Ralph Bunche
The Beothuk people of Newfoundland were not the very first inhabitants ofthe island. Thousands of years before theirarrival there existed an ancient race, named the Maritime Archaic Indianswho lived on the shores of Newfoundland. (Red Ochre Indians, Marshall, 4.)Burial plots and polished stone tools are occasionally discovered nearBeothuk remains. Some people speculate that, because of the proximity ofthe artifacts to the former lands of the Beothuk, the Maritime ArchaicIndians and the Beothuk may have been related. It is not certain when theBeothuk arrived on the island. In fact little is actually known about thepeople, compared to what is known about other amerindian civilisations,only artifacts and stories told by elders tell the historians who thesepeople really were. Some speculate that they travelled from "Labrador toNewfoundland across the strait of Belle Isle, which at one time was only12 miles wide. By about 200 AD the Beothuk Indians were probably wellsettled into Newfoundland."(Red Ochre, 8)The Beothuk were not alone on Newfoundland wither. The DorsetEskimos, who came from Cape Dorset regions of the north around 500 BC alsoshared the island. They presumably had contact with the Beothuk,
Fishermen from England, Spain, Portugal and Francehad beenusign the land to set up dry)fisheries. The trees would be piledone over the next and so on and produced a "thicket that the caribou couldnot penetrate or jump over. Normally paddling on thehigh seas is dangerous, but Beothuk canoes were so designed to with standhigh waves and stay accurately on course. Other Algonkian tribes used it, although "not solavishly as the Newfoundland indians. )In 1497, John Cabot arrived in Newfoundland and brought backthe news about a new undescovered area in the north. History andthe Ethnography of the BeothukMcGill)Queens University Press. this painting of the body was done annually atspecial ceremonies which included the initiation of children born sincethe last ceremony. Even beforethis, however, there was contact between the Europeans and theBeothuk.
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