Maliseet

Maliseet (Malecite)
Total population
3-4,000
Regions with significant populations
Canada (New Brunswick), United States (Maine)
Languages
English, Algonquian
Religions
Christianity, traditional
Related ethnic groups
other Algonquian peoples

The Maliseet (or Malecite, also known as Wolastoqiyik and formerly as Etchemin) are an Algonquian Native American/First Nations people who inhabit the Saint John River valley and its tributaries, between New Brunswick, Quebec, and Maine. They were members of the Wabanaki confederacy and have many similarities with the other tribes of that group, particularly the Passamaquoddy whose language is almost identical to theirs.

Name

The Maliseet are also known as Wolastoqiyik, Malecite, and in French also as Malécites or Étchemins (the latter referring to a group that formerly might have been distinct but whose descendants are now counted among the Maliseet).

Wolastoqiyik is the proper name for the people and their language. They named themselves after the Wolastoq River, now commonly known as the Saint John River, on which their territory and existence were centered. Wolastoq means "bright river" or "shining river" ("wol-" = good, "-as-" shining, "-toq" = river; "-iyik" = people of). Wolastoqiyik therefore simply means "People of the Bright River," in their native language (LeSourd 2007).

Maliseet is the name by which the Mi'kmaq described them to early Europeans. "Maliseet" was a Mi'kmaq word meaning "broken talkers" or "lazy speakers" (Trigger and Sturtevant 1979). The Wolastoqiyik and Mi'kmaq languages are fairly closely related, but the name reflected what the Mi'kmaq perceived as a sufficiently different dialect to be a "broken" version of their own language. The Wolastoqiyik language is closest to the Passamaquoddy (almost identical), and related to all the dialects of New England tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy.

History

Maliseet Territory

In the Jay Treaty of 1794, the Maliseet were granted free travel between the United States and Canada because their territory spanned both sides of the border. During the 1800s, intermarriage between the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy and European settlers was not unusual, particularly among the growing community of Scottish Canadian frontiersmen. When the Treaty of Ghent was signed, ending the War of 1812, a significant portion of the Maliseet/Passamaquoddy territory was ceded from British Canada to the United States, in what is now northern Maine.

Culture

The Maliseet customs and language are very similar to those of the neighboring Passamaquoddy (or Peskotomuhkati), and largely similar to those of the Mi'kmaq and Penobscot tribes, although the Maliseet are considered to have pursued a primarily agrarian economy. They also shared some land with those peoples. The Maliseet and Passamaquoddy languages are similar enough that they are properly considered slightly different dialects of the same language, and are typically not differentiated for study.

Several French and English words made their way into Maliseet from the earliest European contact. One Maliseet word also made its way into English: "Mus," or Moose, for the unfamiliar creature the English speakers found in the woods where the Maliseet lived and had no name for in their own language.

Before contact with the Europeans, the traditional culture of both the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy generally involved traveling downstream on their rivers in the spring, and back upstream in the autumn. When they had finished traveling downstream in the spring, they congregated in larger groups near the ocean, and planted crops, largely of corn (maize), beans, squash. In the autumn, after the harvest, they traveled back upstream, taking provisions, and spreading out in smaller groups into the larger countryside to hunt game during the winter. Fishing was also a major source of resources throughout the year.

Contemporary Maliseet

Today, within New Brunswick, approximately 3,000 Maliseets currently live within the Madawaska, Tobique, Woodstock, Kingsclear, Saint Mary's and Oromocto First Nations. There are also 600 in the Houlton Band in Maine and 200 in the Viger First Nation in Quebec.

There are about 650 remaining native speakers of Maliseet and about 1,000 of Passamaquoddy, living on both sides of the border between New Brunswick and Maine; most are older, although some young people have begun studying and retaining the language, and the numbers of speakers is seen to have potentially stabilized. An active program of scholarship on the Maliseet-Passamaquoddy language takes place at the Mi'kmaq - Maliseet Institute at the University of New Brunswick, in collaboration with the native speakers, particularly David Francis Sr., a Passamaquoddy elder living in Sipayik, Maine. The Institute actively aims at helping Native American students master their native languages. Linguist Philip LeSourd has done extensive research on the language.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• LeSourd, Philip S. (ed.) 2007. Tales from Maliseet Country: The Maliseet Texts of Karl V. Teeter. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0803229624
• Trigger, Bruce G., and William C. Sturtevant (eds.). 1979. Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15: Northeast. Washington, DC: Smithsonian. ISBN 0874741955
• Campbell, Lyle. 2000. American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195140508
• Waldman, Carl. 2006. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York, NY: Checkmark Books. ISBN 978-0816062744
• Ives, Edward D. (ed.). 1998. Northeast Folklore Volume VI: 1964 Malecite and Passamaquoddy Tales. Orono, ME: Maine Folklife Center, University of Maine. Retrieved October 8, 2008.
• Mechling, W. H. [1913] 2008. Malecite Tales. Read Books. ISBN 978-1408619056
• Leavitt, Robert M. 1995. Maliseet & Micmac [Mi'kmaq]: First Nations of the Maritimes. New Ireland Press. ISBN 1896775004
• Augustine, Stephen J. 2006. Mikmaq & Maliseet Cultural And Ancestral Material: National Collections from the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Canadian Museum of Civilization (Mercury Series). ISBN 0660191156

External links

• Maliseet language and culture links
• Audio files of samples of Maliseet speech by a native speaker
• Mi'kmaq-Maliseet Institute - University of New Brunswick
• Tree and Tradition: Brown Ash and Maine Native American Basketmaking Hudson Museum, University of Maine.
• Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance
• Native Crafts
• Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians

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