Mi'kmaq

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Mi'kmaq
Míkmaq State flag
Total population	40,000
Regions with significant populations	Canada (New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec), United States (Maine)
Language	English, Míkmaq, French
Religion	Christianity, other <tr> <th style="background-color:#fee8ab;">Related ethnic groups</th><td style="background-color:#fff6d9;">other Algonquian peoples</td> </tr>

The Mi'kmaq

The Mi'kmaq ([miːgmaɣ]; also spelled Míkmaq, Mi'gmaq, Micmac or MicMac) are a First Nations people, indigenous to northeastern New England, Canada's Atlantic Provinces, and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. The word Míkmaw is an adjectival form of the plural noun for the people, Míkmaq.

Mi'kmaq are self recognized as L'nu (in the singular; the plural is Lnu'k). (The Nova Scotia Museum's Mi'kmaq Portraits database).

The Nation has a population of about 40,000 of whom approximately one-third still speak the Algonquian language Lnuísimk which was once written in Míkmaq hieroglyphic writing and is now written using most letters of the standard Latin alphabet. The name Mi'kmaq comes from a word in their language meaning "allies".

In the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador October is celebrated as Mi'kmaq History Month and the entire Nation celebrates Treaty Day annually on October 1st.

History

The Mi'kmaq were members of the Wabanaki (/Wɑbɑnɑ•ɣɔdi/) Confederacy, an alliance with four other Algonquian nations: the Abenaki, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Maliseet. At the time of contact with the French (late 1500s) they were expanding from their Maritime base westward along the Gaspé Peninsula /St. Lawrence River at the expense of Iroquioian Mohawk tribes, hence the Mi'kmaq name for this peninsula, Gespedeg ("last-acquired"). In 1610, Chief Membertou concluded their first alliance with Europeans, a concordat with the French Jesuits that affirmed the right of Mi'kmaq to choose Catholicism, Mi'kmaq tradition, or both.

The Mi'kmaq were allies with the French, and were amenable to limited French settlement in their midst. But as France lost control of Acadia in the early 1700s, they soon found themselves overwhelmed by British (English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh) who seized much of the land without payment and deported the French. Between 1725 and 1779, the Mi'kmaq signed a series of peace and friendship treaties with Great Britain, but none of these were land cession treaties. The nation historically consisted of seven districts, but this was later expanded to eight with the ceremonial addition of Great Britain at the time of the 1749 treaty. Later on the Mi'kmaq also settled Newfoundland as the unrelated Beothuk tribe became extinct. Mi'kmaq representatives also concluded the first international treaty with the United States after its declaration of independence, the Treaty of Watertown.

Mi'kmaq First Nation subdivisions

Note: Mi'kmaq names in the table have all been spelled according to a several orthographies; The Mi'kmaq orthographies in use are Míkmaq hieroglyphs, the orthography of Silas Tertius Rand, the Pacifique orthography, and the most recent Smith-Francis orthography, which has been adopted by most of the Mi'kmaq First Nation. (Compare Kespék versus Gespeg).

Demographics

The pre-contact population is estimated at 35,000. In 1616 Father Biard believed the Mi'kmaq population to be in excess of 3.000. But he remarked that, because of European diseases, there had been large population losses in the last century.Smallpox, wars and alcoholism led to a further decline of the native population, which was probably at its lowest in the middle of the 17th century. Then the numbers grew slightly again and seemed to be stable during the 19th century. In the 20th century the population was on the rise again. The average growth from 1965 to 1970 was about 2.5 %.

Other

The spiritual capital of the Mi'kmaq nation is the gathering place of the Mi'kmaq Grand Council, Mniku or Chapel Island in the Bras d'Or Lakes of Cape Breton Island. The island also the site of the St. Anne Mission, an important pilgrimage site for the Mi'kmaq. The island has been declared a historic site. (CBC)

The name "Quebec" is thought to derive from a Mi'kmaq word meaning "strait," referring to the narrow channel of the Saint Lawrence River near the city site.

See also

• Treaty of Watertown
• Bob Newman - radio host and Mi'kmaq
• Elsipogtog First Nation

Literature

• Bruce G. Trigger (Hrsg.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15. Northeast. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. 1978 ISBN 0-16-004575-4
• Harald E. L. Prins: The Mi'kmaq: Resistance, Accommodation, and Cultural Survival (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology), Thomson Learning, 1996, ISBN 0-03-053427-5
• Stephen A. Davis: Mi'kmaq: Peoples of the Maritimes, Nimbus Publishing (CN), 1998, ISBN 1-55109-180-1
• Daniel N. Paul:We Were Not the Savages: A Mi'kmaq Perspective on the Collision Between European and Native American Civilizations, Fernwood Pub., 2000, ISBN 1-55266-039-7
• William C. Wicken: Mi'kmaq Treaties on Trial: History, Land, and Donald Marshall Junior, University of Toronto Press Inc., 2002, ISBN 0-8020-7665-3
• Ruth Holmes Whitehead: The Old Man Told Us: Excerpts from Mi'kmaq History 1500-1950, Nimbus Pub Ltd, 2004, ISBN 0-921054-83-1
• Rita Joe, Lesley Choyce: The Mi'kmaq Anthology, Nimbus Publishing (CN), 2005, ISBN 1-895900-04-2

External links

• First Nations Profiles
• Micmac History
• Mi'kmaq History Month
• Mi'kmaq Portraits Collection
• Mi'kmaq Dictionary Online
• The Micmac of Megumaagee

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