The Beothuk Saga

by Bernard Assiniwi

  The expedition left for the coast the next morning, leaving the two sailors behind to fend for themselves. L’Oignon, the only Beothuk still with them, broke trail for the English on his snowshoes. After a while he stopped, told the others he had seen something, went up to the spot where he said it was, and vanished into the bush. When Buchan reached the spot himself he found the decapitated corpses of his two sailors. When the expedition arrived at their food cache, Buchan saw that all the bread had been taken but the pork meat was still there, although it had been thrown about on the ground. The Beothuk do not eat salt pork, not even when they are starving.

  For the next two suns no one in the expedition closed their eyes. It was supposed to have been an expedition of peace, but now they were so afraid of the Red Men that they practically ran back to the bay where their ship was anchored. They were followed and watched the whole time. L’Oignon the warrior had quickly rejoined his people, including Gausep the Breath, whose name I had forgotten earlier in my story. Ge-oun was with him also.

  “You took your time getting away,” Ge-oun said to L’Oignon. “If you had stayed with them much longer, we would not have been able to save you.”

  “Why were the two sailors killed?” asked L’Oignon.

  “We had no choice. When Nonosabasut and I returned to camp, they became frightened and pointed their pistols at us. Before they could kill us, our women shot them with arrows. Their two arrows would have been enough, but then two young men also fired at them. We had no cause to kill them before that. All we wanted was for everyone to get out of camp and return to the lake. You never know what to expect from these people. They are completely unpredictable. They shoot at anything.”

  “I know. One of them shot through the wall of the mamateek during the night and almost killed a white chief. They are afraid of us. And when those people become afraid, the Beothuk suffer. What are we going to do now?”

  “Keep out of their way, if that’s possible,” said Ge-oun the Jaw.

  49

  Hoping to spend the rest of the season of cold and snow in peace, we moved our camp to the opposite side of Red Ochre Lake, and at the far end of it. It took us four suns, travelling through the cold and the deep snow, to reach this place, where we were certain no Bouguishamesh had ever set foot.

  It was very difficult for us to build new, comfortable mamateeks. Those who had already been sick became worse and died. I was in good health, and was strong, and so even being who I was, Wonaoktaé, known by my people as Demasduit, the Living Memory of the few Beothuk people left on the island now called Newfoundland, I worked like everyone else to care for the sick and share what I had with them. It was during this season of cold and snow that Nonosabasut noticed me for the first time. In the former days, when a woman reached twenty-one season-cycles she would have had to have been very ugly if she was still untaken. But now, with so much sickness and so many of us killed by the invaders, everyone was too busy keeping alive to think about such things. It was not possible to enjoy life, to live in peace as our ancestors had been able to do. Those who lived before us also had problems with the foreigners, but they also knew long periods of quiet, many dozens of season-cycles when there were few worries. The foreigners came to this island and our people saw them come. Now they lived here, in our bays, on our shores, they prevented us from digging clams or gathering food from the sea, they did not allow us to fish in the abundant waters that surround our island. They even chased us into the deepest parts of our forest. It had become intolerable for us. We hardly dared to close our eyes at night for fear of being attacked in our sleep.

  Our people were not entirely without fault. We often attacked the colonists and the fishermen and the fur trappers. But we only attacked them after they had shown themselves to be hostile to us. If the fishermen had been content just to fish, we would have been able to continue gathering our own food from the sea. But the fishermen hired fur trappers who, instead of trying to trade with us, killed us and stole our furs. The Shanung and the Sho-Undamung traded with the French and the English for three hundred season-cycles, but the fur trappers took our furs and offered us nothing in return. They signed treaties with the Mixed-Bloods from the Bay d’Espoir. Why did they never sign a treaty with us?

  When Lieutenant Buchan took us by surprise, there were still a hundred Beothuk living. When Nonosabasut came to ask if he could share my mamateek, three season-cycles later, there were only sixty of us left. The others had either died of the English disease or had been killed by the English fur trappers.

  In the twenty-four season-cycles of my life, I had often travelled with small groups of attackers. We would hide in the bush and steal tools and fish hooks, just so we could take salmon from our own rivers, which the English had claimed for themselves. They blocked the mouths of the rivers with weirs and nets to stop the fish from migrating into the interior of the island, where we lived. We had to travel down the rivers to spear our own salmon in the ponds of the palefaces. If we were careless enough to let ourselves be seen, the English would shoot at us. When we offered to share with them the fish we had taken from the ponds, they fired at us anyway, to punish us for taking them. It took us a long time to understand this way of thinking. To obtain the things that we needed to stay alive, we had to risk being killed. At first it seemed like a game, but we soon learned that the muskets were fired at us in earnest. We had no choice. We could not confront people armed with muskets and pistols. Even if we could obtain muskets and pistols of our own, who would give us powder and shot? Certainly not the same people who were firing at us.

  In the early days of our union, Nonosabasut and I were happy despite our fear of the English. We had lived with that fear since the day we were born, and had become used to it. People were dying all around us, the fur trappers stole our furs, shot at us as though we were rabbits, and prevented us from procuring the food of our forefathers. But we were happy. The joyful laughter of our children took our minds off our troubles, as children had always done among our unfortunate people. And I, as the Living Memory, continued to frighten them with stories of the Bouguishamesh, who killed Beothuk children for sport.

  Our men persisted in provoking the settlers along the coasts by stealing the things from them we needed to survive. Whenever I could, I would accompany these raiding parties: we would often spend several suns watching the foreigners without their knowing, waiting for the right moment to steal their tools.

  After a while, by listening closely, I was able to understand some of the words that came from the tongues of the English. Slowly I was learning their language. The first Europeans to settle in Notre Dame Bay were the French. Their villages were called Toulinguet, Fougue, Fortune, and Change, and the region they inhabited was called la côte des Français. When the English came, they changed the names to Twillingate, Fogo, Change Island, and so on. Nonosabasut’s brother had been called L’Oignon by the French because of his strong breath. It seems that the English took over this region without the permission of the French, and there was much ill feeling between them, although not as much as there was against us.

  Nonosabasut and I were always together, and it seemed to me that we were becoming one and the same person. There was no need for us to speak because I always knew what he was going to say. When he made a gesture, I knew immediately what it meant. I had watched him for such a long time, in fact since my earliest childhood, that I knew him as well as I knew myself.

  The feelings I had for this man were stronger than a simple wish to couple with him, or to make love, to use the phrase taught to us by Wobee the Malouin, who married Ooish and two other Beothuk women in the time of Jacques Cartier, the explorer. The feelings I had were deeper than that; I would give my life to save his. When I told him of these feelings, he laughed.

  “If you ever see anyone point a musket at me,” he said, “don’t be foolish enough to get yourself shot with me. Save yourself, run as fast as you can, in a zigzag. Never trust those people. You are the Living Memory
of the nation, you know better than anyone that we have always suffered when the English come near us.”

  My feelings for this strong and powerful man were such that I can find no words to express them in your language. I was filled up with them, and I wanted nothing more than to be with him. I made his clothes for the cold season by sewing beaver skins from the interior. We both wore the same coats in the cold season. We wore leggings of caribou hide with the hair turned in, and moccasins that went up to our knees. Beneath our coats we were naked. Since the English seemed unable to tell the difference between a man and a woman, we told every Beothuk woman: “Whenever you are in danger, open your coat to show that you are a female. It may save your life.” But this did not always work. In my history of the Beothuk people I have already told you the story of Basdic, the pregnant wife of Bawoodisik, who showed herself to a fur trapper and was eviscerated alive anyway.

  In the course of my short life, I have had to learn the entire history of our people. It took me a long time to learn it. When I had it all in my memory I taught it to my niece, Shanawdithit, who is now fourteen season-cycles old, and therefore old enough to find a husband. But there are no more free men in our community, and the women now refuse to share their husbands, as they did before. So Shanawdithit is dry, and the nation does not expand.

  The year before my union with Nonosabasut, the governor of this island, who lived in the cove called St. John’s Cove, issued another edict aimed at helping us. But he also continued to offer a reward for our capture, and since the English loved rewards they continued to hunt us in order to get them. Money in exchange for a Beothuk seemed to be a good bargain. As for us, we would have given away all the English on the island in exchange for a bit of peace and freedom. But they did not know that.

  One day we were walking along the Exploits River when we came upon a winter camp that someone had built at the bottom of a high falls. It was late in the falling-leaf season. We examined the camp and found metal traps, enough food for the whole winter, and a small pond filled with a hundred salmon. We took the traps and speared twenty of the fish. The men went through the provisions and took some tea, but they destroyed the pork, that disgusting, salty meat that the English love so much. Suddenly a man named Morris appeared. He was a trapper, and well known to us. We quickly ran off into the woods, but Shanawdithit tripped and fell down. When she stood up again, she was hit in her right breast by a musket ball.

  Nonosabasut shouted so loudly and fiercely that the trapper took fright and ran off as fast as he could. My husband picked my niece up in his arms and carried her to our camp at the top of the great falls, where we cared for her for twelve suns, applying to her breast plants that heal wounds and prevent infections. Poor Shanawdithit suffered terribly, and with only one breast she felt herself to be less of a woman. Men were already scarce; how would she find someone who would take her now? A woman with one breast would not be able to provide enough milk to feed a child. This was the second time my niece had been wounded by an English ball. The first time she had lost part of her calf. This time it was a breast. The poor girl. And despite her trouble she also had to learn all the events of the past, so that she could become the Living Memory when I was gone.

  Some of the members of our small community thought that we should make peace with the English, but I was able to give them a hundred reasons why that was impossible. Throughout the whole of our history we have been constantly tricked by those people. Even Lieutenant Buchan, who expressed so much sympathy for our families and our children, formed an expedition made up of the most ferocious and outspoken enemies of the Beothuk.

  And what of the four hundred Beothuk killed at Hant’s Harbour? How could we trust a people that would do that to us? And the four men who had gone with Lieutenant Buchan, if they had not seen smoke at the bottom of the rapids and returned to our camp, would they not have been killed also? It was true that they did not attack L’Oignon, but that was because he was alone: the English knew that if they killed Nonosabasut’s brother they would never make it back to the Bay of Exploits alive. They let L’Oignon go out of fear, not from any generosity of spirit.

  When Shanawdithit regained her health and her strength and was able to make the journey back to Red Ochre Lake, we set out on the trail. Snow began to fall, and since we had not taken our snowshoes we had to walk quickly. During the season of cold and snow, a Mixed-Blood from Bay d’Espoir named Paul Paul came to bring us the latest news. He told us that Morris was working for the young John Peyton, the son of a famous hunter of Beothuk. This Peyton had been given the right to trap salmon on the Exploits River, our river, which now no longer belonged to us. It belonged to Peyton. And we received nothing in return. I was careful to memorize this news so that I could tell everyone about it.

  When we began to think about everything that had happened to us, we realized that we were all going to die. But we determined that we would not give up without a fight. There were still ways we could harm our persecutors. L’Oignon, Nonosabasut, Gausep, and Ge-oun decided to undertake a series of raids against the English colonists. Shanawdithit, who cared nothing for danger, decided she would accompany them. I went also, since I did not want Nonosabasut to go into battle without me.

  We left at the end of the season of cold and snow. As soon as the ice melted, we searched along all the rivers that ran down to the rising-sun coast, which was now called the east coast. The first thing we did was destroy all the salmon nets we found in the rivers. We took them out of the water and cut them up into small pieces. We then went to Exploit-Burnt Island and stole all the sails. Even though there were ten or twelve of us, carrying those ships’ sails was not easy. They were very heavy, even when they were folded. We also cut the ships’ hawsers at high tide and pulled them in close to shore, so that when the tide went out they were beached. Then we took the rest of the sails and all the tools we found in them. We took a sail belonging to John Peyton Jr. and another belonging to George Tuff.

  That is how we took our revenge on you heartless and pitiless people. Our pride was wounded, but it would die only when we died. Not before.

  50

  The two brothers who fished for salmon in the West and South West brooks running into New Bay were of quite different characters. George Roswell was kind and generous: whenever we came near his fishing grounds he let us take a few salmon, knowing that we needed them to survive. He also turned a blind eye when some of his hooks and other tools disappeared. He understood that those items were a small price to pay for his peace of mind. He was able to fish in our waters for more than thirty years without once being bothered by a Beothuk. George lived on the West Brook. He had come across Beothuk at leat twenty times during his life, and since he himself was never armed he never needed to defend himself against us. The Beothuk trusted him, and not once did he betray our trust.

  But his brother, Thomas, who fished the South West Brook, always carried his large hunting musket when he went out. He bragged that he had never missed a Beothuk. But he had wounded many of us. In 1789, I think it was, he wounded an old woman who was unable to run fast enough. She was shot in the shoulder, and ended up losing the use of her arm. The wound itself took a long time to heal because the tendons of her muscles were completely severed by the lead ball. The woman was in her fortieth season-cycle. She suffered terribly. After that, the families that spent the warm season in New Bay avoided the South West Brook area and Thomas Roswell, but they continued to hold a grudge against him. Two young men of about sixteen or seventeen season-cycles went there to watch the salmon ponds. They watched for three suns, but every time Thomas went out to check on the ponds he was accompanied by several other men who were well armed. The two young men did not risk an attack.

  But one day Thomas went out alone. He leaned his long musket against a tree and bent over the pond to pull out an enormous salmon using a net with a long handle. That was the signal. The two young men came out of their hiding place and called to him. When the fisherman turned t
o grab his musket, two arrows with metal tips entered his chest, and one of them pierced his heart.

  The two men walked up to him and began naming all the people who had been shot by Thomas Roswell, either wounded or killed. When they had finished their litany, they cut off the man’s head to show to the other Beothuk that their families had been avenged. This story has come down to me. I am telling it so that everyone will know that the Red Men will not die without a fight.

  Little by little, the young members of our community were getting to know the ways of the English. The Mixed-Bloods from the Bay d’Espoir, who had many contacts with these people, told us much about them. They said that all the chiefs of the English nation on the island lived at St. John’s Cove, which they now called simply St. John’s, which was on the Avalon Peninsula, a place where nothing grows, and where the wind is always in the trees. The trees bend over to let the wind go by, because they are too weak to resist its passing.

  Nonosabasut told us of his final plan. He said that if a fire broke out in that town during the season of cold and snow, when the wind was strongest, the flames would quickly spread to every building. Without their houses, the English chiefs would have to return to England, and perhaps the colonists and fishermen would go with them. Without their chiefs, the others would feel lost.

  It was decided to make an expedition to St. John’s the next winter, that is, during the third season-cycle of my union with Nonosabasut. It was a dangerous expedition, because there were many rivers and brooks to cross, and a narrow strip of land on which there were no trees to hide in. This was the thin passage that joined the peninsula to the rest of the island. We would have to make many camps in the open, and wait for the wind to go down before we could make a fire. But we were a courageous group. Nonosabasut would be our leader. There was also L’Oignon, his brother, and Gausep the Breath, Shanawdithit my niece, and myself, the Living Memory of the Beothuk Nation. It would be easier for a small group of five people to travel quickly, and harder for the non-native people of the island to see us.