The Beothuk Saga Read online

  During the season before the coming of cold and snow, the English of the island always held a ball. That year the main attraction was the close examination of this Beothuk woman, who was dressed up like a Savage. All of the local high society were there. But the Beothuk woman was uncooperative, and spat on anyone who tried to touch her. Some white-haired gentlemen declared that she was already of a certain age and that her character had been formed by her existence. If she would spit in the faces of English women, she would certainly scratch the faces of English men who simply wanted to see if her skin resembled the skin of humans or was more like that of animals. What was more, she coughed, and was suspected of having “the consumption,” as the English called their own disease. It was decided to remove her from the ball and return her to the family that was keeping her. She lived with that family surrounded by children, whom she loved as though they were her own. She had clear, auburn hair and she was slightly taller than English women. After a year it was noted that she seemed to be very sick. Since they did not want to have her death on their consciences, the family contacted William Cull and asked him to take her back to her own people. This he agreed to do. When she was back among her people, however, she spread the contamination, which had not been prevalent since the slaughter at Trinity Bay, and so the English were soon to be rid of the troublesome Savages, as we had become in their eyes.

  William Cull was not a man to go to unnecessary trouble on behalf of a Beothuk. He saw no reason to make the twelve-suns’ journey through the forest to Red Indian Lake just to return a sick old woman to her people. He abandoned her on the shore of the Bay of Exploits to wait for her people to come and get her, without leaving her so much as a blanket to keep herself warm. It was the end of the month of falling leaves, and it was already turning cold on the island. Later William Cull was suspected of having killed her, but no proof of this was ever found. All that was known for certain was that the Beothuk never saw the old woman again.

  One day during the season of abundance, another royal edict was issued forbidding the people of Newfoundland to molest Beothuk. This time it must have been taken seriously, because that year, although there were several recorded encounters between red men and white, no deaths were registered officially. However, the reward for the capture of a live Beothuk was raised to one hundred pounds.

  That year a certain Lieutenant Spratt undertook to make contact with us. This officer brought many objects that we might find useful, and had them placed on the beach at the Bay of Exploits, as bait. Our people went down to look at what was there, but they touched nothing. Spratt never saw so much as a hair on the head of a single surviving member of our people. Throughout the entire operation the Beothuk kept watch on the beach around the bay, aware that the English had set a trap for them. They were not about to let themselves be taken by surprise again. There were not enough of us left to risk such a thing. Ever since Hant’s Harbour, the English disease had continued its ravages, and the number of living Beothuk was sinking rapidly. Births were rare, since the women were too unhealthy to keep their babies.

  It is said that at the end of the eighteenth century there was one man who came to the defence of the Beothuk. His name was G. C. Pulling, a lieutenant in the English navy. He apparently wrote a report in which he strongly denounced the atrocities and acts of barbarism that had been committed by the colonists, fishermen, and fur trappers in the northeast quadrant of our island. According to Lieutenant Pulling, there was more violence against the Beothuk Nation than the Living Memories were able to recount.

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  After receiving a large reward for capturing the old Beothuk woman in Gander Bay, William Cull realized that there was much more money to be earned by trapping Beothuk than by trapping beaver, and so he organized a larger expedition with the aim of bringing in, by force if necessary, more Savages. Cull decided to take his men to the centre of the island to surprise the Redskins, as we were now known, in our winter homes. If, all things being equal, the reward remained as high as the one he had just received, then capturing twenty Redskins would make his fortune. He persuaded his brother John to join him, and the two men enlisted the aid of John Waddy, Thomas Lewis, James Foster, and a fourth man named Joseph. All these men were well known to us, as we had kept a wary eye on them during the warm seasons.

  The expedition left from the Bay of Exploits at the beginning of the season of cold and snow. It was also the first year of the nineteenth century. The English travelled during the winter so that they could walk on the frozen river. That way they were sure to find Red Ochre Lake. In other seasons they would have to walk through the woods and try to keep track of the many bends in the river, and would run the risk of not finding the lake. Surrounded by bush, they would also be more vulnerable to attack by our warriors. Also, there was not much else for the English to do during the winter to earn money. Since they still had to live, why not hunt Redskins? Just before they left, they learned that in the last proclamation of the governor of the island, Vice-Admiral John T. Duckworth, the reward for capturing a Beothuk alive was still one hundred pounds. The men were encouraged by the thought of how much money they could earn.

  But as soon as they entered the woods they became nervous. The Cull brothers and their men were afraid: at the least snap of a twig they would spin around, their weapons ready to fire. The two Mixed-Blood guides they had hired were more afraid of the expedition members than they were of the Beothuk, with whom they were on good terms. As far as they were concerned, they were not leading the English on a raiding party into Beothuk territory; their job was simply to guide them upriver on the ice, showing them how to avoid the dangerous places where the ice was likely to break through. The two guides were very familiar with the river’s treacherous currents and eddies.

  On the fourth day of the march, the men discovered one of our food caches. The storehouse contained one hundred caribou, well dried and sealed in their birchbark containers. Each container also held the heart, kidneys, tongue, and liver of the animal. They also found more than a hundred prime furs and animal skins in the storehouse, which they took. To ease their consciences, in place of the furs they left us some broken tools, which they thought that we, simple Beothuk Savages that we are, would find useful.

  The next morning two of our men showed themselves to the expedition, and so the English knew that we were aware that they were a raiding party, that they had come into our territory to capture us. The two men vanished into the bush on snowshoes as rapidly as they had appeared. It was now clear to the expedition that they had been under surveillance from the start. The guides laughed and talked to each other in their own language, which the English did not understand.

  Weighted down with their stolen goods, the English did not continue their expedition to make contact with the Red Men, the last Beothuk to inhabit the island of the Addaboutik. Instead, they returned to the Bay of Exploits. Still, the expedition had been a profitable one for the men, since they sold the stolen furs at a high price, and it had cost them nothing to obtain them.

  Later that same year, in August, Lieutenant Buchan arrived in the Bay of Exploits on the ship Adonis. Since it was late in the season, Buchan decided to spend part of the winter in Ship Cove, to wait for an opportune moment.

  During the cold season, Lieutenant Buchan undertook to travel up the Exploits River, led by William Cull and his friends. Matthew Hughster, Thomas Taylor, and twenty-three men from the Adonis crew formed this new expedition. Although the leader was different, most of the members were the same men, and were well known to us. They were Redskin hunters, and the Beothuk were wary of them whenever they came near. However, the expedition brought provisions and many useful things which they intended to give us, nearly two tons of useful merchandise. All the items had been loaded onto twelve sledges and pulled by sailors from the Adonis, who were armed with pistols and swords. The fur trappers insisted on carrying their long hunting muskets, and Buchan gave them permission to do so.

  The exped
ition experienced great difficulty in travelling up the Exploits River. The members were clearly unskilled at using snowshoes. They did not lift their feet high enough to clear the front of the snowshoe. When there was even a light crust on the surface, the snowshoes would catch under it and the men would trip and injure their legs or twist their ankles. Novices tend to tie their whole feet to their snowshoes, but only the toe is supposed to be attached, leaving the heel free. That way, the tail of the snowshoe never leaves the snow, and there is always some contact with solid ground. When the foot is raised, it must be placed down ahead of the other foot. If you set it down beside the other foot, you will become tired very quickly. You must also take turns breaking trail. After a snowshoer has broken trail for a while, he must fall back and let another man take the lead, otherwise he will soon become exhausted. That is the secret of walking on snowshoes.

  One morning the expedition came upon the remains of a mamateek on an island in the middle of the river. After ten more suns of marching, they found one of our storehouses. It was circular in form, which was how our ancestors built their storehouses. It was made from small trees cut and stuck straight up in the ground, and covered with caribou skins sewn together.

  A Beothuk could make the trek from the Bay of Exploits up the river to Red Ochre Lake in less than six suns. Often we could do it in five. The English had been travelling for twelve suns and were still one sun away from our lake. They made camp at the base of a rapids, and the next day Lieutenant Buchan decided to leave the provisions behind with a guard of fifteen sailors, and to continue upriver with eight of his best snowshoers. That day they felt they were being spied upon by shadows in the woods. They became very nervous. They knew that their presence had been noticed.

  The next day they entered a clearing near Red Ochre Lake, where they found three mamateeks: two of them close together, and the third about two hundred paces distant. It was early morning, and the Beothuk were still sleeping. The intruders could hear them snoring. Since there were nine English, all well armed, they decided to break into all three mamateeks at the same time, to profit from the element of surprise. At a signal, the three doors of the mamateeks were thrown open and we were startled from our sleep.

  That winter my whole family had decided to camp on the south shore of the northern arm of the lake. When Lieutenant Buchan crept into our clearing like a thief, our family was divided into three mamateeks. In the first, the one separated from the others, was my brother Mamjaesdoo and his family, including my niece Shanawdithit. I was in the middle mamateek with my father, my mother, and my brothers and sisters. Shanawdithit’s uncle, her mother’s brother, was in the third mamateek. His name was Nonosabasut, the handsome one, who was as strong as a bear. With him was his brother L’Oignon, so named by the French of our nation. In all, we were twenty men, twenty-two women, and thirty children. Seventy-two people in three huge mamateeks. I was twenty-one season-cycles old. I had been born the year they found Tom June drowned in the harbour on Fogo Island.

  Farther away, on the south shore of the lake, was a camp consisting of two mamateeks containing five men, seven women, and five children. Closer to our camp were two more mamateeks, with only four men, three women, and six children. In the three camps there were one hundred and two people, all that was left of the two thousand or more who had made up the Beothuk Nation only a few hundred season-cycles before.

  When Lieutenant Buchan arrived in our camp, we were sleeping comfortably in our mamateek. The coals in the firepit were still warm, and since it was not very cold outside life seemed good to us. When the sound of voices reached us, my father woke up and tried to understand what it was we were hearing. Then the other adults sat up, each of them alert. I sat up, too. From where I was, I could clearly see the others’ faces in the soft light from the embers. Suddenly the door-covering of the mamateek flew open and men wearing blue and red clothing surged into our home. We were completely stunned by this sudden intrusion. The men in blue with bright buttons down the front were not known to us, but the other men, the men wearing caribou skins and carrying long muskets, we knew all too well. By their presence we knew that some of us would die that day. One of the men in blue, a small man, smiled broadly and began seizing the hands of our adults and shaking them vigorously up and down, as the English do so often among themselves. When he came to a child, he stroked its head in a friendly manner, as we ourselves do with our children. Slowly, our fear subsided, and the adults became curious, admiring the shining buttons of the men in blue. My father got up, stirred the fire to life, and invited the men in blue to sit down beside it.

  The adult women, including my mother, took some caribou meat and began to cook it on the fire on the ends of small sticks. Then she offered it to the Englishmen, who took it without showing any of the distaste that non-natives usually show when we offer them food. All this time one of the men, a fur trapper, was looking at me. I could see his eyes travelling up and down my body. My chest was bare, as were those of the other women in the mamateek. I know that English women do not bare their breasts. Even when they are nursing, they just loosen their dresses and reveal only the tip of their nipples to their babies. But this man stared so long at my breasts that I began to be afraid, and pulled the blanket up over my body. This uncovered my legs and my sex. At that, the man’s face went completely slack, and I quickly grabbed my brother’s blanket and covered myself. His expression troubled me deeply. His chief saw that something was wrong, and said something to the man that I could not understand, and the man turned his face and stared into the fire. By their gestures, we understood that these men did not mean to harm us. They indicated that they had gifts for us, but that these gifts were at the end of the first rapids below the lake. We put on our outer clothing and everyone left the mamateek. All the other Beothuk were outside already, talking with the rest of the Englishmen, but no one seemed to understand what anyone else was saying.

  With more gestures, the English chief gave our men to understand that he had gifts for us, but that we must come to their camp below the rapids to get them. He asked if any Beothuk would accompany him to his camp. Still suspicious, our men consulted with each other. In the end, four men, including Nonosabasut and his brother L’Oignon and Ge-oun the Jaw, decided to go with the English. Nonosabasut said to his family:

  “We will go with them to get them away from here. When we’re gone, you must all get away. We’ll lose them on the path, since they cannot chase us very well on snowshoes.”

  But this plan was ruined when the lieutenant left two sailors with us, “as a sign of good faith,” he seemed to be saying. The two men were James Butler and Thomas Bouthland.

  Buchan left with six of his men and four of ours. The four Beothuk told us later that the English were visibly ill at ease as they returned to their camp. Nonosabasut thought that the men believed they were being followed. In fact they were right, because two Mixed-Bloods had been following them since they left the Bay of Exploits. These had been William Cull’s guides on the previous expedition. When they had gone only one-quarter of the way back to the English camp, Ge-oun explained by gestures to the lieutenant that he was going back to his people, to see his small baby. Nonosabasut decided to go with him. That left only L’Oignon and the other warrior, whose name I do not remember, even though I am the Living Memory of the nation.

  As soon as the nine men reached the top of the hill overlooking our camp, the Beothuk who was with L’Oignon, seeing much smoke and many men in the English camp, decided to go back to his family. He ran away, calling for L’Oignon to run, too. But L’Oignon replied that he was not afraid of the English, and continued with Lieutenant Buchan. When Ge-oun and Nonosabasut reached our camp, the two sailors left to wait with us became afraid, and raised their pistols and pointed them at the men.

  When my mother and older sister saw this, they grabbed two bows that were hanging on our mamateek and quickly shot two arrows at the sailors, hitting them in the back. Almost at the same time, two young
men also fired arrows at the sailors, also hitting them in the back. The sailors sank to the ground. Nonosabasut and Ge-oun were angered by this survival instinct that had caused four of our people to defend themselves from the threat of the pistols. But three of the four had been wounded by English muskets. My mother had been shot three times, twice so badly that she had almost died from the wounds. Nonosabasut decided that the bodies of the English sailors could not be left in camp, and he lifted one on his shoulders to carry it somewhere else. He ordered the rest of us to hurry to the next camp as quickly as possible.

  Faster than it is taking me to tell it, we gathered up our things and ran to the next camp. Nonosabasut cut the heads off the two corpses. This was a symbolic gesture meant to say there was no glory in their deaths, that death for them was anonymous and they should not be recognized by their relatives in the Afterlife.

  The next morning Buchan and his men returned to our camp and found no one there. We had all disappeared, including his two sailors. Buchan distributed his gifts to the three mamateeks. And since it was late and the sun went down early in the cold season, he decided to spend the night in our homes. The English were very nervous. One of them, John Grimes, heard a sound outside the mamateek and, without looking to see what it was, shot his musket through the bark covering. There was a loud shout of anger, followed by much cursing in English: Thomas Taylor had had his sleeve burned by Grimes’s ball. Taylor was extremely angry, and it was all Buchan could do to prevent him from attacking the sailor who had been so nervous that he had fired his musket without looking. L’Oignon wondered what would have happened if the man outside had been a Beothuk.