268 
during the winter months hunting moose, caribou, and porcuihne, 
then moved down to the seashore in spring to gather shell-fish, to 
fish at the mouths of the rivers, and to hunt the seals near the coast. 
Like most Algonkian tribes they lived in conical wigwams covered 
with bii'ch bark, and they made canoes and household utensils from 
the same material; but they manufactured also large wooden troughs 
for boiling their food, and even cooking pots from clay — unless 
indeed the numerous fragments of j-xittery found in Nova Scotia 
shell-heaps were the work of some earlier tribe. Their canoes 
resembled the i>eculiar Beothuk type more than the usual Algonkian. 
and their dialect was so different from those of the tribes around 
them, and from the Algonkian dialects spoken about tlie Great 
Lakes, that it suggests they may have been late intruders into the 
Alaritimes, coming perhaps from the northwest. 
The tribe was divided into several exogamous clans, each having 
its own symbols which its members tattooed on their persons, painted 
or worked in porcupine quills on their clothing, carved into orr aments 
to wear on their chests, and painted on their canoes, snowshoes, and 
other possessions. One clan used a cross as its symbol, to the great 
astonishment of the early missionaries, who immediately reinterpreted 
it for the promotion of Christianity. The chiefs of the various bands 
had comparatively little authority; one of their main duties, appar- 
ently, was to assign hunting territories to the different families. The 
war leaders were often not the actual chiefs, but men who had 
distinguished themselves in intertribal fighting; for in spite of their 
rather isolated position the Micmac fought with Algonkian tribes 
in the south, Iroquoian tribes in the west, and Eskimo and Mon- 
tagnais on the north shore of the gulf of St. Lawrence. Their 
weapons were stone tomahawks,^ bows and arrows, spears with two- 
edged blades of moose-bone, and bone or stone knives for scalping 
their foes- From mimic fights beforehand they augured the issue 
of their war-parties, and they celebrated their victories with savage 
feasts and dances at which they generally tortured to death their 
male prisoners, but spared the women and children for absorption 
into the tribe. 
Micmac mothers strapped their babies to wooden cradles orna- 
mented with painted designs, wampum and porcupine-quill embroid- 
1 But See footnote, p. 298. 
