270 
MALECITE 
The Malecite (the meaning; of the name is uncertain) so closely 
resembled the Micmac in their customs that the early writers seldom 
distinguished the two tribes clearly. Their dialect, however, was 
quite different, and they raised considerable crops of maize, so that 
they were rather less dependent on fishing and the chase than their 
neighbours, who seem not to have practised agriculture before the 
seventeenth century. Politically, the Malecite were completely inde- 
pendent, and indeed on one occasion actively hostile to the Micmac. 
The boundary between the two tribes was roughly the height of land 
separating the waters that flow into the St. John river from those 
that enter the gulf of St. Lawrence. The territory of the Malecite, 
however, stretched beyond the drainage basin of St. John river to 
the shore of the St. Lawrence opposite Tadoussac, and included also 
part of the state of Maine. They joined with several Algonkian 
tribes to the southward to form a loose confederacy generally known 
as the Abenaki (“Eastern”) Confederacy, which supported the 
French against the English colonists of New England and the league 
of the Iroquois. Driven across the border into Canada, they sharetl 
tlie same fate as the Alicmac, being confined to a few reserves in New 
Brunswick and Quebec. To-day they number about 800, approxi- 
mately the same as in pre-European times, but all the present popu- 
lation bear a strong infusion of white blood. 
MONTAGNAIS AND NASKAPI 
These two tribes (Alontagnais, “Mountaineers”; Naskapi, “rude, 
uncivilized people”) were the first to come into close contact with 
Europeans, yet they have remained, in some districts, almost more 
primitive than any other Indians in Canada. This is partly due, no 
doubt, to the character of the country they inhabit, for it covers so 
vast an area, and much of it is so rugged and inliospitable, that even 
to-day it has not been fully explored. The territory of the Monta- 
gnais comprised the huge square bounded on one side by the nortli 
shore of the gulf of St. Lawrence between the St. Maurice river and 
Seven Islands, on the other by the height of land that separates 
the waters flowing into the St. Lawrence from those flowing into 
James bay. The Naskapi occupied a still larger area; they roamed 
the entire Labrador peninsula east of a line from Seven Islands to 
