Shepard Krech

Indians, animals, and the fur trade : a critique of Keepers of the game

A recent review article devoted to the future of ethnohistory concluded that the study of ideology is a much-neglected area.of inquiry in social science (Schwerin, 1976:335). An important exception to the dearth of such studies i a book by historian Calvin Martin, entitled Keepers of the Game: IndianAnimal Relationships and the Fur Trade. The subject of this review, a collection of papers presented at the 1979 annual meeting of the American Society fmEthnokrstoFy, is a critical asw.ww&-dAdaztin’s book. Krech’s anthology cannot be reviewed without first providing a summary of Keepers ofrhe Game. Martin is concerned with the eastern subarctic Micmac and Ojibwa and argues that European disease, Christianity, and the fur trade were “responsible for the corruption of the Indian-land relationship in which the native had merged himself sympathetically with is environment” (1978:65). With the undermining of the traditional belief system, timehonoured sanctions against wildlife overkill were nullified and eastern Canadian hunters became badly exploitative. Martin further observes that this destruction of wildlife may not have stemmed originally from a desire to obtain furs for trade. He writes that, on the eve of European contact, Indian and beast were at war as a result of the stupefying onslaught of epidemic disease brought to the New World by Europeans. Martin reasons that the Indians, completely powerless to explain or cure these new diseases, blamed wildlife for their sicknesses and as a result went on a war of revenge against various animals which soon became transformed into the historic fur trade. Certain animals were heavily exploited and others were virtually exterminated. Essential to this interpretation is Martin’s observation that the Micmac were “seemingly accustomed” to blaming offended wildlife for illnesses (1978:146). Martin’s efforts to explain the profound changes inherent i this episode of culture contact are guided by a perspective which makes his book particularly worthwhile. In recognizing the supernatural world view of the Indian as an integral dimension of the fur trade, Martin rejects Western economic interpretations of the trade as essentially a supply-and-demand phenomenon. In so doing, he calls into question the scholarly fraternity’s own cultural baggage. Martin admits that his interpretation is novel and may be viewed by many readers as a fantasy, suffused as it is with Native cosmology and spiritual beliefs. His concern with understanding fur trade history from an Indian point of view leaves him open to accusations of specious and presumptive reasoning. Martin is not a Native American and he did not witness the events he describes. But such criticisms, valid or not, cannot obscure the importance of Martin’s achievement in elucidating the complexity of human behaviours, particularly in the context of a subject normally laden with ethnocentric assumptions. The first paper in Krech’s collection is by Martin, and is essentially a summary of his book. This sets the stage for the ensuing articles, beginning with an examination of Huron ethnohistory b Bruce Trigger. In summary, Trigger maintains that Martin’s view is too speculative and that his own data support a materialist interpretation, rather than an idealist one: That is, the Indians valued European goods because those goods made life easier for them. Furthermore, the Huron were prepared to hunt beaver to extinction to obtain these goods. Trigger writes that there is no direct evidence that the Huron associated disease with animal spirits, and that during major epidemics, chronicled in Jesuit Relations, Huron curing rituals were dynamic and innovative. Trigger rejests what he calls Martin’s “obscure and poorly documented religious motivations” to explain Indian participation in the fur trade. While Charles Bishop finds some of Martin’s reasoning to be preposterous, he recognizes Keepers of rhe Game as an important book because of the theoretical issues it contains. Bishop suggests that, contrary to Martin’s logic, Indians afflicted with epidemic disease might have been particularly deferential toward game spirits, since warring against them might be understood to create even more sickness. Writing of the Northern Algonkian region in Chapter Three, Bishop rejects the notion that animals were killed in revenge for the diseases they spread, thereby rejecting Martin’s idealist argument for Indian involvement in the trade. Bishop, however, further develops the materialist explanation by noting that to remain secure, to be generous to one’s followers, to avoid unnecessary labour, and to enhance prestige were also important considerations underlying Indian participation in the trade. In Chapter Four, an essay which moves tantalizingly close to some fundamental issues in Martin’s work, Dean Snow discusses Martin’s main thesis REVIEWS

The Influence of Disease and the Fur Trade on Arctic Drainage Lowlands Dene, 1800-1850

Recent research on Arctic Drainage Lowlands Athapaskan demography, cultures, and societies has by and large failed to place these hunting-fishing people in their full historical contexts. In the historic era there were new constraints on adaptations; epidemic diseases, interethnic hostilities, faunal depletions, and reliance on trading posts at inopportune times affected Arctic Drainage Lowlands Athapaskans in different ways, including the extent to which they starved. Disease, rather than female infanticide, was most likely responsible for the size of human populations in the nineteenth century. These historic-era constraints were conducive to the emergence of bilateral-bilocal social organization. Similar pressures existed in other regions where foragers with this type of organization are located today, which might lead one to question the antiquity of this form of social organization.

THE EASTERN KUTCHIN AND THE FUR TRADE, 1800-1860

The early and mid-19th century trade between Athapaskan Eastern Kutchin and Eurocanadians is analyzed. The dynamic aspects of the Eastern Kutchin participation in the trade and the reciprocal nature of trade relations are stressed. Eastern Kutchin were indispensible provisioners and also interpreters and laborers for the Eurocanadians, in addition to being trappers and middleman traders.

The Nakotcho Kutchin: A Tenth Aboriginal Kutchin Band?

The examination of ethnohistoric data presents strong evidence for the disappearance of one Northern Athapaskan Kutchin regional band and it is suggested that epidemic diseases were responsible for this. The implications of acculturative changes for theories of social and band organization among Northern Athapaskans and other foragers are explored.

THE PARTICIPATION OF MARYLAND BLACKS IN THE CIVIL WAR: PERSPECTIVES FROM ORAL HISTORY

The testimony of one informant on the participation of Maryland Blacks in the Civil War is evaluated for its historicity. Comparison with documentary sources reveals a number of correspondences, and the emphasis in passages selected by the informant expose meaningful historical criteria indicating pride in Black accomplishments and the creative, adaptive decisions of Blacks to rapidly changing conditions.

American Indian Ethnohistory : Recent Contributions by three Historians

Finger, John R. Eastern Band of Cherokees 1819–1900. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984. xiv + 253 pp. including maps, photographs, notes, bibliography, and index.

Anatomy of a conflict

24.95 cloth,

The Subarctic Indians and the Fur Trade, 1680-1860, by J. Colin Yerbury

12.95 paper. Miller, Christopher L. Prophetic Worlds: Indians and Whites on the Columbia Plateau. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1985. x + 174 pp. including maps, notes, bibliography, and index.

The Ecological Indian: Myth and History

27.00 cloth. Morrison, Kenneth M. The Embattled Northeast: The Elusive Ideal of Alliance in Abenaki‐Euramerican Relations. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. x + 256 pp. including maps, notes, and index.

Reflections on Conservation, Sustainability, and Environmentalism in Indigenous North America

24.95 cloth.