The Beothuk Saga

by Bernard Assiniwi

  Although his leg was still badly swollen, he helped me carry the meat and called my sister out to lend a hand as well. He told me that I had done enough for the time being, and said I should rest. He was a brave man, my father. Brave and kind. May Kobshuneesamut preserve his life for a long time.

  I went into the mamateek and lay down. Pulling the loaded sledge had exhausted me. My father cut up the caribou meat and hung the pieces from a tree, then came inside so I could tell him of my dreams. When I had finished he remained quiet for a long time. When evening came he looked me in the eyes and said: “Shanawdithit, we must not abandon hope. As long as one of us is still alive, we can hope to see the good days return. Kobshuneesamut cannot abandon us after so many season-cycles. One day he will remember that we are here. One day he will think about all the glorious days of our past. The foreigners cannot always be in the right. Give me your word that you will continue to fight until the end. I could not continue to live knowing that you had abandoned all hope.”

  “I give you my word, Mamjaesdoo. I will not give up. Even when I am dead, I will not give up.”

  56

  Two season-cycles had passed since Demasduit was reunited with Nonosabasut and Buh-Bosha-Yesh. The snow had melted quickly and the warm season had begun earlier than usual. With the return of good weather, my mother’s health improved and my sister also seemed to get better. They coughed less, seemed to have more strength, and took part in the daily routines with my father and me. Mamjaesdoo was getting old, but he was still a strong woodsman who was used to working hard to assert his right to live. That summer he decided that we would hunt in the territory belonging to the Mixed-Bloods, south of Red Ochre Lake.

  “The Shanung are not starving because all the game has travelled onto their land,” he said. “We will let them share their good fortune with us for the summer.”

  Three suns later we took our tapatooks and paddled south across the lake. At the end there was an outlet where small trout entered a large brook. When we arrived there, Mamjaesdoo and Doodeebewshet took out a long net made of fine, light string, and walked some way down the brook. They stretched the net all the way across the brook and walked back with it against the current toward the lake. Meanwhile, my sister and I waded into the brook where it left the lake and began beating the water with spruce boughs. The trout became frightened and swam downstream right into the net held by our mother and father. And so we ate fresh trout every day for several days, and had enough left over to smoke and store for later in the growing season.

  We repeated this fishing method every morning, and each time we caught many fish. The rest of the day was spent hunting and gathering other kinds of food. There was a time when we had considered this region poor hunting grounds, but now it was the best place on the island. My father was expert at throwing a net to catch birds, and he soon had a large number of ptarmigan who thought they were well hidden against the ground, because their feathers had turned from white to reddish-brown. Although it was mating season, the ptarmigan remained together in flocks, so that it was not unusual to catch ten or twelve of them with a single cast of the net. We roasted one or two and dried the rest near the fire that we always kept going when we camped.

  Mamjaesdoo was lucky enough to come upon a female caribou that was still feeding a calf that had been born during the winter. He killed it with a definite purpose in mind: he wanted us to eat the fermented contents of her stomach, a delicacy he had learned about from the Sho-Undamung on the north side of the strait. After skinning the animal and cutting the flesh into thin strips for drying, he explained to us what he had done. He had taken the closed part of the stomach and added the female’s own milk to it, and mixed in some of the fresh blood from the same animal, and hung the sac between two small trees, having made a support for it by weaving rawhide strips together as when making snowshoes. He then covered the sac with another piece of caribou skin to keep the flies from eating it before we could, then he let the mixture ferment for five or six suns.

  Then, one night, he announced that dinner was ready, and came into the mamateek carrying his fermented caribou stomach. Our mother found the smell revolting and made retching noises. My sister said she did not even want to look at it, saying the sight of blood made her sick. But I had always been close to my father and was willing to try anything as long as he had made it. But I have to admit even I found the texture a bit repulsive.

  By closing my eyes and trying not to inhale, I tasted this food that no Beothuk who had not left the island had ever tasted before. I was surprised by the delicate flavour, a taste I will never forget. When Doodeebewshet heard my exclamation, she decided to try it too. She liked the taste, and then my sister joined in. In the end we were eagerly eating this new food, at least new to us: the Innu had been eating it for hundreds of season-cycles. Father said that it was one of their secrets for surviving the extreme cold and the long migrations they undertook each season-cycle.

  The next morning my father left the mamateek and returned a short time later. He seemed pensive. When my mother asked him what was troubling him, he admitted to us that he had detected the presence of whites.

  “When I left the mamateek I smelled something,” he said. “I had stopped to determine which direction the wind was coming from, and I smelled that odour of cocoa that every sailor and every cod fisherman trails behind him. That told me there were English in this area. The French do not drink cocoa. I will follow the scent to see what they are up to. Do not make a fire, and remain here quietly until I return. If I do not come back by nightfall, Shanawdithit, you are in charge of the family. You are best able to assume that role.”

  And he was gone.

  Mamjaesdoo had always been known as an excellent hunter. He knew how to stalk game without being detected. It was an easy matter for him to get close to something he had scented from a distance, without being seen or heard. Even on the flat plateaux, where there were no trees, he knew how to follow the contours of the land, to take advantage of small stands of bushes, to skirt the edges of the hills and make long detours, without anyone knowing he was there. Moving in this way, he saw two men sitting on the ground eating bread and drinking cocoa. Mamjaesdoo knew one of them very well. His name was Jos Silvester, a Shanung. He used to live at St. George’s Bay, but now he had moved to Bay d’Espoir to live with the Mixed-Bloods. He was a real Shanung, a Mi’kmaq. He was wearing Beothuk leggings made from caribou skins turned hair-side in, despite the mildness of the weather. Even in the warm spring air he would rather be hot than have his legs torn by the small evergreens that grew everywhere on the south part of the island. Silvester also wore an English shirt of red flannel, a small sleeveless vest made of caribou skin, and a wide-brimmed hat that was especially prized by blackflies, which flew to it as bees flew to honey.

  His companion was tall and thin, and wore clothing made from skins, except for his cloth trousers, which fit him tightly from his knees to his heels. Both men wore moccasins. The palefaced one also wore a wide-brimmed hat. They both stank of bear fat, with which they had probably smeared themselves for protection against fly bites. If the flies were leaving them alone, however, it probably had more to do with the smell than with the repellent powers of bear fat. Our father said that when a blackfly became stuck in bear grease it had only one thought: to get out as fast as it could.

  The two men finished their meal. Then the paleface began taking down the small shelter made of sailcloth that they had slept in the night before. Silvester, however, stood up and walked straight toward my father. Mamjaesdoo knew that it was a waste of time to try to hide: the Shanung had sensed his presence. While still walking in my father’s direction, Silvester said quietly: “Surely you didn’t think I wouldn’t notice the smell of a Beothuk.”

  “I thought the stink of bear grease would drown out all other smells,” my father replied.

  When they were standing face to face, each man reached out his right hand and touched the other’s shoulder. That was how two
men greeted each other when they were not enemies, but not exactly close friends either.

  “Who’s the Bouguishamesh?” my father asked.

  “His name is William Cormack, an English scientist who wants to meet the Beothuk to see why they are dying.”

  “Well, he came just in time,” said my father. “We’re almost all dead. He can study us as much as he likes. There’s no one to stop him.”

  “He would like to meet with you to talk about it.”

  “We would rather discuss our way of life. We will talk of death when we are closer to it. We don’t want to attract it by talking about it.”

  Jos Silvester looked my father in the eye. “If you do not want to talk to him, he will never see a Beothuk. I give you my word.”

  With that he turned on his heel and went back to Mr. Cormack. Mamjaesdoo returned to our camp and asked us not to make a fire that day. “By tonight they’ll be far enough away that we can go back to our normal lives,” he said.

  When morning came we went back to our fishing and drying, to prepare for the season of cold and snow. But our catches were becoming smaller and smaller, because it was already the season of falling leaves. Mamjaesdoo looked at the amount of provisions we had put away, and said to us: “There is not enough here to last us until the next growing season. We will have to go to the coast as soon as spring comes to dig clams until the hunting season begins.”

  We settled down to pass the season of cold and snow in the Mixed-Bloods’ hunting grounds. In the middle of that winter, Jos Silvester came to visit us and spent several days in our winter camp. He told us how his people were able to get along with the English: “We are different from you,” he explained. “We never show any animosity towards them. We do not necessarily like them, but we have no choice, there are many more of them than there are of us. So we smile at them and make them believe that we think as they do. They hire us from time to time as guides. They buy our furs. We were friends with the French before these came. The English beat the French, so we either play their game or else the same thing happens to us as is happening to you: we die.”

  There were some angry words exchanged between Silvester and Mamjaesdoo. Father did not like the hypocrisy of Silvester’s attitude towards the English after all that we had suffered at their hands. Jos had an answer for everything.

  “They have done nothing to us. And look at us: we are still alive!”

  This made father very angry. “When my family is dead, there will be no one for you to sell to the English but the other Beothuk who have gone to live among you.”

  “If we wanted to sell Beothuk,” Silvester retorted, “you would have been sold long ago, you and your family. But we too take pride in protecting the people who are like us. You are different from us, but we are alike in the way we live and where we come from. Only our languages are different.”

  This conversation went on late into the night. Their positions were very different, and very emotional, but Silvester had not lost all his people, as we had. He could not begin to understand my father’s bitterness.

  The season of cold and snow gave way to the melting season, and then to the season of new growth. It was time for us to travel to the coast. Father wanted us to go to the south coast, but we preferred the east, where we knew we would find sea food. However, if we had known what was waiting for us in that direction, we would have followed the wishes of the only man left in our family.

  We loaded our remaining provisions on our backs and set out on snowshoes to the north part of the lake before turning east to follow the Exploits River. It was a difficult journey, because the snow was melting more each day. In the morning it was not so bad because it was colder and more granular, but when the sun came up and warmed it the snow became soft, and our snowshoes broke through it often and we would sink, finding ourselves with our noses in the heavy blanket of spring snow.

  Although their coughs had returned, my mother and my silent sister never complained. They hoisted their loads in the morning and did not set them down again until my father or I called for a rest. It was as though they were trying to be as little hindrance as possible. They insisted on doing their share of the work. But the sickness was gaining ground.

  I was becoming more and more worried. Mamjaesdoo was also anxious, but he was more discreet than I was. He had seen more people die of this disease than he could count. But he prayed to Kobshuneesamut in private, not wanting the rest of us to worry any more than we already were. The moon of winds had still not completed its cycle when we arrived at New Bay, a small cove in the Bay of Exploits. When we arrived we took over a mamateek that had been used before by Demasduit and Nonosabasut. We repaired it and made ourselves as comfortable as we could. My mother and sister were getting sicker and sicker. They coughed very often and were frequently too weak to move quickly. They spent a great part of the day lying down.

  All this time, Mamjaesdoo gathered the sea food that became available in early spring. I spent my time looking after my sister, who I sensed was becoming more and more distracted. Every now and then she would begin to babble about things I could not comprehend. Then she would regain her senses and beg me not to pay attention to her when she was like that. She said she was tired.

  One morning when Mamjaesdoo was digging clams he stood up and saw two fur trappers coming from behind a pile of rocks. Taking no chances, he began to run in a zigzag, fleeing towards a small brook across the cove, which was still frozen over. The two trappers ran after him. He was not wearing snowshoes, but still he risked crossing the cove. The ice covering was very thin and gave way under his weight. He disappeared under the ice and did not come back to the surface. The two trappers were disappointed that they had missed one of their last chances to kill a Beothuk.

  They began to walk around the bay, convinced that there must be other Redskins to massacre. They walked, they searched, they peered, and finally they saw … my mother, who had gone for a short walk to get some fresh air. When she saw them, she turned and ran back to the mamateek. My sister and I were still there, and so all of us fell into the hands of the most renowned Beothuk killer on the island: William Cull.

  57

  When the door of the mamateek burst open and Doodeebewshet ran in, I was holding my sister Dabseek in my arms. She had just had a weak spell and was having trouble breathing. When we saw William Cull burst in behind my mother, neither Dabseek nor I had the strength to react. We were resigned to whatever was about to happen. We did not yet know that our father, Mamjaesdoo, was dead. Neither did our mother. Our first reaction was to let William Cull take us away from there as quickly as possible, so that our father would not be captured as well. When William Cull’s companion asked him if it was necessary to retrieve the body of the drowned Indian in order to get the bounty, I realized what had happened. These men did not know that I understood their language. Cull replied that the governor did not pay for a dead Beothuk.

  “He wants them alive,” he told the other man.

  From this I knew that I was now in charge of the family. I did not dare say anything to Doodeebewshet. She had troubles enough without my adding to them. And I was careful also not to breathe a word to Dabseek, the fourth and youngest member of the family. Picking her up, I carried her out of the mamateek, followed by my mother and the two men, who were holding their muskets at the ready. We walked for a certain distance until we came to a small boat with a sail, and we climbed into it. The men took us towards Exploit-Burnt Island, the home of John Peyton Jr. I knew this place well from having raided it with some companions five season-cycles before. This was where we had cut the hawsers of the ship carrying salmon, and stolen the sails.

  Judge Peyton had an outside shelter built for us so that we would at least have the illusion of being free. Doodeebewshet was sicker than she had ever been, but she refused to sleep. She heated some rocks and placed them in water to make steam, the method for cleansing a mamateek that had become a religious ritual with us ever since our people had fa
llen into despair. My mother firmly believed that it was helping my sister. I thought that it at least could do no harm, and let my mother do what she thought was best. She never smiled any more. She was always sad. She asked me if I had enough strength to get away and find my father. I told her there was no question of my leaving her alone with Dabseek. I told her that in any case I was not well enough. She did not insist. Her will was already fading.

  I cringed every time I heard one of Peyton’s men refer to my mother as “the old sow,” because they found her ugly and dirty. But I kept my feelings to myself so that they would not know that I understood their language. As soon as the ice left the harbour they loaded the ships, and we boarded one of them to be taken to St. John’s, to the home of Governor Hamilton.

  In St. John’s we found that Governor Hamilton had gone to England and that Captain David Buchan was temporarily taking his place. It was two of Buchan’s men we had killed when I was twelve season-cycles old, and it was Buchan who had returned Demasduit’s body to us three season-cycles before. Before he would even receive us he sent an English doctor to examine us. The doctor told us his name was Watt, which I found amusing because I thought he was asking us “My name is what?” Every time he turned his attention to my sister or my mother, I could not help laughing. This seemed to irritate him very much. When I explained to Dabseek and Doodeebewshet why I was laughing, they too broke into gales of laughter. The doctor’s face darkened and he went off, apparently to complain about us to Buchan, but Buchan did not seem to be angry. At least he never spoke to us about our behaviour. Only one thing confused me: the doctor told Buchan that my sister and my mother were suffering from something called “consumption,” and that they did not have long to live. I knew that they were very sick and would soon leave us, but I had not known that the English knew about this disease. Could it have come from them? Could they have given it to us deliberately? I did not know what to think. I understood English, but I did not know all the sounds. That angered me a little. What was even more frustrating was that I could not speak my mind to anyone. I did not want to worry my mother and sister, and I did not trust the English. The torment this created within me was very difficult to contain.