5 
three families, had no special rights to any portion of it in earlier times. 
Dr, Speck, it is true, has recorded family hunting territories among all 
the Algonkian tribes of eastern Canada, even among the Ojibwa 1 ; but 
this appears to have been a development of the last two or three hundred 
years, since the advent of the fur trade. In pre- European times the bands 
were more migratory than they are today, their territories not restricted 
by white settlements, game more plentiful, and the smaller fur-bearing 
animals of little importance. Hunters did not need to travel far to secure 
game, the Parry Island people say, and though they might legitimately 
pursue their quarry beyond their season’s hunting-grounds into the hunting- 
grounds of others, there was no need for continual encroachment. European 
colonization, followed by treaties that restricted the bands to the areas in 
which they received their treaty money, and the establishment of trading 
posts that tended to curb their wanderings, placed a new emphasis on land 
ownership. Furthermore, the necessity for maintaining the supply of small 
fur-bearing animals, particularly the beaver, gave the individual families 
a special interest in the districts with which they were most familiar, and 
where they generally hunted. White trappers, who were accustomed to 
individual land tenure and more stationary than the Indians, claimed 
individual rights to certain areas, and the Indians, whose daughters so 
frequently married them, naturally followed their example. Thus, it would 
appear, developed the family hunting territories now so characteristic of 
the eastern Algonkians. That they arose not later than the seventeenth 
century seems evident from some passages in the early historians. Thus 
Father Le Jeune, writing of the Montagnais, says: 
“ Now it will be so arranged that, in the course of time each family of our 
Montagnais, if they became located, will take its own territory for hunting, without 
following in the tracks of their neighbours .” 2 
Le Clercq, describing the Micmac, speaks still more definitely: 
“ It is the right of the head of the nation .... to distribute the places of hunting 
to each individual. It is not permitted to any Indian to overstep the 'bounds and 
limits which shall have been assigned him in the assemblies of the elders. These 
are held in autumn and spring expressly to make this assignment .” 3 
Finally, we have the statement of Oldmixon concerning the Cree on 
the southwest coast of Hudson bay, where they were in close contact with 
the Ojibwa: 
“ The Indians of certain Districts, which are bounded by such and such Rivers, 
have each an Okimah, as they call him, or Captain over them, who is an Old Man, 
considered only for his Prudence and Experience. He has no Authority but what 
they think fit to give him upon certain Occasions. He is their Speech-maker to the 
English; as also in their own grave Debates, when they meet every Spring and Fall, 
to settle the Disposition of their Quarters for Hunting, Fowling, and Fishing. Every 
Family have their Boundaries adjusted, which they seldom quit, unless they have 
not Success there in their Hunting, and then they join in with some Family who have 
succeeded .” 4 
1 Cf. Speck, F.: “Family Hunt ing Territories and Social Life of Various Algonkian Bands of the Ottawa Valley;" 
Geol. Surv., Canada, Mem. 70, Anth. Ser. 8 (Ottawa, 1915). 
* “Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents," edited by R. G. Thwaites, yol. VIII, pp. 57, 1634-6 (Cleveland, 
1897). 
•Le Clercq, Chrestien: “New Relation of Gaspesia," translated and edited by W. F. Ganong, p. 237; The 
Champlain Society, Toronto, 1910. 
* “Documents Relating to the Early History of Hudson Bay,” edited by J. B. Tyrrell, p. 382; The Champlain 
Society, Toronto, 1931. 
