Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland by Joseph Noad
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Joseph Noad >> Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland
Their spears were of two kinds--the one, their chief weapon, was
twelve feet in length, pointed with bone or iron, whenever the latter
material could be obtained, and was used in killing deer and other
animals. The other was fourteen feet in length and was used chiefly,
if not wholly, in killing seals--the head or point being easily
separated from the shaft--the service of the latter being, indeed
mainly, to guide the point into the body of the animal, and which
being effected, the shaft was withdrawn, and a strong strip of deer
skin, which was always kept fastened to the spear head, was held by
the Indian, and who in this manner secured his prey.
CANOES.
These varied from sixteen to twenty-two feet in length, with an upward
curve towards each end. Laths were introduced from stem to stern
instead of planks--they were provided with a gunwhale or edging which,
though slight, added strength to the fabric--the whole was covered on
the outside with deer skins sewed together and fastened by stitching
the edges round the gunwhale.
LANGUAGE.
The language of the Boeothicks, Mr. Cormack is of opinion, is
different from all the languages of the neighbouring tribes of Indians
with which any comparison has been made. Of all the words procured at
different times from the female Indian Shaw-na-dith-it, and which were
compared with the Micmac and Banake (the latter people bordering on
the Mohawk) not one was found similar to the language of the latter
people, and only two words which could be supposed to have had the
same origin, viz.: Keuis--Boeothick--and "Kuse" Banake--both words
meaning "Sun,"--and moosin Boeothick, and moccasin, Banake and Micmac.
The Boeothick also differs from the Mountaineer or Esquimaux language
of Labrador. The Micmac, Mountaineer, and Banake, have no "_r_." The
Boeothick has; the three first use "_l_" instead of "_r_." The
Boeothick has the dipthong _sh_.--the other languages, as before
enumerated, have it not. The Boeothicks have no characters to serve as
hieroglyphics or letters, but they had a few symbols or signatures.
METHOD OF INTERMENT.
The Boeothicks appear to have shown great respect for their dead, and
the most remarkable remains of them commonly observed by Europeans at
the sea coasts are their burial places. They had several modes of
interment--one was when the body of the deceased had been wrapped in
birch rind, it was then, with his property, placed on a sort of
scaffold about four feet from the ground--the scaffold supported a
flooring of small squared beams laid close together, on which the body
and property rested.
A second method was, when the body bent together and wrapped in birch
rinds was enclosed in a sort of box on the ground--this box was made
of small square posts laid on each other horizontally, and notched at
the corners to make them meet close--it was about four feet high,
three feet broad, and two-feet-and-a-half deep, well lined with birch
rind, so as to exclude the weather from the inside--the body was
always laid on its right side.
A third, and the most common method of burying among this people, was
to wrap the body in birch rind, and then cover it over with a heap of
stones on the surface of the earth; but occasionally in sandy places,
or where the earth was soft and easily removed, the body was sunk
lower in the earth and the stones omitted.
Their marriage ceremony consisted merely in a prolonged feast, and
which rarely terminated before the end of twenty-four hours. Polygamy
would seem not to have been countenanced by the tribe.
Of their remedies for disease, the following were those the most
frequently resorted to:--
For pains in the stomach, a decoction of the rind of the dogberry was
drank.
For sickness among old people--sickness in the stomach, pains in the
back, and for rheumatism, the vapor-bath was used.
For sore head, neck, &c., pounded sulphuret of iron mixed up with oil
was rubbed over the part affected, and was said generally to effect a
cure in two or three days.
Brief as the foregoing statement is, yet, so scanty are the materials
which relate to the subject, that it contains substantially all the
facts which can now be gathered together of that interesting people,
the original inhabitants of Newfoundland--a people whose origin and
fate are alike shrouded in mystery, and of whom, in their passage
across the stage of life, but little is certainly known, beyond the
cruel outrages, the bitter wrongs they endured at the hands of the
white man--before whose power, so mercilessly used, the tribe sank,
and was either utterly annihilated, or, as is more probable, a
remnant--worn out, harrassed beyond human endurance--left the homes of
their fathers, and in another land sought that security for their
lives which was denied them in this.
FINIS.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote A: "Large guns." The guns in common use there are what are
made for killing seals. The general size is a barrel of five feet
long, with a bore from seven-eighths to an inch and a quarter.]
[Footnote B: What I saw I should estimate at from three to four
hundred, including women and children: of this however hereafter.]