These texts are extracted from records.

Andrew Kawapit talks about Hunting the caribou and what follows .

Sometimes when the caribou are killed far from home, not everything can be brought home at once. The caribou skin was always brought home as early as possible, so that it can be cleaned. Also the people  had great respect for the bones and they would carve the meat off the bones. These are the two things  they carefully took care off, the caribou skin and the bones. They stored the meat.

They sometimes stored the meat by hanging it up on the trees, where they made a small platform to  hold the stored food. The other way was to put the food on a hollow ground, where there are many rocks. The boughs or the leaves are also used as a flooring and also for covering, for the final cover they use the rocks. When we do this we say aiiyibishjinchanouch.

When the bones and the caribou skin have been taken and when they go back to get the rest of the food is left behind, we say “ nachouyasanou.”  When many caribou are killed sometimes the young active people were told to go and camp where the caribou were, their job was to clean up and put away the caribou parts. This we say “maouchiikachiinanouch” when they do this they also give themselves the good parts and eat together.

When people are camping together, the young men are told to go and search for caribou. This we say “ neyandustimach” they’re told to do this because they can walk faster. When they meet the caribou tracks we say “wisdimaouch”  the others go off to get them, this we say “ nadoiinanuu.”

In the past when they were still using the caribou nets and when someone goes to check the net, we say “ aoushehiichanouch.” when some of them get caught in the net we say” shaboibaouch”

There would be a lot of information about the traditional knowledge, how it was in the old days if we talk about it. Also the time before we had any material that is available to us today. That’s one thing that seems to help us a lot and we know that we don’t need to disrespect the things that we mostly need to use. We know where everything comes from, the successfulness of things are happening, the things the Whiteman invented that would help us and be comfortable with. It is permitted for someone to make the choice of which things to use that would help him or her. He or she has always made these choice through out his or her life, deciding what to use or how to find the things that would help him or her.

Myself I think it doesn’t look bad to just use what the Whiteman has provided, as long as someone knows it won’t harm or destroy him or her. But for the things that he knows will harm him any way, he has the choice to decide what to do.

It was always like that in the past, the young people were given discipline, so they would know what precautions to take and to seriously consider what would be better for them and the things they use.

For example, I was always told to take good  care of the things I use.  Especially when I have made something for myself or when someone has made things for me, I should take extra care for it. They say it doesn’t look good when something that has been of good use is broken, it shows that whoever owns it doesn’t take good care of it. When a person has made something for someone and sees it that it’s not taken care of, he or she doesn’t feel good about it. That’s why they said it’s important to take care of the things we use and knowing these things are convenient to our needs.

It’s very true to what’s being said and it’s also written in the bible, that one should respect of whatever he uses and not to think unconsidered about these things. Sometimes this happened in the past when someone was close to leaving this earth, they lost the respect they had for everything even the traditional food. When an Elder is given the game that was killed we say “ miskimwaganou” when he killed the game himself we say “ miskimashou.”

I’ll tell you a story about an old man, this is the same old man named Kawapsquasit I told you about at the beginning of this tape.  Kawapisquasit was the one telling this story about this old man he was living with.

This man was a Montagnais Elder, he was doing a shaking tent because his intention was to bring a game to their camp when they couldn’t get any. The Mistabow ( spirit) told him that the Biquichsquaw( the female spirit of all game) would give him what he asked for, if only he takes great respect with everything that will be given to him. He was told that two caribou will be seen, ( In the past this old man was known to disrespect the food he receives) the Biquichsqaw told him, she cannot be compassionate to him next time if he doesn’t do what he’s told.

True to the Biquichsquaw’s words, two Wiskahuuch(healthy caribou) were seen and killed. The other old man was given these caribou, he gave him one. After being done with the butchering, the old man wanted the caribou meat to be boiled outside. (When the Mistabow spoke to him, he was told to take care with respect with all the caribou parts especially the bones and the legs.) Kawapisquasit said the old man was suddenly dropping the legs on the ground and said to him, “here cook one by the open fire.”  He said he told his wife, I’ll have to take it inside and clean it. The old man cooked the caribou outside,  Kawapisquasit himself was always very respectful with the food.

After the old man was done with his cooking, he shared his food with him. Kawapisquasit told his wife, I’ll bring it inside and we’ll eat there. He said he couldn’t help but drank the broth because it  looked good and had a lot of grease in it. His wife was cleaning and tanning the caribou skin with  great care and respect. He carefully prepared his food, when he was ready to have a feast.

When they’ve eaten all their food and had no more, they were getting hungry again. Once again the old man said, prepare the shaking tent, I’m upset because she’s (Biquichsquaw) letting us go hungry again but this time the Mistabow’s voice was unrecognizable. The reason  for this was because the old man didn’t do what he was told, to respect the food that was given to him.

The spirit couldn’t do anything to help him, he was asked how his caribou skin looked like. What could have been done if his caribou skin was all cleaned and tanned but, that too wasn’t well taken care of. So there wasn’t anyway to help him.

Kawasquasit said, “I told my wife to place the head part of the caribou skin beneath the coverings of the shaking tent.” In the old days they decorated the caribou skin by painting two red stripes on the edges of the hide, where the head and legs were. The spirit was very pleased with this and told him he would live one more day, this meant that he would survive longer.

When they were getting poorer, Kawapisquasit said to the old man, “ We should go our separate ways and why bother to lie here together, this is probably our fate since we can’t get anything.” The old man probably knew what was going to happen and he didn’t bother trying to go where they’re going. So they never seen or heard from this old man again, this happened not too long ago.

This is how the people knew what’s bound to happen if one should not respect whatever he has or how he uses it. Just like the way it happened in this story. They said that when a person acts strangely or loses respect to anything and when someone kills something and eats it out there before  he can bring it home, so he doesn’t have  to share it with someone else even his family. They say this means he won’t live any longer. People were not happy about it when they knew someone acting this way.

There is another story about this person and it was told by my grandfather, ( my mother’s father) my had told me this. This man was called Mandowabaou, he went after the caribou but, managed to kill only one young caribou. He was very far from home and he decide to spend the night where he was.

During the time when the women were very active with their chores, he told his wife to go and get this caribou. My grandfather was still very young that time, this woman had a young child and told him to go with her.  My grandfather said, “So off we went and she had told me that when we reach our destination, she would boil some meat so I can eat it.”

The man had said, “I still ate last night even though I didn’t kill any caribou, I took a fish away from an otter. I also killed several ptarmigan and I cooked them by an open fire.”

My grandfather said, the caribou looked so small by the size of it, it was covered with it’s caribou skin. When the woman uncovered the caribou, the head, the legs with one of the thighs was gone. She angrily said, “ What is he thinking not telling us he ate the caribou that he killed,” she was crying as she was saying this. She collected the bloody snow and took just a little bit of the meat and boiled it, she gave me all the meat to eat and she just drank the little broth there was. This man didn’t say anything about eating the caribou, he only mentioned eating the fish and the caribou.

In the past people were good at knowing what precautions to take about everything they do, they  also took the time to concentrate on a difficult tasks they intend to do.