142 



BEOTHITKAN FAMILY BERLIN TABLET 



[b. a. e. 



existing vocabularies indicate marked dia- 

 lectic differences. At first the Beothuk 

 were classified either as Eskimauan or as 

 Algonquian, but now, largely through the 

 researches of Gatschet, it is deemed best 

 to regard them as constituting a distinct 

 linguistic stock. It is probable that in 1497 

 Beothukan people were met by Sebastian 

 Cabot when hediscovered Newfoundland, 

 as he states that he met people "painted 

 with red ocher," which is a marked char- 

 acteristic of the Beothuk of later observ- 

 ers. Whitbourne ( Chappell, Voy . to New- 

 foundland, 1818), who visited Newfound- 

 land in 1622, stated that the dwelling places 

 of these Indians were in the n. and w. parts 

 of the island, adding that ' ' in war they use 

 bows and arrows, spears, darts, clubs, and 

 slings." The extinction of the Beothuk 

 was due chiefly to the bitter hostility of 

 the French and to Micraac invasion from 

 Nova Scotia at the beginning of the 

 18th century, the Micmac settling in 

 w. Newfoundland as hunters and fish- 

 ermen. For a time these dwelt in am- 

 ity with the Beothuk, but in 1770, quar- 

 rels having arisen, a destructive bat- 

 tle was fought between the two peoples 

 at the N. end of (lirand Pond. The Beo- 

 thuk, however, lived on friendly terms 

 with the Naskapi, or Labrador Montag- 

 nais, and the two peoples visited and 

 traded with each other. Exasperated by 

 the petty depredations of these tribes, the 

 French, in the middle of the 18th cen- 

 tury, offered a reward for every head of 

 a Beothuk Indian. To gain this reward 

 and to obtain the valual)le furs they 

 possessed, the more numerous Micmac 

 hunted and gradually exterminated them 

 as an independent people. The English 

 treated the Beothuk with much less 

 rigor; indeed, in 1810 Sir Thomas Duck- 

 worth issued a proclamation for their pro- 

 tection. The banks of the River of Ex- 

 ploits and its tributuaries appear to have 

 been their last inhabited territory. 



DeLaet(NovusOrbis, 34, 1633)clescribes 

 these Newfoundland Indians as follows: 

 "The height of the body is medium, the 

 hair black, the face broad, the nose flat, 

 and the eyes large; all the males are 

 beardless, and both sexes tint not only 

 their skin but also their garments with a 

 kind of red color. And they dwell in 

 certain conical lodges and low huts of 

 sticks set in a circle and joined together 

 in the roof. Being nomadic, they fre- 

 quently change their hal>itations. They 

 had a kind of cake made with eggs and 

 baked in the sun, and a sort of pudding, 

 stuffed in gut, and composed of seal's fat, 

 livers, eggs, and other ingredients." He 

 descril)es also their peculiar crescent- 

 shaped birch-bark canoes, which had 

 sharp keels, re(iuiring much ballast to 

 keep them from overturning; these were 

 not more than 20 feet in length and they 



could bear at most 5 persons. Remains 

 of their lodges, 30 to 40 feet in circumfer- 

 ence and constructed by forming a slender 

 frame of poles overspread with birch bark, 

 are still traceable. They had both sum- 

 mer and winter dwellings, the latter often 

 accommodating about 20 jieople each. 

 Jukes (Excursions, 1842) describes their 

 deer fences or deer stockades of trees, 

 which often extended for 30 miles along 

 a river. They employed pits or caches 

 for storing food, and used the steam bath 

 in huts covered with skins and heated 

 with hot stones. Some of the charac- 

 teristics in which the Beothuk differed 

 from most other Indians were a marked 

 lightness of skin color, the use of trenches 

 in their lodges for sleeping berths, the 

 peculiar form of their canoes, the non- 

 domestication of the dog, and the dearth 

 of evidence of pottery making. Bonny- 

 castle (Newfoundland in 1842) states that 

 the Beothuk used the inner bark of J'imis 

 balsamifera as food, while Lloyd (Jour. 

 Anthrop. Inst., iv, 1875) mentions the fact 

 that they obtained fire by igniting the 

 down of the bluejay from sparks produced 

 by striking together two pieces of iron 

 pyrites. Peyton, cited by Lloyd, declares 

 that the sun was the chief object of their 

 worship. Carmack's expedition, conduct- 

 ed in Ijehalf of the Beothic Society for the 

 Civilization of the Native Savages, in 1827, 

 failed to find a single individual of this 

 once prominent tribe, although the island 

 was crossed centrally in the search. As 

 they were on good terms with the Nas- 

 kapi of Laljrador, they perhaps crossed 

 the strait of Belie Isle and became incor- 

 porated with them. (j. n. b. h. a. s. g. ) 

 Beathook. — Leigh quoted by Lloyd in Jour. 

 Anthrop. Inst., iv, 38, 1875. Behathook. — Gatschet 

 in Proc. Am. Philos. Soc, 410, 1885 (quoting older 

 form) . Beothics.— Lloyd in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., 

 IV, 33, 1875. Beothik.— Gatschet, op. cit. (quoting 

 old form). Beoths. — Vetromile, Abnakis, 47, 1866. 

 Beothucs. — Lloyd in ,To>ir. Anthrop. Inst., iv, 21, 

 1875. Beothues,— .To\ir. Anthrop. Inst., IV, pi. facing 

 p. 26, 1875. Beothugs.— Ibid., v, pi. facing p. 223, 

 1870. Beothuk. — Gatschet in I'roc. Am. Philos. Soc, 

 408, 1885. Bethuck,— Latham in Trans. Philol. 

 Soc. Lond., .58, 18.56. Boeothick. — Mac Dougall in 

 Trans. Canad. Inst., ii. 98, 1890-91. Boeothuk.— 

 Gatschet in Proc. Am. Philos. Soc, 410, 1885 (quot- 

 ing older form). Good-night Indians. — Lloyd, 

 following blunder of Latham, in ,Iour. Anthrop. 

 Inst. , v, 229, 1876. Macquaejeet.— Gatschet in Proc. 

 Am. Philos. Soc, 410, Oct., 1885 (Micmac name: 

 'red man,' evidently a transl. of the European 

 'Red Indian'). Red Indians of Newfoundland. — 

 Cartwright (1768) quoted by Lloyd in Jour. 

 Anthroi). Inst., IV. 22, 1875. Shawatharott,— King 

 quoted l)y Gatschet in Proc. Am. Philos. Soc, 410, 

 188.5_( = ■ Red Indian man ' ). Shawdtharut. —Ibid. 

 TJInobah.— Latham quoted b.v Gatschet, ibid., 411 

 (Abnaki name). Ulno mequaegit. — Ibid, (said to 

 betlicMicmacname.sig. Ted man,' butevidently 

 a trader's or fisherman's rendering of the Euro- 

 pean • Red Indians'). 



Beowawa. Incorrectly given as the 

 name of a Hopi village; it seems to be 

 the name of a man. 



Beowawa.— Beadle, Western Wilds, 227, 1878. 

 Beowawe. — Beadle, Undeveloped West, 576, 1873. 



Berlin tablet. See Xotched plates. 



