Beothuk
The Beothuk (/biːˈɒtək/ or /ˈbeɪ.əθʊk/; also spelled Beothuck)[1][2] were a group of Indigenous people of Canada who lived on the island of Newfoundland.
During spring, the Beothuk used red ochre to paint not only their bodies but also their houses, canoes, weapons, household appliances, and musical instruments.
In the fall, they set up deer fences, sometimes 30–40 miles (48–64 km) long, used to drive migrating caribou toward waiting hunters armed with bows and arrows.
[10] The Beothuk are also known to have made a pudding out of tree sap[citation needed] and the dried yolk of the eggs of the great auk.
[11] They preserved surplus food for use during winter, trapped various fur-bearing animals, and worked their skins for warm clothing.
The survivors placed offerings at burial sites to accompany the dead, such as figurines, pendants, and replicas of tools.
They would also collect any tools, shelters, and building materials left by the European fishermen who had dried and cured their catch before taking it to Europe at the end of the season.
In the interior, fur trappers established traplines, disrupted the caribou hunts, and ransacked Beothuk stores, camps, and supplies.
Cartwright's expedition was commissioned by Governor Hugh Palliser; he found no Beothuk, but brought back important cultural information.
The Beothuks emigrated from their traditional land and lifestyle into ecosystems unable to support them, causing under-nourishment and, eventually, starvation.
[21] Information about the Beothuk was based on accounts by the woman Shanawdithit, who told about the people who "wintered on the Exploits River or at Red Indian Lake and resorted to the coast in Notre Dame Bay".
[22] During the colonial period, the Beothuk people allegedly endured territorial pressure from other Indigenous groups: Mi'kmaq migrants from Cape Breton Island,[23][24] and Inuit from Labrador.
[26][27] Beothuk numbers dwindled rapidly due to a combination of factors, including:[28] By 1829, with the death of Shanawdithit, the people were declared extinct.
[10][29] Oral histories suggest a few Beothuk survived around the region of the Exploits River, Twillingate, Newfoundland and Labrador; and formed unions with European colonists, Inuit and Mi'kmaq.
In 1910, a 75-year-old Indigenous woman named Santu Toney claimed she was the daughter of a Mi'kmaq mother and a Beothuk father.
[29] [better source needed] If such a campaign did occur, it was explicitly without official sanction after 1769, any such action thereafter being in violation of Governor John Byron's proclamation that "I do strictly enjoin and require all His Majesty's subjects to live in amity and brotherly kindness with the native savages [Beothuk] of the said island of Newfoundland",[23] as well as the subsequent Proclamation issued by Governor John Holloway on July 30, 1807, which prohibited mistreatment of the Beothuk and offered a reward for any information on such mistreatment.
[35] Adhikari comments how the intentional nature of the destructive violence from colonizers is part of the evidence that makes this a case of genocide.
[37] Adhikari collects various accounts of mass violence conducted by Europeans against the Beothuk, the most infamous of which is a raid that occurred in winter 1789.
He approved an expedition, to be led by the Scottish explorer David Buchan, to recover a boat and other fishing gear foraged by the Beothuk.
The Beothuk scattered, although Demasduit was unable to escape and begged for mercy, exposing her breasts to show she was a nursing mother with child.
In January 1820, Demasduit was released to rejoin her people, but she died of tuberculosis on the voyage to Notre Dame Bay.
Called Nancy April by the settlers, Shanawdithit lived for several years in the home of John Peyton Jr. as a servant.
The area around eastern Notre Dame Bay, on the northeast coast of Newfoundland, contains numerous archeological sites containing material from Indigenous cultures.
There are references that document Beothuk presence in the region of Notre Dame Bay in the last half of the 18th and early part of the 19th century.
[44] Previous archaeological surveys and amateur finds indicate it was likely the Beothuk lived in the area prior to European encounter.
They modified nails to use as what are believed to be scrapers to remove fat from animal hides, they straightened fish hooks and adapted them as awls, they fashioned lead into ornaments, and so on.
In summary, the Boyd's Cove Beothuk took debris from an early modern European fishery and fashioned materials.
This adds evidence to the claim that the Beothuk were cut off from their food sources which led to many of them starving to death as they were pushed inland.
[58] In 2007, DNA testing was conducted on material from the teeth of Demasduit and her husband Nonosabasut, two Beothuk individuals buried in the 1820s.
DNA research indicates they were solely of First Nation Indigenous maternal ancestry, unlike some earlier studies suggesting an Indigenous/European hybrid.
