970) 119
5 The Return of Kluskap (1970–2000) 135
Bibliography 183
Index 199
This page intentionally left blank
List of Figures, Tables and Maps
Figures
3.1 Grandmother Rock 87
Tables
3.1 Different layers in and readings of early Kluskap stories
(c. 1850–1930) 79
3.2 The interface between indigenous and colonial lifeworlds as the
context of the stories of Kluskap 117
Maps
1 Cape Breton 180
2 Nova Scotia 181