(Red Indians)
to be very little information and history on this tribe.
Most historians and authors have dealt with this tribe in superficial terms by mentioning
only three things: (1) That John Cabot "found" these "Indians" when he landed in Nfld.
(2) That they were covered in red ochre and (3) that the tribe is now extinct.
Even the volumes by the Geographic Board of Canada and Encyclopedia Canadiana
ignore this tribe and relegate the Beothuks to a few scattered references or the odd,
misinformed, paragraph. There is only one book that successfully portrays the culture
of the Beothuks, and this volume was originally published in 1915.
The title of this book is: "The Beothuk or Red Indians; The Aboriginal Inhabitants of Nfld."
and has yet to be surpassed for its extensive and factual information.
It has been written:
"There has been a primitive nation, once claiming rank as a portion of the human race,
who lived, flourished, and become extinct in their own orbit. They have been dislodged
and disappeared from the earth in their native independence in 1829, in as primitive
condition as they were before the discovery of the New World."
red ochre all over themselves and their possessions "painting" themselves red. They
smeared their clothing, implements, ornaments, canoes, bows and arrows etc. with
this red pigment they called "odemet". Red ochre is a mixture of red earth, oxide of
iron and oil or grease. Small packages of this material, tied up in birch bark, are found
buried with their dead and there is evidence that long after the flesh had decomposed,
they visited the sepulchres and rubbed ochre over the skeletons of their departed kin.
Proof of this lies in a skeleton that was recovered and is now in a museum.
We now have information on the history of these people that, until recently was unknown
************************************************************
Although Newfoundland has been occupied by Europeans for two and a half centuries,
that is since the discovery of the New World, nothing of consequence has been
collected and preserved in relation to the Aboriginal inhabitants, "The Red Indians". All
that remain are a few fabulous fragments, which have shone out now and then as
connected evidence of the contention of this remarkable tribe, inhabiting the island.
These Aborigines, it is evident, never courted friendship with the whiteman and their
stern self dependent character withstood European allurements. The Beothuks were
purely self reliant people, known only to the world as "the people that has been". The
only considerable research, done too late, leaves us much proof that this tribe is
irrevobably lost to the world.
With the discovery of the New World came the early voyagers to Newfoundland. The
Portuguese, English, French and Spaniards who in general, up until the middle of the
17th century were on friendly terms with the Aborigines of the Island. Early writings
speak of the of the English as being the first and only European agressors of the
"Red Indians". The English were slaughtering the Aborigines and the government did
nothing.
We can see the horror being documented in the following article written by
Harold Horwood, entitled "The people who murdered for fun"...published in Maclean's
Magazine, October 10, 1959. It reads in part:
"The largest massacre of Beothuks took place near Hants Harbour, Trinity Bay. There a
group of Fishermen, armed for hunting, managed to trap a whole tribe of Beothuks,
driving them out on a penninsula which justs into the sea. They followed the panic
stricken Indians until they were crowded to the last inch of land, and then proceeded to
slaughter them with their guns. Those who rushed into the seas were shot as they tried
to swim and those who knelt and pleaded for mercy were shot as they knelt. The
carnage did not stop until they had murdered every man, woman and child. They did not
make an exact count of the number killed, but reported it to be about four hundred!"
On several occasions Aboriginal females were captured and taken to St. John's for
exhibition but it seems no males lives were spared.
By the 18th Century as settlement began to take place on the Northern Coast of the
island, primarily in the Bay of Notre Dame, meetings between the Aborigines and the
Europeans became more frequent and unavoidable confrontations took place. In nearly
all accounts the settlers appeared to be the agressors.
TO BE CONTINUED..............
