100 MICMAC INDIANS OF NOVA SCOTIA 



but among the English they have mostly been called Micmacs, 

 and we find the name in use in 1696 (N. Y. Doc. Col. Hist., 

 ix., 643). Gatchet speaks of If ^'Z^ema/v {singular Mihema) as 

 their Penobscot name. Malecites seem to have called them 

 Matu-es-wi skitchi-nu-uh, meaning 'porcupine Indians', on 

 account of their using porcupine quills in ornamental work 

 (Chamberlain, Malecite MS., Bur. Am. Eth., 1882). 



History. — -The Micmacs seem to have been a fierce and 

 warlike tribe, subsisting chiefly on the products of the chase. 

 They soon became the loyal allies of the French who settled 

 in ISTova Scotia in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and 

 there was more or less intermarriage between these settlers and 

 the tribe, which more firmly cemented the bonds between them. 

 When the English began to occupy Nova Scotia after the 

 capture of Port Poyal (Annapolis) in 1710 they found the 

 -Micmacs a great source of annoyance, as they naturally took 

 the i^art of their old allies and lost no opportunity of harassing 

 the British, and it was largely owing to their inroads that 

 settlement of the country did not progress more rapidly. After 

 -the deportation of the Acadians and the fall of Quebec the 

 English succeeded in making treaties with the tribe m 1760 

 and 1761, which permitted the clearing and settlement of the 

 land to go on more peaceably than formerly, but it was not until 

 1779 that the disputes finally ceased, and from that time they 

 could be spoken of as loyal to their new masters. Since then 

 their history has been uneventful. Early in the nineteenth 

 century a chief Indian commissioner (Monk) was appointed, 

 and in 1842 an Indian commissioner (Howe) again held 



*I am not quite certain of the derivation of the French name Souriquois. 

 Des Brisay, (History of Lunenburg, 1st ed., p. 150), says the Micmacs were 

 called by the French, "Souriquois, or salt-water men." The Century Cyclopedia 

 of Names says the tribal name Souriquois, was one imitating words meaning 

 "good canoe-men" (the derivation of which I fail to see, if from the Micmac 

 language) ; and the same work, on what authority is not mentioned, states that 

 Micmac is translated as "secrets-practicing men," alluding to Shamanistic 

 jugglery. Surenne (French Dictionary) says souriquois is a term . used to 

 .describe "a mixed tribe" : and in Spiers and Surenne the definition is given of 

 mice, micy ("peuple souriquois," micy trite), but this probably has no connection 

 with the use of the word to denote the Micmac tribe. The Beothuks called the 

 Micmacs Shanock, "bad Indians," (Journ. Anthrop. Inst., iv, 29, 1875.) 



