124 
]:)eis()iial property of the native jiassed to a lirother or sister, a son or 
a daughter, without question; it had so little value that it rarely 
occasioned any dispute. Often, indeed, his weapons and ornaments 
followed him to the grave, and his tent or bark cabin was abandoned 
and allowed to decay. “ Real ” property he had none, for the hunting 
territory and the fishing places belonged to the entire band, and were 
as much the right of every member as the surrounding atmosphere. 
-Members of other bands might use them temporarily, witli the con- 
sent of the owner band, or they miglit seize them by force; but land 
could not be sold or alienated in any way. It is true that in eastern 
Canada individual families, or groups of two and three families very 
closely related, have possessed their private hunting-grounds within 
the territory occupied by the band since the early days of Euroj)ean 
settlement; that they have handed them down from father to son, or 
in some cases to a son-in-law, in regular succession; and that the 
boundaries were so well defined by geographical features that in 
many districts we can map them to-day just as we map our counties.’ 
Xev-ertheless, it does not appear at all certain that this system of land 
tenure pre-dates the coming of Europeans: for a similar partition of 
the territory of the band into family hunting grounds has occurred 
among the Sekani Indians at the headwaters of Peace river during 
the last hundred years, after the necessities of the fur trade compelled 
the families to disiierse among different creeks and rivers.- That 
the Montagnais, and presumably also neighbouring tribes in eastern 
Canada, did not subdivide the band territory piior to the advent of 
the fur traders seems to be indicated by a passage in the “ Jesuit Rela- 
tions,” written only thirty-two years after Champlain’s first voyage 
up the ^St. Lawrence. Father Lc Jeune there says: “ Now it will be 
so arranged that, in the course of time each family of our Alontagnais, 
if they become located, will take its own territory for hunting, with- 
out following in the tracks of its neighbours.”'’’ 
1 C'/. Sp<“<'k, r. G. : “Family lliuifiiig Territories and Social Life of \'arious Algonkinn Hands of 
file Ottawa N'alley” ; Geol. Snrv., Canaila, Mern. 70, Anth. Sei-. No. 8 (Ottawa, 1915). 
2 A man naturally rotiirnod to the same trapi»in" ground year after year, because he knew all the 
haunts of the beaver in that district and could provide for their conservation. His winter trapping- 
ground was likewise his huntiiig-grounfl, so that the two terms bi'came synonymous. This development 
from band to family ownership of territory was a logical re.sponse to the clianged conditions, and 
might easily liav'c occurred in eastern Canada within half a century. Cf. th.e growth of family ownei- 
shii> of maple groves among some of the Ojibwa. Thompson: Op. cit... p. 276. 
3 “ Jesuit Relation.s,” vol. viii, p. .57, 1634-6. Cf. Ibid., vol. xxxii, iip 269-271, which again iinpl\' 
that the ownership of the hunting territories was vested in the band, and not in individuals or groups 
of two or three familie.s. The 0,iibwa of Parrv Sound, on lake Huron, a.ssert that their hunting 
territories and maple groves .still belong to the entire hand, and have nci'er been partitioned among 
the families; and Le Clercq states quite definitely that among the Miemau “if i.s the right of the head 
of the nation .... to di.stribute the places of hunting to each individual’’. Le Clereq : Op. cit. 
p. 237. 
