An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Micmakis and Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent on the Government of Cape-BretonMaillard, Antoine Simon
History
An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Micmakis and Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent on the Government of Cape-Breton
Maillard, Antoine Simon
Malecite Indians; Micmac Indians; Nova Scotia -- Description and travel
is obliged to pay a sort of court to them, and to keep them in good
humour.
The Acadian men were commonly drest in a sort of coarse black stuff made
in the country; and many of the poorer sort go bare-footed in all
weathers. The women are covered with a cloak, and all their head-dress
is generally a handkerchief, which would serve for a veil too, in the
manner they tied it, if it descended low enough.
Their dwellings were almost all built in an uniform manner; the
inhabitants themselves it was who built them, each for himself, there
being but few or no mechanics in the country. The hatchet was their
capital and universal instrument. They had saw-mills for their timber,
and with a plane and a knife, an Acadian would build his house and his
barn, and even make all his wooden domestic furniture. Happy nation!
that could thus be sufficient to itself, which would always be the case,
were the luxury and the vanity of other nations to remain unenvied.
Such in short were the French Acadians, who fell under the dominion of
the king of Great Britain, when the English experienced, from both the
Acadians and savages, a most thorough reluctance to the recognition of
their new sovereign, which has continued to this day.
As to the savages it is certain, that the governors for the English
acted entirely against the interest of their nation, in their procedure
with them. They had been long under the French government, so far as
their nature allows them to be under any government at all; and besides
almost all the Micmakis, and great numbers of the Maricheets, or
Abenaquis, were converted to our faith, and were consequently under the
influence of the priests. It could not then be expected, naturally
speaking, that these people could all of a sudden shake off their
attachment to, and connexions with our nation; so that, even after the
cession of Acadia, they continued, with a savage sulleness, to give
marks of their preference of our government. This could not fail of
giving the English umbrage; and their impatience not brooking either
delays, or soothing them into a temper and opinion more favorable to
them: they let it very early be seen, and penetrated by the savages,
that they intended to clear the country of them. Nor would this
exterminating plan, however not over-humane, have been perhaps wholly an
impolitical one, if they had not had the French for neighbors, who, ever
watchful and alert in concerning themselves with what past in those
parts, took care underhand, by their priests and emissaries, to inflame
them, and to offer them not only the kindest refuge, but to provide them
with all necessaries of life, sure of being doubly repaid by the service
they would do them, if but in the mischief they would do the English, to
whom it was a great point with our government to make Acadia as
uncomfortable, and as untenable as possible. It was no wonder then, that
the savages, ill-used by the English, and still dreading worse from
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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