Marc-Adélard Tremblay (1922 - )
et Josée Thivierge
“The Nature and Scope
of Jacques Rousseau’s Amerindian Works”.
Actes du 17e Congrès des Algonquinistes, Proceedings of the Seventieth Algonkian Conference, par William Cohen, 1987, pp. 343-376. Ottawa: Carleton University Press.
- 1. Some Biographical Background
- 2. From Botany to Ethnography
- 3. Jacques Rousseau’s Amerindian Output
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- A. His Northern Journeys
B. His Ecological Perspective
- C. Rousseau's Native Themes
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- i. Material Culture-Natural Setting
ii. Socio-economic Organization
iii. The Religious Universe
- iv. Culture Contacts
- v. Portrayals of Indians by Whites
- vi. Ethnoscience, Ethnobotany and Ethnomedicine
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- 4. Rousseau's Ethnological Influence
- Conclusion
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- Appendix
- References
[343]
1. Some Biographical Background
This paper [1] on Jacques Rousseau is far from being exhaustive since it deals only with his Amerindian works. [2] It is our hope that someone in the future will undertake the task of dealing with all his [344] works. Born at St. Lambert, near Montréal, on October 5, 1905, Jacques Rousseau died prematurely on August 5, 1970 at Ouareau Lake, in the county that now bears his name. He obtained his licence-ès-sciences from the University of Montréal in 1928 (Botanical Institute) and a doctorate in science from the same university in 1934. In 1944 he became the director of the Botanical Institute of the University of Montreal, a position he held for 12 years. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1942, member of the Société des Dix in 1951, member of the Order of Canada in 1969, Professor Rousseau belonged to some 60 learned societies.
Jacques Rousseau gained wide-spread fame through his expeditions to the Québec-Labrador Peninsula and to other remote regions of Canada. He was a man of science but also one who was equally skilled in a wide variety of natural and human disciplines, and who left a written production of close to 550 titles. It was this interdisciplinary competence which led to his becoming the first Director of the History Branch of the National Museum of Man in Ottawa, from 1956 to 1959. "His written work (observation notes, diary, reviews, articles), including numerous articles on 'Amérindiens' [3], a concept now in use in ethnological writings, demonstrate rare conversational skills and original views. His writings reveal a breadth of scientific knowledge and are masterpieces of interdisciplinary writing, though his innovating talents were not fully recognized in his lifetime" (Tremblay 1985:1599). Naturalist and ethnohistorian with an international reputation, a close associate of Brother Marie-Victorin and of a handful of young scientists who established the Québec scientific community [345] in the 30s, first secretary of I'ACFAS (The French-Canadian Society for the Advancement of Science), a position he held for 12 years (1930-46), Research Professor at the Centre for Northern Studies at Laval University at the time of his death, Dr. Jacques Rousseau belonged to the generation of men of science whose interests touched upon a wide spectrum of topics and whose questionings were limitless.
2. From Botany to Ethnography
Jacques Rousseau carried out pioneering studies on Amerindians; his scholarly production spans a period of three decades and touches upon all the main levels of culture. [4] His descriptions of native cultures are rigorous and his analyses thorough. He applied to the field of ethnography the observational and descriptive techniques of the natural sciences in much the same fashion as Franz Boas had done before him among the Inuit and the Northwest Coast Indians. Although his theoretical scheme of reference and his level of conceptual specificity did not match the level of sophistication which has been reached in recent years, Rousseau skillfully used the ecological model [5] which did acquire an undeniable operational validity in the subfields of economic anthropology and the anthropology of health in the years that immediately followed his major contributions. Moreover, in the field situation, he exemplified the necessity for the observer to identify himself intensively with the subject of study, a sort of cultural empathy, with the view of reaching individual and collective behaviour from the inside and reflecting it with the greatest authenticity possible. As a self-trained cultural anthropologist, he naturally moved away from the criteria then used to measure objectivity, that is, the Kantian dissociation from the object. His participant-observational style will become the path to follow with the growth in importance of young ethnologists associated with the journal Recherches amérindiennes au Québec. Finally, one cannot [346] omit mentioning his complete involvement in the various endeavours to combat ethnocentric and racist views, to foster economic and social reforms aiming at counteracting the planned acculturational schemes of the whites and to better native levels of living. If his denunciations, actions and interventions did reflect the ardour of his temperament, they are nonetheless forerunners of a style of anthropology that is problem-oriented and that is in the process of acquiring greater importance on the market place.
These preliminary observations are indicative of our feeling and can be regarded as a testimony to our profound admiration towards a man that was a giant of science in Québec and a precursor of a new ethnological style. That style contrasted sharply with that used by university-trained social anthropologists, who were still strongly influenced by the objectivity model of the experimental sciences. Ironically, it was introduced by an individual who himself had been trained in the natural sciences. Unfortunately, that perceived epistemological contradiction was not resolved within the Québec social science community during his lifetime. The high esteem given Rousseau by his French anthropologist and ethnobiologist colleagues [6] was not reciprocated here, with the exception of a few interdisciplinary men of science who were familiar with the wealth of [347] his scientific writings and were conscious of the fact that any research enterprise had to be conducted with the fullest autonomy and freedom of thought. [7]
As we said earlier, Rousseau's native studies represent one part of his overall scientific work. If we were to study his global production, we would have to view it within the wider context of his scientific training, of his botanical expeditions, of his close association with Brother Marie-Victorin, of his active participation to the growing importance of the ACFAS, of his professional experiences at the Botanical garden of Montréal and at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa, of his teaching and research functions at the Sorbonne at the time of his exile and at The Centre for Northern Studies at Laval. The biographical profile of this man of science has yet to be constructed. It represents a monumental task which goes beyond the horizons of a single discipline or the knowledge of those who have known him. For Rousseau, in addition to being a strong participant in the building up of science in Québec (cf. Fournier and Maheu 1975; Fournier et al 1972; Lortie 1960; Marie-Victorin 1939; Pouliot 1938), was closely associated with the coming of age of the Québec social sciences, and with their evolution toward interdisciplinary studies. In his published and unpublished work, he dealt with ethnology and ethnolinguistics, geography and choronymy, ethnobotany and ethnozoology, ethnohistory and ethnoscience. [8] From his standpoint, knowledge had no frontier. His conceptual discourse [348] reflected both his training in the natural sciences, his historical keenness, the breadth of his culture, his natural talents as a story-teller and commentator and his poetic inspiration. [9] We shall identify the fields upon which he focused his Amerindian studies with the view to pinpointing the main elements which gave originality to his anthropological contributions.
3. Jacques Rousseau’s
Amerindian Output [10]
- A. His Northern Journeys
Two types of experience deeply influenced Rousseau's professional and intellectual development. The first was his keen interest in the history of Canada as it could be discerned through the logbooks and diaries of early explorers; [11] the second was the numerous botanical expeditions which he undertook as early as 1948. These allowed him to make inventories of the local flora and, in the case of his northern expeditions, to gain an inside view of native lifestyles and to get to know the peoples of remote northern areas, the Montagnais, Naskapi, and Inuit. Rousseau used his long and exhausting northern journeys to gather observations and information on both northern ecosystems and native cultures. His interest in native customs and lifestyle developed out of his knowledge of northern flora and its use by native peoples. The step from botany to ethnography [349] was a small and natural one for him. Using the trail of his published material, we followed Rousseau's interests as they shifted, little by little, towards the study of Amerindian lifestyles which eventually became his principal focus.
- B. His Ecological Perspective
Rousseau's training in botany and the natural sciences as well as his field experience formed the basis of the theoretical focus of his work. He used a cultural ecological approach focused on the interrelationships between native peoples and their natural environment, and on the ingenious ways in which they used natural resources in order to survive. A large number of Rousseau's writings deal with material and socio-economic aspects of native culture. [12] In his view there was a symbiotic relationship between native technology and social structure as both were cultural responses to distinctive ecological conditions. Similarly, the world view of the native peoples, their thought processes and their religious beliefs, also stemmed from the close relationship between natural environment and lifestyle. Rousseau saw these relationships as the basis of cultural diversity throughout the world. [13] Thus, the ecology of the boreal forest, unsuitable for agriculture, imposed a nomadic hunting and gathering lifestyle on the Montagnais-Naskapi in their huge homeland. The basic social units in such a culture were necessarily small, mainly involving close relatives, living for many months of the year in self-sufficient isolation. This type of human environment relationship among the native peoples was designed to maintain a balance between the needs of the social unit and the need for the environment to renew itself. The native practices were in sharp contrast to those of the whites who had no conception of the need for such an equilibrium. Rousseau vigourously documented and denounced the universal attitude of exploitation of the environment which prevailed among the whites. [14] He [350] was preoccupied with the protection and conservation of the environment. For example, as an advocate of reindeer husbandry in the north, he carefully addressed the matter of ecological limits which the tundra represents for this type of farming.
- C. Rousseau's Native Themes
Preliminary observations. The catalogue of Rousseau's publications on native topics [15] allows us to identify his principal themes. The categories used here might appear arbitrary for two main reasons. The first is that they are clearly not based on either a content analysis, in the technical sense of that concept, or on a quantitative analysis which attempts to give weight to the relative importance of the very varied publications concerned. The second reason is that Rousseau's approach does not permit the isolation of distinct, separate categories. On the contrary, in any one of his publications, the description of a technique, for example, is placed in the context of the use of that technique and of a range of repercussions which it has on native lifestyles, socio-economic organization and institutions. The breakdown of ethnographic material used here allows us to comment upon each of the classical ethnological categories which formed the background and framework of Rousseau's ethnography. We treat, one by one, material culture, socio-economic organization, religion, culture contacts, the native view of whites and ethnoscience.
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- i. Material Culture-Natural Setting
Two articles which best characterize Rousseau's contribution to the analysis of techniques are "The Indian in the Boreal Forest: a Part of the Ecosystem" (1957b: 37-54) and "The First Canadians" [351] (1960: 9-64). In each case study, the techniques are inseparable from the natural setting which produces them. The northern scholar in effect views the many facets of material culture as so many specific manifestations of the adaptation of man to his environment. His conception of "the birch-grove civilization" clearly illustrates this point.
Starting here, one can ask how Rousseau applied his ecological perspective to his subject matter. In other words, how did he view his subject matter and what approach did he take to it? What type of explanation emerges from his understanding of the social reality? These questions provoke three observations. In the first place, animal and vegetable resources are presented as a dynamic system having, at one and the same time, a foundation, a process of development, and an ending. Thus one follows very clearly the behavioural patterns as they progress from bark gathering through canoe building to methods of travel. Or, again, one is present at a bear hunt to end up at the "feast without end", the Makoucham and its associated rituals. Another aspect, which was not only applied to material techniques, characterizes the Rousseauesque approach as much as this one: this is the spatio-temporal dimension which is expressed in the dichotomy between the periods before and after the arrival of the whites in North America. This historical division is associated with the external influence on change (diffusion, borrowing, exchange). He identifies, among other things, the techniques which the Indians borrowed from the whites, taking care to show how these were integrated into the Indian way of life. At the same time, he documents how, in return, many material elements of Indian culture enriched the Europeans' technology. The third and last feature of Rousseau's approach relates to the hardships of life in the north and to difficulties which the natives had to overcome simply to survive there. Here Rousseau had a personal yardstick, having himself faced many times, during his expeditions to the lands of "those they call savages", the severity of northern climate and having often travelled with Indians when they had to fight simply to survive (his work on famine foods is one example of this), and where physical weakness and errors of judgement produced tragic results. Rousseau's views reflect a rich personal experience which serves as a basis for his rigorous analyses and also for his humane preoccupations.
Certainly, the relative simplicity of the (material) techniques of [352] the Montagnais-Naskapi and of the Inuit of Ungava allowed Rousseau to paint a wide canvas, although, as far as we know, he took little interest in native tools, traps or arms. The aspects of native culture which attracted his attention were food, clothing, travel, shelter and technology.
The paper "Astam Mitchoum: An Essay on Indian Gastronomy" (1957a: 193-210) is certainly Rousseau's key work in this area. In it he lists the basic foodstuffs of Algonquian, Eskimo [16], and Huron-Iroquois families and presents several native recipes which bring out the essentials of northern eating. Several other articles deal with native nutrition. The enthusiasm with which Rousseau passes on his knowledge of northern diet and eating habits is greater than that with which he deals with food resources in general. Rousseau, as is well known, was himself a gourmet and a fine trencherman. [17] This personal trait did not, however, prevent him from examining the range of difficulties associated with the quest for food in winter and from studying in great detail foods used during famines. His study of nutrition is, as is the case for other techniques, always kept in context, that is to say, integrated into the larger cultural patterns and configurations that he was studying.
When he discusses clothes, he covers all aspects from skin tanning to the actual making of the clothes, admiring the skills of the dressmakers (particularly the Inuit women), stressing the way in which the clothing was adapted to climate and other aspects of the environment and expressing his regret with regard to modifications brought about by features borrowed from white clothing either in terms of basic materials or style.
His perspective is more or less the same when he describes the various means of transport and associated methods of construction [353] which illustrate the inventiveness of those who discovered these means and the competence of those who developed the construction techniques. This means of transport, especially the bark canoe (whence the term "brich-grove civilization") and snowshoes are equally the result of a harmonious adaptation to resources available in this particular environment. Similar considerations appear in passages devoted to the tent and shelter in general and to technology in particular.
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- ii. Socio-economic Organization
The second important focus of Rousseau's studies of native cultures was socio-economic organization. Although he was interested in social and economic organizations of various North American groups, the Montagnais-Naskapi group and the Inuit captured most of his attention. The socio-economic articles are not so extensive as his work on native techniques and technology. It seems to us that his contributions in this sphere have four main characteristics. First, as was pointed out earlier, he emphasizes interrelationships between native culture and the natural environment. Throughout his writings he notes ways in which the socio-economic organization of the native peoples modified the plant and animal ecosystem upon which it was based. The second characteristic is that almost all his papers involve a spatio-temporal perspective. He sketches a fresco of the history of Canada and North America. Beginning with the socio-economic system which was in place before the arrival of the whites in the 16th century, he paints a picture of the social organization of native groups of Eastern Canada which includes their economic and political systems. He takes the opportunity to comment on the stage of development of New World civilization at the time of colonization. He points out that the indigenous civilizations had not acquired certain techniques which could allow them to develop to the same degree, in some areas, as the peoples of Europe. He does not, however, attribute this difference in technical -and technological levels to intrinsic racial differences. Quite to the contrary, he is full of admiration for the ingeniousness and adaptability of native peoples. He sees the difference in technical levels as stemming from environmental factors and chance. He is particularly explicit about this in his article "Les Sachems délibèrent autour du feu de camp" (1959:33).
A third characteristic can be discerned in his work on socio-economic [354] organization. Through a comparison of the pattern of subsistence and lifestyles before the arrival of the whites, during the years immediately following their arrival, and following the establishment of the fur trade, he is able to reconstruct the changes which occurred during these phases. He is able to show how the changes gradually had the effect of dispossessing the native populations and developing an increasing dependence on the state, producing a condition which amounted to moral servitude. Rousseau saw this situation as unjust in every way, a violation of native rights and a grave lapse of social justice and equity. He believed, especially when caribou declined drastically in the territory of the Montagnais-Naskapi, that it was the state's responsibility to provide financial assistance. He fought for many years to protect the stock of game and was a promoter of the idea of reindeer husbandry in the north. He saw this last as a viable alternative for the native peoples faced with the virtual disappearance of caribou. He was fully aware of the degree of adaptation which the transition from hunting to husbandry required.
The final characteristic of this part of Rousseau's writings is notable. This has to do with the extremely personal nature of Rousseau's relations with the native peoples and with the "passion for exchange", [18] which pervades his relations with the other. With him, we enter into the tent, not as intruders but as involved participants, discreetly observing interpersonal relationships between husband and wife and other social exchanges. He was particularly struck by the uncertainties of the search for food, the fragility of the links between natives and their plant and animal environment. He himself suffered the fatigue and bruises of portages and of interminable travelling. He personally experienced the powerlessness of the natives in their everyday life. Let us look more closely at native socio-economic organization dealing with the five most important sectors of activity. These are subsistence techniques, daily life and seasonal cycles, the trading posts, division of labour and the hierarchy of authority, and social welfare policies and practices.
Subsistence. These are discussed in terms of the three periods mentioned above, namely European colonization, the fur trade, and [355] the present day. For each of these periods detailed descriptions are made of resources available, use made of those resources and subsistence techniques based upon them. Is it an impenetrable forest, and land, or fertile soil? Is it a forest full of game, or a forest in which game is scarce, demanding a flexible social organization and economic activities which supplement hunting? The boreal forest imposes its particular constraints: only a small number of people can live in a given area, and they must move around constantly in their region, avoiding the accumulation of unnecessary goods and waste, and sharing their surpluses with those less fortunate (1957b: 45-46).
Seasonal cycle and daily life. Daily life varied with the seasons. There was a division between the sexes in tasks associated with the acquisition and consumption of goods for the benefit of the household. He vividly describes the arrival of canoes at the trading post for the great summer gatherings of the Montagnais-Naskapi. He initiates us into the mix of activities associated with each season. Summer is the season of family meetings and festivals of all sorts, a season of renewal. Winter is the season of solitude in remote hunting grounds, of struggle against the elements, of tracking and hunting game. The differences between the seasons are reflected in activities of daily life. If summer is the season of meetings and festivals, winter is solitude and constant effort to survive. The former translates itself into social activities which are buzzing and full of life, the latter into activities which are solitary, monotonous and repetitive. To give us more insight into these contrasting lifestyles, the northern explorer takes us on his expeditions. He allows us to feel the rhythm of nature and to share the feelings of his companions, for whom his admiration has no bounds. The observer becomes a native in order to completely identify himself with his companions and thus allow us to penetrate to the very heart of the boreal forest Indian.
Trading posts. The desire for furs caused the colonists to explore and penetrate deep into the Indian lands to establish trading posts and to buy furs from the natives. This trade would revolutionize the way of life of the native inhabitants. In return for furs accumulated by a winter of trapping, the traders provided the natives with provisions and the few trade goods which they required. Rousseau lays bare this system which produced a regime in which the Indians became dependent on the white commercial system, one which was based on a unilateral white definition of the value of fur. In addition [356] to the vagaries of biological cycles, the trappers wernowt subject to economic fluctuations. The trapper also had to face the caprices of fashion and negotiate with his European trading partner from a position of weakness. [19] Rousseau describes the trading practices between hunter and trader and provides us with minute details of the system. How do the Inuit and Montagnais-Naskapi handle their purchases? Who sells the skins? How is the money shared? How do the trading posts keep their accounts? Technical details such as these allow us to understand the socio-political conditions associated with the fur trade.
The analysis of inter-tribal bartering, especially that which existed in the pre-European era, is used as a means of denouncing the opinions of some authors of the limitations of this system (1961:39). Identifying the principal trade sectors, Rousseau makes us aware of the considerable distances over which some products were moved by it. Inter-tribal trade was based on a universal unit of exchange, the wampum, which was accepted currency from east to west. The whites' introduction of manufactured goods and of easy means of manufacturing wampum produced a veritable collapse in the currency system of the natives and the end of their trading system. In Rousseau's view, the native economic system was entirely as complex as that of the whites. The collapse of the native system was not, he argued, due to the intrinsic superiority of the European system, but rather to the development of techniques of making wampum. The value of the latter as a standard was based on the amount of time it took native workers to produce it.
Division of labour and hierarchy of authority. Another topic merits attention. This is the division of labour between the sexes. Rousseau does not treat this specifically, but rather touches on it from time to time to distinguish male and female roles, to point out the complementarity of these functions and to argue against the perception that Indian males were lazy. Rousseau's view of native economic activities was that of someone who had been more closely associated with male activities than female. This observation should not be read as a criticism as, at that time, this was the only way in which a male observer could insert himself in a native environment. [357] It must be noted that he did take care to recognize the full worth of female activities. When talking of the caribou hunt for example, he streses the essential role of women in tanning the hides. When he discusses transportation, we learn of both male and female tasks in canoe building. Finally, he defends the well-earned rest of the men at spring reunions on the grounds of their being exhausted on arrival at the trading posts. [20]
Rousseau highlights the fact that the Indian hierarchy of authority was quite different from that of the whites and that it had hardly changed since the arrival of the colonists. Among the Montagnais-Naskapi, the focus of authority was the chief, an individual of great knowledge acquired as a result of personal experiences. His experience and knowledge allow him to evaluate situations and behaviour and make judgements with confidence. Or again, he was a wise man who could impose his own views without issuing orders (1951a: 31). In discussing hierarchies of authority of his time, Rousseau groups those involved into three categories. These were the white authorities, that is to say, politicians and bureaucrats, medical personnel, trading post managers, post nurses and religious authorities. As the politicians and bureaucrats did not live in the north, only having occasional direct contact with the natives, they had slight influence on them. The nurse, on the other hand, was highly visible and highly regarded. Traders, although they had no precise place in the official hierarchy, had a good deal of influence. We come now to the religious authorities. With the exception of certain missionaries and native catechists, this group was not numerous but was well-respected by native people. Both native Catholics and Protestants remained faithful to the weekly observances of their faiths despite the fact that they also continued to assign considerable importance to ancestral beliefs. [21] All in all Rousseau argued that the religious and lay white authorities had influence on the native people insofar as they conformed in actions and attitudes to native world view and behaviour.
Welfare measures. Rousseau did not write as such an article [358] on social welfare measures, but his stands in his writings do reveal that he considers them essential since natives have been stationed on reserves and since native traditional subsistence patterns have been re-oriented to promote the fur trade. He does consider them, however, as a necessary evil until such a time when native communities can take over their own affairs and manage them according to their ideals and sets of priorities. Very likely, it is the awareness of the inadequacy of these social measures to fulfill native basic needs that drives Rousseau to full involvement. During his field expedition on the George River, the journey which was undoubtedly the most revealing in that respect, he noticed the slow demographic decline of the band due to the growing scarcity of caribou. The George Band lost so many of its members over a period of 40 years that survivors had to join another band. Upon his return from that field trip, Rousseau urged native administrators to send relief that would alleviate deprivations brought about by the decline of the caribou herd. From that period onwards, Rousseau sided with native populations and fought vigorously on their behalf until his death. From his viewpoint, it was urgent to ensure the survival of Indians, to help them to gradually free themselves from economic dependency, and to provide them with the kind of skills and tools that would make them fully autonomous. The level of poverty and the social marginality of native communities, according to him, were a direct consequence of white administrative policies and actions. These shortcomings were implemented by whites; it was up to them to resolve them.
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- iii. The Religious Universe
The study of religion brings Rousseau into the realm of beliefs and practices that have to be understood within the wider context of indigenous world view, of relationships between individuals and the natural environment, and of cultural traditions which reflect these (Rousseau and Rousseau 1952: 184, 189). According to Rousseau, the conceptual scheme used in the study of the religious universe of native peoples has to get away from white concepts and practices so that one can get an authentic understanding of the native religious mentality. The quality of ethnographic observations gathered on the religious universe of Indians of the boreal forest and the refined sensitivity shown in the explanation offered reflect in practice the principle [359] which he advances. The kinds of questions raised about indigenous religious beliefs and practices [22] as well as the empirical test to which he puts them confer to his writings an aura of mysticism. Building upon friendly relations that he entertains with Indians, he is invested with secrets and witnesses religious and magical ceremonies that few of his white contemporaries have seen. He was one of the very few ethnographers to experience fully the ceremony of the shaking tent (1953: 129-155). Rousseau felt too that he had to compare his observations and interpretations with those of the first explorers who came here in the 17th and 18th centuries. Some religious phenomena were of special interest to him: religious dualism and those beliefs and religious practices where the conjurer is the officiant.
Religious dualism. Rousseau noticed that Amerindians continued to adhere to their ancestral religions even if they had been christianized at the time of European colonization. He notes that in Indian behaviour and attitudes "the two religions follow parallel paths in the same individual without any integration" (Rousseau and Rousseau 1952: 34) and that Indian people sincerely participate in the two religious systems (Rousseau 1951a: 34). Christian practices, however, are so deeply rooted that they have become, at least externally, the dominant cultural activities. According to Rousseau, that deeply-rooted element can be explained by the relevant nature of Christian morality and teachings as they apply to underprivileged groups. Economic deprivation and abnegation, as well as obedience to Christian precepts in this world, are a true guarantee of eternal happiness in the other world.
Religious beliefs. The ethnographic material gathered on traditional religious practices is important and brings us, in Rousseau's works, to observations on religious animism, charms, taboos and superstititions. Indian metaphysics is essentially animist since every object is inhabited by a manitou, or spirit. A simple and direct relation exists between the individual and that spirit. It allows for the individual minister of cult to take the fullest advantage of the divinity as long as one is familiar with their respective temperaments [360] (1959: 11). Rousseau advances the opinion that native animism is a "religion of offer and demand". If the individual that makes the request imposes upon himself the kinds of sacrifices which match the benefits gained through positive outcome, he may rest assured that the giving spirit will offer an appropriate response as long as there are no external interferences. This dynamic equilibrium between a strainful exercise and a beneficial result is accompanied by charms and taboos aimed at ensuring the good graces of the manitou upon oneself and at striking hard at enemies. Spirits communicate with humans through dreams and messages that carry orders which have to be rigourously implemented. [23]
Religious practices. During his expeditions, Rousseau made numerous first-hand observations on native religious practices. Those vary from individual divinatory rituals to collective ceremonies presided over by the conjurers. If the former are of easy access to ethnologists, the latter were hard to observe since they were condemned by religious authorities. If religious ministers, Protestant and Catholic alike, could hardly exert any control on the divinatory practices because of their private nature, the ritual of the shaking tent could not go unnoticed. Rousseau enters into that secret universe, lets the spirit inhabit him fully and deciphers the symbolic code that mediates the deep meanings of this native ceremony (1953: 133). Partaking in native mysticism, he perceives and feels the direct action of spirits, especially the mistapeo, that spirit which is at the very heart of the ceremony and is the force which makes the tent vibrate. The officiant is a mediator of the action carried out by the mistapeo. Therefore one cannot give credit to the often-repeated commentary that the shaking tent ritual is a true hoax (1953:146). Moreover, Rousseau describes his meetings with conjurers and reveals how they became aware of their vocation and how they fulfill their inner mandate to firm up native beliefs.
[361]
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- iv. Culture Contacts
Under this heading, we plan to examine, in turn, intertribal contacts, native-white contacts and native levels of acculturation.
Intertribal contacts. Rousseau's contributions in this field are largely historical in nature for he is as much interested in sketching an overall picture of intertribal relationships prior to white settlement - and these are mainly funded upon the exchange of consumer goods as we have seen earlier - as he is in representing, during the pre and post-colonial period, how the control of the fur trade had been a stake of such magnitude that it gave rise to intertribal conflicts and wars. During the pre-colonial period, however, his observations do not only centre upon the trade theme since he documents kin ties among the various linguistic groups and gives an overview of the political and cultural history of their mutual relationships. Highlighting his contemporaries' knowledge on the New World, he clearly demonstrates that America's history does not start with the arrival of the whites.
Historical reconstructions become more substantial and better documented when Rousseau deals with the pre- and post-colonial period: the recent nature of events coupled with the wealth of archival materials allow it. In particular, he established how the coming of the whites to the North American continent had profoundly modified relationships among native groups and gave rise to reactions of hostility towards the invader. He gave special attention to relationships between the Iroquois, the Hurons and the Montagnais-Naskapi, since they fought among themselves for the fur trade control. As a matter of fact, fur trade wars coloured so much the Amerindian profile of Eastern Canada that even today subarctic Indians have a great fear of the Iroquois. [24]
Rousseau is especially interested in Eskimo-Montagnais-Naskapi contacts. Consequently, he uses sharp contrasts in their respective ways of life to document the impact of the natural environment upon [362] the conditions of human adaptation. The forest environment of the latter and the maritime ecology of the former, although contiguous, are quite different and make room for specific adaptative processes which exclude any borrowing from each other. Rousseau finds it necessary to note the historic animosity which exists between both culture groups (1964fa: 83).
Native-white contacts. Rousseau looks into native-white contacts in the light of the gradual dispossession of native lands and the progressive encroachment upon them by white settlers, of far-reaching alienation of indigenous traditions, of the economic dependency of native workers on the production system and trade networks of the whites, and of the political subordination of native institutions to the dominant white world. According to him, the fur war was an off-shoot of the French-English wars, and the victory of the Iroquois over the Hurons would be attributable, in a large measure, to the weakening of French allies afflicted by epidemics. The English and the French [25]engaged in different sorts of social relationships with their respective allies. The English kept at a distance and interacted seldomly with their native allies; the French, on the other hand, engaged in continuous relations with theirs. From a detailed analysis of culture contacts in colonial times (nature, frequency and intensity) Rousseau brings us to the present. Without gaining a clear knowledge of intermediate stages, we are struck by the hard facts of a planned and strongly marked economic and political dependency of the native peoples upon white social institutions.
The tutelage system which had previously been described by white political authorities as the last hope and a safeguard of native lifeways renders native bands more and more vulnerable to white lifestyles and unequivocally brings them to assimilation. In the face of such evidence, Rousseau takes side and his involvement with the natives becomes a political fight for the recognition of native rights and the gaining of full-fledged citizenship status which would allow them to control their ethnic destiny. The article "L'acculturation des Amérindiens du Grand Nord québécois: histoire et perspective" (1968b: 271-278) defines the nature and meaning of his commitment. [363] Rousseau's stands could be summed up in one main cause: selfdetermination for the natives. From his standpoint, however, it does not mean a rapid and total transfer of responsibility from the federal government to native communities, that is, political autonomy. His suggestions deal rather within the federal-provincial disputes of the period concerning the respective jurisdictions of both governments in respect to native administration. In setting clearly the stands of both parties which, in Rousseau's mind, are modern replicas of those taken by their anglophone and francophone predecessors in colonial times, he fully endorses the viewpoint of the Quebec provincial government over that of the federal government. He feels that it is more likely to favour the gradual liberation of native peoples by allowing them to establish their cultural orientations and their economic priorities. The solution to the "white problem", as he labels it, does not leave any doubt as to where his allegiances lie and in which direction his ideological commitments point.
Native levels of acculturation. With the exception of his 1968 article in Inter-Nord (1968b), Rousseau's observations on native acculturational levels are scattered in a number of different articles. He constantly denounces the current conditions of subservience of native people subject to all kinds of biological constraints (decimation through epidemics), economic inequalities (the context of uneven trade), policial submissiveness (government regulations) and ideological exposures (Christianization and Europeanization) which gradually loosen and destabilize them and cut them off from their cultural roots. Rousseau is a strong supporter of native populations - not of native traditions since, in his opinion, Indians cannot be static in their culture patterns and like many societies they must adjust themselves according to the various dynamisms of change. The goal to pursue, he argues, is not to further ghettoize native communities and not to impose upon them dysfunctional patterns of culture, but rather to allow them to grow according to their rhythm and style towards cultural practices which they conceive as being progressive, that is, beneficial to them now and to their offspring in the years ahead. It is on the basis of the growing cultural anomie of native populations and on an external judgment of the goals to be sought for that the ethnohistorian justifies his moral commitment and considers himself as an advocate of native rights. He clearly sets the limits within which he intended to proceed. For a period of time, he [364] fought his battle as a lone wolf without losing sight of his objectives or failing in his undertakings. Let us look, then, at how he conceived the process of acculturation and how he envisaged the end product.
His observations on native acculturation are qualitative and mainly bear upon the cultural items under transformation: food, clothing, housing, transportation, weapons, art, religion and world view. He notes its extension and intensity which he attributes to the natives' historical dependency and to the widening and intensification of the white-native contacts which allow this lifelong condition to grow in importance (1951a: 31). Upon looking at this process of cultural dissocation he assigns a dominant role to the introduction of the fur trade. The craving for profits and the demential race for fur control led to the searching for new hunting and trapping territories. Native communities entered into a dynamic interaction with whites that led to a quasi-destruction of their cultural heritage. The hunter-trapper (Montagnais-Naskapi) becomes a salesman of luxury goods for which he gets cash money and the universe of his needs enlarges itself to incorporate as part of the basic necessities of life a large number of manufactured goods.
When Rousseau looks into the overall situation of the 60s, he notices that things have remained unchanged. He puts forth the idea that the search for profits and benefits from the dominant economy remain the main driving force behind still further northern penetration. On the other hand, negative impacts on life on the reserve had greatly increased with adverse consequences, such as unemployment and poverty, broken homes, delinquency and criminality, violence and drug addiction. Native economic marginality as well as their social anomie represent the natural outcome of the assimilating pressures on the part of the federal tutor (1969c: 5). Rousseau views these disorganizing processes as irreversible unless native populations are successful in defining their future, basing themselves upon the emerging conditions of linguistic revival and the growing interest in consolidating native training processes. Those trends would have to further expand and contribute to the bettering of socio-economic contexts and socio-political structures, the latter being a prerequisite to gaining greater responsibilities (1968a: 68).
[365]
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- v. Portrayals of Indians by Whites
Rousseau went to great lengths to demonstrate the falsity of most of the ideas projected by portrayals of Indians by whites. He established that, contrary to the assertions of many historians, war was only a minor aspect of native culture. He fought against the idea, too widely accepted by whites of all social classes, that the Indian belonged to an inferior race and that he had limited intellectual ability. Rousseau was outraged by the suggestion by certain officials of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs that native people were only capable of becoming labourers, when in reality they were equal on all counts to whites when the full range of professions was open to them (1968a: 72). He considered racism as an "abominable monstrosity". He sought to destroy national stereotypes (1959: 21-22) based on characteristics which whites attributed to all Indians indiscriminately (1959: 22), for example, stolidness and insensivity to pain. He also showed that white perceptions of love, marriage and division of labour between the sexes in Indian society reflected a lack of understanding of native personality and of cultural norms related to sexual habits and interpersonal relations. His main drive was for educating the general public and giving them a better image of native culture, based on his experience as an ethnographer and his personal lack of cultural inhibitions, his openness of spirit and the admiration he had for his informants whose knowledge and know how dazzled him (1968a: 75).
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- vi. Ethnoscience, Ethnobotany and Ethnomedicine
Given that Rousseau's approach was based on an inside view of native customs, it would be surprising if he had not been interested in understanding the principles upon which these customs were based and in the systems of thought which had produced them. He did not use the concept of ethnoscience as such but he fully documented thought patterns and their view of the world when he dealt with the natural environment, economic organization, religion, ethnobotany or ethnomedicine. It was in this way, for example, that he sought to define the Montagnais concepts of illness, magic, gods, plants, life, death and so on. The Divine Will, as we saw earlier, was a favourite theme in his work. So was the plant world, hardly surprising in view of his background as a botanist. By contrast, we discover almost [366] nothing on native knowledge of animal life (ethnozoology) or on bodily functions.
Rousseau devoted several papers to Indian ethnobotany including "Abenaki ethnobotany" (1946). It was his interest in improving our knowledge of northern flora which led him to undertake his expeditions to remote parts of Québec to make ecological inventories. His ethnobotanical studies focused almost exclusively on Indian families of eastern Canada, especially those of north-eastern Québec. In addition to the ethnographic and botanical threads, one finds in his work numerous observations on linguistics and a great many historical references. When setting down his informants' knowledge of vegetation, he notes both the name and the pronounciation which, moreover, varied from tribe to tribe, as did usage. He compared local knowledge of vegetation with that of western botany and, thanks to information about the Laurentian flora gained from accounts of the first explorers, he sought to establish whether there had been an evolution of knowledge of flora among the Indians as a result of contacts with the whites. One gains from his work almost a feeling that a police enquiry is in progress from the way in which everything is turned over systematically and nothing is left to chance. Each fact is systematically compared, classified and analyzed down to the last detail. This natural science approach greatly influences his in-depth studies of the natural environment and of ways of life.
Rousseau's studies of ethnomedicine were a natural outcome of his ethnobotanical studies. In the boreal forest, medicines and various medications are derived in large measures from the local vegetation. Listing various treatments, Rousseau initiates us into native ethnomedicine and shows how it differs from our biomedicine. Speaking of the etiology of illnesses, he brings out the fact that the causes of certain malfunctions and of most sicknesses are well known among Indians. The origins of others are doubtful since, according to native views, conjurers have powers strong enough to induce the death of their co-religionaries.
As for the therapy and preventive methods used by healers, they were often more or less cancelled out by the harsh living conditions of the patients. The ethnomedicinal knowledge of the healers was based both on information transmitted from generation to generation and on personal experience.
[367]
4. Rousseau's Ethnological Influence
Other analyses, more refined than ours, will be required to get a better in-depth understanding and to reveal the full ethnological influence of Jacques Rousseau. He belongs to the generation of scientific precursors of those who circumscribed and built the Québec scientific community. Like them he followed an intellectual itinerary of an unusual quality. Like them he went beyond the confines of his university training and was active in promoting native and French speaking cultures. Among his colleagues, however, he singled himself out in becoming sensitive to and in acquiring competent skills in a number of human disciplines. His Amerindian writings, for instance, represent an important part of his total scientific production which has many outstanding features. In the first place it is revealing in that it is the outcome of a rather long intellectual quest in a type of society with impenetrable barriers between disciplines, and where a scientific career represents a discontinuity from the usual career choice within the liberal professions. It is also the result of a scientific lifestyle enriched by empirical observations and sustained through a firm commitment to take part in the socio-economic improvement of native peoples. Moreover Rousseau's career was oriented toward popularizing current knowledge on aboriginal peoples at a time when prejudices, false beliefs and racist attitudes towards Inuit and Indians alike were prominent. Rousseau's contributions, above all, aimed at rehabilitating native nations and at making political leaders aware of the prime importance of the native occupancy of northern spaces. [26] Lastly, Rousseau was a pioneer of Amerindian studies in Québec. Let us look more closely into the latter contribution.
As we implied earlier, the Amerindian studies of Jacques Rousseau were underestimated during his lifetime. That can be explained [368] through a number of different factors. We shall refer now to some of the most important ones. One should be reminded that anthropology in Québec is a young discipline and that Rousseau, with Marius Barbeau and his son-in-law, Marcel Rioux, were among the first to carry out anthropological research. In contrast to Barbeau, who had a Ph.D. in anthropology, Rousseau became a self-trained anthropologist. [27] This lack of university training became a negative factor that prevented his young university-trained colleagues, fully involved then in the establishment of anthropology departments (Tremblay and Gold 1984), from giving him due recognition. His coming to the Centre for Northern Studies at Laval was perceived with mixed feelings by most anthropologists working in Québec. The wide spectrum of disciplines which were of interest to Rousseau, it was said, were too diversified to give value to his professional anthropological practice. That mistrust toward the northern specialist decreased with the years as his wide-ranging mind and richness of his encyclopedic culture began to be better understood. Furthermore, his articles on native topics appeared in journals that were not readily accessible to the anthropological community. Even if Rousseau's interpretations of native history are conventional, his understanding of native issues and his empathy for the native cause are innovative.
Rousseau, who lived on the Laval campus during a good part of the year, had a strong influence on the students in the Faculty of Letters there, especially geographers interested in northern studies. Graduate students consulted him not only on northern and native issues but also for personal problems. He became thesis advisor to a sizeable number of them, and carried out that function with the ardor of a neophyte, the competence of the senior researcher that he was, and the serenity of a wise man. At the very beginning of the Quiet Revolution, he became a highly regarded consultant to the "Thunder team" and, in particular, of its minister of Natural Resources, René Lévesque. Further research is required to allow one to fully assess, in its proper light, the international influence of [369] Rousseau in ethnozoology and ethnobotany.
Conclusion
At the end of this long journey, somewhat shortened if one takes into account the wide scope of Rousseau's scientific activities, we wish to offer general observations. The analysis of his native achievements has been to us an enrichment since it has allowed us to experience once more a time period which was critical in Qu6bec's evolution and to reconstruct, in part, a detailed fresco of the ethnic status of Québec natives. We wanted, too, to bring to the fore one of our most productive men of science, a pioneer of the anthropology of Québec who was successful in reconciling in his work, fundamental and applied science, objectivity and subjectivity, reason and sentiment since these nominal dyads could be placed on the same continuum. More so than any other of his contemporaries, he denounced with proofs at hand the kinds of injustices to which natives were submitted and put forth programmes of socio-economic development. Finally, we can state our firm belief that Jacques Rousseau, through his native work, has attempted to match, for the anthropology of Québec, the kind of significant contribution he has made to the Laurentian flora through his botanical expeditions in the Ungava peninsula.
APPENDIX
The following are a selected list of the writings of Jacques Rousseau.
_____, Ethnobotanique abénakise. In Mémoire du jardin botanique de Montréal, 1946.
_____, By Canoe Across the Ungava Peninsula Via the Kogaluk and Payne Rivers. Arctic 1, 1948, pp. 133-135.
_____, À travers l'Ungava. L'Actualité économique 25: 83-131, 1949a.
_____, Mistassini Calendar. The Beaver 280, 1949b: 33-37.
_____, Le caribou et le renne dans le Québec arctique et hémiarctique, Revue canadienne de géographie 4, 1950a, pp. 60-89.
_____, L'Ungava sort de sa léthargie. pp. 118-122 in Le livre de l'année 1950. Société Grolier, 1950b.
Les problèmes de conservation de l'Ungava et du Labrador. pp. 51-79 in Mémoire du Jardin botanique de Montréal, 1951.
Rites païens de la forêt québécoise: la tente tremblante et la suerie. Cahiers des dix 18, 1953, pp. 129-155.
De menue rites païens de la forêt canadienne. Cahiers des dix 19, 1954a, pp. 187-232.
Du bon sauvage de la littérature à celui de la réalité. L'Action universitaire 20, 1954b, pp. 12-23.
Nouveau-Québec (under "Québec [Nouveau]"). pp. 49-57 in Encyclopédie Grolier, 1954c.
Essai bibliographique sur la région du lac Mistassini. Ms. 1955a.
Le nom du caribou chez les Montagnais-Naskapi et les Esquimaux de l'Ungava. Anthropologica, 1, 1955b, pp. 212-214.
_____, L'Origine et l'évolution du mot Esquimau. Cahiers des dix, 20, 1955c, pp. 179-198.
_____, Le partage du gibier dans la cuisine des Montagnais-Naskapi. Anthropologica 1, 1955d, pp. 215-217.
_____, Travelling with Northern Quebec Natives from Prehistoric to Modern Times. The Canadian Geographer 6, 1955e, pp. 17-19.
_____, L'Origine du motif de la double courbe dans l'art algonkin. Anthropologica 2, 1956, pp. 218-221.
_____, Astam mitchoum: essai de gastronomie amérindienne. Cahier des dix 22, 1957a, pp. 193-210.
_____, L'Indien de la forêt boréale, élément de la formation écologique. pp. 37-51 in Studia Varia. Ottawa: Royal Society of Canada, 1957b.
_____, Ces gens qu'on dit sauvages. Cahiers des dix, 23, 1958, pp. 53-90.
_____, Les sachems délibèrent autour du feu de camp. Cahiers des dix 24, 1959, pp. 9-49.
_____, Les premiers canadiens. Cahiers des dix 25, 1960, pp. 9-64.
_____, La trame forestière de l'histoire canadienne. Cahiers des dix 26, 1961, pp. 17-54.
_____, Le dernier des Peaux-Rouges. Cahiers des dix, 27, 1962, pp. 47-76.
_____, Are There Phallic Rites Among Amerinds? Anthropological Journal of Canada 1:(2), 1963a, pp. 27-28.
_____, Human Problems in the Canadian Arctic. Anthropological Journal of Canada 2(2), 1963b, pp. 2-4.
_____, Indian vs. Eskimo. Anthropological Journal of Canada 1(1), 1963c, pp. 5-6.
_____, La forêt mixte du Québec dans la perspective historique. Cahiers de géographie du Québec 7, 1963d, pp. 111-120.
_____, Le Canada aborigène dans le contexte historique. Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française 18, 1964a, pp. 39-63.
_____, Coupe biogéographique et ethnobiologique de la péninsule QuébecLabrador. pp. 29-94 in Le Nouveau-Québec. Contributions à l'étude de l'occupation humain. Jean Malaurie and Jacques Rousseau, eds. École pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne). Bibliothèque arctique et antarctique 2, 1964b.
_____, Pour une esquisse biogéographique du Saint-Laurent. Les Cahiers de géographie du Québec 11, 1967, pp. 181-241.
_____, L'avenir des Amérindiens de la toundra et de la taïga québécoise. Cahiers des dix, 33, 1968a, pp. 55-77.
_____, Acculturation des Amérindiens du Grand-Nord québécois: histoire et perspectives. Inter-Nord 10, 1968b, pp. 271-278.
_____, La mise en valeur du Grand-Nord québécois et l'avenir de ses populations amérindiennes. Développement économique de l'arctique et des sociétés esquimaudes. Le Havre: 4e congrès international, 1969a.
_____, La recherche scientifique et le facteur humain dans le Grand-Nord. Science Forum 2, 1969b, pp. 31-33.
_____, The Northern Quebec Eskimo Problem. and the Ottawa-Quebec Struggle. Anthropological Journal of Canada 7(2), 1969c, pp. 2-15.
_____, Toundra. pp. 1-5 in North / Nord. Ottawa: Ministry of Indian Affairs, 1970.
Rousseau, Jacques, and Madeleine Rousseau
_____, La crainte des Iroquois chez les Mistassins. Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française. 2, 1948, pp. 13-26.
_____, Persistance païennes chez les Amérindiens de la forêt boréal. Cahiers des dix, 17, 1952, pp. 183-208.
Rousseau, Jacques, and D.B. Quinn
Hakluyt et le mot "esquimau". Revue d'histoire de l’Amérique française 12, 1959, pp. 597-601.
Rousseau, Jacques, and George W. Brown
The Indians of Northeastern America. pp. 5-16 in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, volume 1, 1965.
The following articles appeared during the years 1950 and 1951 in the newspaper La Patrie in Montréal under the general title of "À travers l'Ungava et le Nouveau-Québec".
1950
28 May: La terre que Dieu donna à Caïn; En canot avec les Montagnais.
4 June: Autour de la marmite des Montagnais; Les chasseurs de caribous.
11 June: Tempête dans la toundra; Tragédie au Labrador.
18 June: Une femme à la conquête de l'Ungava; À l'orée des terres hostiles.
25 June: À la poursuite de l'inconnu; Portage dans la toundra.
2 July: Sur un fleuve inconnu; Les animaux de la Toundra.
9 July: L'homme dans la toundra; La cuisine végétale dans la toundra.
16 July: Chez les Esquimaux; Du kayak à l'iglou.
23 July. Développement économique de l'Ungava; Au centre de l'Ungava.
3 December: Peaux-rouges ou Indiens; Chez le chef Peter Matouch.
10 December: Le cycle annuel des Indiens de la forêt; La maison qui voyage.
17 December: Dans la tente indienne; L'élevage du renne, une ressource de l'avenir.
24 December: Du canot d'écorce au canot de toile; La civilisation du bouleau.
31 December: Portage dans la forêt; En raquettes sur la neige.
1951
7 January: En tobagane; Introduction à la haute couture amérindienne.
14 January: Décadence vestimentaire des Indiens de la forêt; Mistassins à la chasse.
21 January: La pêche chez les Indiens forestiers; Les étapes de la civilisation 28 January: Naissance de l'agriculture amérindienne; Civilisation agricole des Amérindiens.
4 February: Les peuplades agricole de l'Amérique primitive; La cueillette chez les Indiens forestiers.
11 February: Disette dans la forêt; Les Menomini récoltent la zizanie.
18 February: L'ours chez les Mistassins; Makouchan.
25 February. L'écrivain Metawishish; Mes guides Motassins.
4 March: L'hivernement de Joseph; Du pulque à la petite bière.
11 March: Autour du feu de camp; Quand les Montagnais boulangent.
18 March: Repas de noce à Mistassini; Autour de la marmite des Naskapi.
25 March: Chez le chef Wawanollet; Vannerie en clisses de frênes.
1 April: Chez le Dr. Obonshawin; Mon amie Tekaherla
8 April: Les sauvages passent au lac Mistassine; À la clinique d'Eva Etapp.
15 April: Aux grande maux, les grands remèdes; La médecine des blancs au service des indiens.
22 April: Mon ami le sorcier Wapouchwyan.
29 April: Comment on devient jongleur.
6 May Wabano.
13 May: Les dicte et pronostications de Samuel Rabbitskin.
20 May: La suerie dans la forêt.
27 May: Chez nos amis les esprits.
3 June: Tambegwilnou, et koukoudjés.
10 June: Les esprits, eux aussi, fument.
24 June: Conjurations et sortilèges.
1 July: Les indiens aussi rêvent pour être heureux.
8 July: Divination.
15 July: Pile ou face.
22 July: Sépulture.
29 July: Les Amérindiens de la forêt et la mort.
5 August: Une double assurance pour l'au-delà.
12 August: Dualisme religieux des indiens forestiers.
19 August: Nos amis les chiens.
26 August: l'outillage de l'indien chasseur.
2 September: La malchance de Pitewabano.
9 September: Mon ami Antoine.
16 September: La tâche de la femme indienne.
23 September: La crainte de l'Iroquois dans la forêt.
30 September: La hiérarchie chez les indiens de la forêt.
7 October: Où sont les indiens d'antan?
14 October: Ce que les blancs ont emprunté aux indiens.
21 October: Méfaits des premiers contacts entre indiens et blancs.
28 October: Simon Matabé ou le retour du civilisé à la vie primitive.
4 November: Siméon Raphael, l'érudit.
11 November: Mocassin telegraph.
The following articles appeared in 1966 in the Annuaire du Québec/ Quebec Yearbook 1964-1965, Bureau de la statistique, Québec.
La vie artistique et littéraire des indigènes de l'Ungava, pp. 31-63
Une agriculture pour les régions nordiques du Québec, pp. 351-361
La couverture forestière du Nouveau-Québec, pp. 405-538
L'habitation primitive du Québec nordique, pp. 535-538.
[374]
Modes de déplacements et de communications chez les indigènes du Nouveau-Québec, pp. 562-566
Du troc aux devises monétaires dans le Québec nordique, pp. 595-602
References
Delage, Denys, Pays renversé: Amérindiens et Européens en Amérique du Nord-Est, 1600-1604. Montréal: Boréal Express, 1985.
Dominique, Richard, and Jean-Guy Dechênes, Culture et sociétés autochtones du Québec: bibliographie critique. Instruments de travail 11. Québec: Institut québécois de la recherche sur la culture, 1985.
Genest, Serge, ed., La passion de L'Échange: terrains d'anthropologues du Québec. Chicoutimi: Gaétan Morin, 1985.
Fournier, Marcel, and Louis Maheu, Nationalismes et nationalisation du champ scientifique québécois. Sociologie et Sociétés, 7, 1975, pp. 89-114.
Fournier, Marcel, A. Germain, L. Lamarche, and Louis Maheu, Le champ scientifique québécois: structure, fonctionnement et fonctions. Sociologie et Sociétés 4, 1972, pp. 119-142.
Hamelin, Louis-Eduard, Jacques Rousseau (1905-1970). Cahiers de géographie 32, 1970, pp. 257-260.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, Claude Lévi-Strauss à l'Université Laval, Québec, septembre 1979. pp. 10-11 in Documents de recherche, 4. Yvan Simonis, ed. Québec: Laboratoire de recherches anthropologiques, Université Laval, 1985.
Lortie, Léon, Les débute de l'êre scientifique. pp. 90-104 in Aux sources du présent. Léon Lortie and Adrien Plouffe, eds. Toronto- University of Toronto Press, 1960.
Marie-Victorin, Brother, a science et la question nationale. Annales de l'ACFAS , 5, 1938, pp. 130-155.
Pouliot, Adrien, Le salut par l'éducation. Les Idées 7, 1938, pp. 48-59.
Steward, Jullan H., The Economic and Social Basis of Primitive Bands. In Essays in Honor of Alfred L. Kroeber. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1936.
Tremblay, Marc-Adélard
_____, Les études amérindiennes au Québec, 1960-1981. Culture 2, 1982 , pp. 83-106.
_____, La recherche universitaire nordique dans les sciences humaines au creux de la vague. Recherches amérindiennes au Québec 14, 1984, pp. 90-95.
_____, "Jacques Rousseau". p. 1599 in The Canadian Encyclopedia. James H. Marsh, ed. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1985.
Tremblay, Marc-Adélard, and Gerald L. Gold
_____, L'Anthropologie dans les universités du Québec. pp. 6-49 in The History of Canadian Anthropology. James Freeman, ed. Proceedings of the Canadian Ethnology Society 3, 1976._____, L'anthropologie québécoise et l'étude du Québec. pp. 257-297 in Continuités et ruptures: les sciences sociales au Québec. Georges-Henri Lévesque et al, eds. Montréal: Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 1984.
Trigger, Bruce, Natives and Newcomers: Canada's Heroic Age Reconsidered. Kingston and Montréal: McGill and Queen's University Press, 1985.
Weaver, Sally, Obstacles à la création... les autochtones. pp. 174-180 in La recherche en sciences sociales au Canada. Ottawa: Conseil des Sciences, 1985.
[1] A greatly expanded French version of this article, also co-authored by Tremblay and Thivierge, will appear under the title of: "La nature et la portée de l'oeuvre amérindienne de Jacques Rousseau" in Anthropologie et Sociétés. Vol. X. No. 2., 1986. We take this opportunity to underscore the sizeable contribution of Mrs. Madeleine Rousseau to the Amerindian production of her husband. It is to be noted that she co-authored two of the articles reviewed here (Rousseau and Rousseau 1948 and 1952), and contributed to a few others. Jacques acknowledged the quality of her contribution. We also wish to express our thanks to Carmen Lambert, Josée Mailhot, Toby Morantz, Jérôme Rousseau, Bruce Trigger and François Trudel who commented on a preliminary version of this paper: their comments have been useful in preparing our text for publication. We express our gratitude to Louis-Edmond Hamelin, Pierre Morisset and Louise Voegel who provided us with information of a personal nature on Jacques Rousseau. Obviously, we used that information but the responsibility for its interpretation rests with the authors. Finally we thank Peter Adams who has translated some parts of this article. References to Rousseau's work, both individual and co-authored, will be found in the Appendix, where a selection of his writings is given. References to other authors will be found in the list of references.
[2] One only has to consult the articles reviewed to become fully aware of the importance of his Amerindian production. It is somewhat striking that his research articles had been published in a number of different journals such as: Les Mémoires du Jardin botanique de Montréal, Arctic, Revue d'Histoire de l'Amérique française, L'Actualité économique, The Beaver, Revue canadienne de Géographie, Les Cahiers des Dix, L'Action universitaire, Anthropologica, Canadian Geographer, Studia varia of the Royal Society of Canada, Anthropological Journal of Canada, Cahiers de Géographie du Québec, Inter-Nord and Science Forum. That is a testimony of his interdisciplinarity and to the exceptional breadth of his knowledge. Moist of his Amerindian articles did not appear in anthropological journals: that explains, in a large measure, why Tremblay, in his critical inventory of Amerindian studies during the 1960-1980 period (Tremblay 1982), did not give Rousseau due credit and proper coverage. The same underestimation is found in the recent critical review published recently by Richard Dominique and Jean-Guy Deschênes (1985).
[3] It was Jacques Rousseau who popularized the term "Amerindian" to designate the Indians of North America.
[4] Those who might wish to put the Amerindian production of Jacques Rousseau within the wider context of the beginnings of anthropology in Québec can refer to Tremblay and Gold (1976).
[5] As far as we know, Rousseau does not seem to have been influenced by the writings of Julian H. Steward (cf. 1936), who was in those days the only American anthropologist to use the ecological perspective.
[6] Here is what Claude Lévy-Strauss thought of Rousseau's work in his academic speech upon receiving an honorary doctorate from Laval University, September 18, 1979:
« pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, alors que j'étais exilé, réfugié aux États-Unis, incertain de ne jamais regagner mon pays, l'Université Laval fut la première université de langue française qui m'ait fait signe et qui ait bien voulu m'accueillir pour une ou deux conférences. Et ce privilège très rare qui m'a apporté un immense réconfort, je le dois à un homme, aujourd'hui disparu, mais don’t j'aimerais évoquer ici le nom, je veux dire Jacques Rousseau. Jacques Rousseau, à la fois ethnologue et botaniste, qui préfigurait en quelque sorte par son travail de recherche, ses écrite et son enseignement, une des orientations les plus féconde& qu'avec l'ethnobotanique, l'anthropologie devait reprendre au cours de ces dernières années. Jacques Rousseau était également profondément soucieux d'aérer un peu, d'ouvrir quelques fenêtres dans ce que l'atmosphère intellectuelle universitaire québécoise en ces temps lointains pouvait avoir d'un peu guindé, d'un peu renfermé et qui profitait de la présence aux États-Unis d'un certain nombre d'exilés européens pour établir le début d'échanges intellectuels qui se sont révélés infiniment fructueux entre le Québec, l'Europe et plus particulièrement la France (Lévi-Strauss 1985). »
[7] The geographer Louis-Edmond Hamelin is undoubtedly one of those. As the director of the Centre for Northern Studies at Laval, he was successful in convincing the then Rector of the University to hire Jacques Rousseau as research professor in that research unit. It seems to us that he was the first titular head of such prestigious status in the human sciences at Laval. As Hamelin states in Rousseau's obituary (Hamelin 1970): 'When I mentioned the likelihood of his coming to the CNS with some people, very few encouraged me to pursue in my initiative: Jacques Rousseau was the victim of his image." This comment referred to the supposedly bellicose temperament of Rousseau rather than to his scientific production. Hamelin is of the opinion, and we follow him entirely along these lines, that unhappy circumstances at the Botanical garden in Montréal and at the Museum of Man contributed to build a distorted image of the true personality of this man of science. Rousseau, it must be granted, was straight in his ripostes, especially when he felt that the truth was distorted.
[8] We hope that this article will stir the interest of scientists and human science specialists, who have known Rousseau well, to give him at long last the kind of recognition he deserves. The ACFAS has established the Jacques Rousseau interdisciplinary prize. But how many among the laureates have thoroughly read Rousseau's Amerindian works?
[9] His poem "Toundra" (1970) is undoubtedly the most beautiful poem that we have read which has so harmoniously integrated science, scholarship, and sentiment on the North.
[10] One is likely to be surprised not to find in this text any reference to Rousseau's commentaries on the Voyages de Pehr Kalm au Canada en 1749, which he was in the process of writing at the time of his death in 1970. Even though we do consider this work as a monumental task (he had picked up some 700 themes which he had fully documented and upon which he expected to comment) it seems to us difficult to consider it as part of his Amerindian work. It is evident, however, that his northern experience and his intimate knowledge of native cultures were of great use in the choosing of the themes and in elaborating his comments and observations.
[11] As early as 1937 he published: "La botanique à l'époque de Jacques Cartier".
[12] Categories used in our analytic file are the following: theoretical perspective, material culture, socio-economic organization, religion, culture contacts, ethnoscience, acculturation and white views.
[13] Rousseau 1957b: 48. In another article he judges that type of agriculture from the standpoint of its impact on ecosystems (1961:40).
[14] Rousseau carried out most of his field work among hunter-gatherers. In his articles with a wider scope, he overtly asserts that some types of agricultural practices, for instance, did not always take into account the environmental laws of equilibrium. See, for instance, 1961: 40.
[15] Of the 43 articles of the Amerindian works of Rousseau reviewed here, 28 originate from the Ungava chronicle which he wrote in 1950-1951 for the newspaper La Patric under the rubric "À travers l'Ungava et le Nouveau-Québec". Despite the brevity and popular nature of these descriptive articles, they contain a large amount of ethnographic data of high quality. The whole set constitutes an exhaustive compendium of material techniques of acquisition, consumption and transportation of the Montagnais-Naskapi of the Ungava. The other articles document the conceptual perspective of the author, that is, the ecological model.
[16] We use here the author's terminology.
[17] “When we had important questions to discuss, we left the office around half past three or four o'clock. We went to a good restaurant to have two or three appetizers. Northern questions were the only topic of conversation. Then we had a good meal. If there were two entrees, we would take the two. Without doubt, Rousseau was Québec's best trencherman. We ordered one, two bottles of wine with our dinner and digestive at the end. I drove him back to the campus and went with him to his room. We used to discuss things over until two or three o'clock in the morning. I would return home just about dead." Interview with L. Edmond Hamelin, Josée Thivierge, July 16, 1985.
[18] We attribute here to the ethnobiologist a trait represented in the title of a book which came out recently and which aims at better defining the nature of the anthropological practice of a group of Québec anthropologists (Genest 1985).
[19] These ideas are quite analogous of those found in a recently published book by Denys Delage (1985).
[20] Entering into contact with natives at the time of the spring gatherings, some early explorers interpreted hunters' rest as laziness. While women carried out domestic chores, men were inactive. Rousseau disagrees with this narrow interpretation (1959:23).
[21] We shall comment on religious dualism later on.
[22] Rousseau tells the story that having gone three times on a taboo island where, it was said, the storm detained individuals who had been guilty of the sacrilegious act of disobedience, he was himself held back during three days on account of a storm. Rousseau often relates personal experiences of that type.
[23] That belief gave rise to an anecdote that Rousseau recounts. On the occasion of one of his expeditions, his guide confided to him that he had dreamt that a spirit had told him that the man he was guiding would not let him die of starvation and would be good to him. By chance the following night Rousseau also had a dream. A spirit revealed to him that he could put trust in his guide and could ask him all the ethnographic data he was looking for.
[24] Bruce Trigger brings to our attention that some of Rousseau's historical interpretations have fallen into disuse following new works that brought new understandings. It is now accepted, for instance, that the Iroquois fought for the acquiring of furs and the widening of their trapping territories and not to establish their control on the fur trade. At least two of Rousseau's articles deal with the fur wars theme.
[25] It has been established that the Iroquois, following their contacts with Albany (Fort Orange), also were subject to epidemics at a period as early as that of the Hurons and the Algonquians. On these matters, see Trigger (1985).
[26] At a time when Canadians and Québeckers begin to become aware of the prime importance of northern and arctic territories and to appreciate the unusual contribution of native peoples to the humanization of these regions, and as a consequence to ours in the south, we find it hard to accept that the human sciences are in decline in the northern regions. In a recent article, Tremblay (1984) has attempted to explain this phenomenon. It is also astonishing that the works of northern specialists, especially in the field of cultural anthropology, have been so little used by governments and public decision makers. Sally Weaver (1985) explains the neglect of social science expertise by the congruence of a whole set of obstacles.
[27] However, he took courses in North American archeology at the University of New Mexico summer school, and remained in close touch through regular correspondence with a number of anthropologists throughout his career. Lévi-Strauss's testimony towards Rousseau, quoted earlier, gives us the opportunity to see in proper light the quality of that contribution.
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