Grateful Prey Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships

The word "Cree" refers today to a continuum of culturally and linguistically related native people inhabiting the subarctic boreal forest from Quebec on the east to British Columbia on the west. The term originated as a contraction of "Kiristinon," a French borrowing of Kiristino , the Ojibwa name for a division of Cree-speaking people living south of James Bay in the mid-seventeenth century (Pentland 1981a :227, Bishop 1981b :158-159). The shortened form emerged by the late eighteenth century as a genetic label for other Cree-speaking groups successively encountered by the French and English traders as they moved north and west. The extension of the name reflected the traders' practical knowledge of linguistic similarities rather than any ethnic or political unity acknowledged by the people so denominated. Documentary sources mention numerous named groups associated with particular regions; these names presumably reflect to some degree ethnic and territorial distinctions recognized by the Crees themselves (Pentland1981a :227-230, 1981b :269-270).

Broad ethnic classifications developed by Euro-Canadians and now in common use by academics partially coincide with internal distinctions recognized by Crees. West of Quebec, anthropological usage distinguishes the Plains Crees occupying the southern prairie provinces and adjacent United States from the Western Woods Crees in the boreal forest to the north. The Plains Crees identify themselves as Paskwaw-iyiniwak 'prairie people' and speak varieties of the y -dialect of Cree. The Western Woods Cree (J. G. E. Smith 1981:256) category is comprised of the Swampy, Thickwoods, and Rock divisions, also groupings recognized by Crees themselves. The Swampy Crees are today n -dialect groups inhabiting both the Hudson Bay lowlands and some inland areas of Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan. They call themselves Maskekowak 'swamp people', a name attested in 1700 by Bacqueville de La Potherie's reference (1931:258) to the "Mashkegonhyrinis or Savannahs" living on the Nelson River and perhaps by even earlier forms
(Pentland 1981a :227). Thickwoods Crees arc bands who today speak northern varieties of the y -dialect and occupy the boreal forest in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and northwestern British Columbia. They call themselves Sakaw-iyiniwak 'thick woods people', a name attested in 1749 in the translation "Christinaux du Bois fort" (Margry 1879-1888, 6:616).

The Rock or Missinippi Crees, with whom this book is primarily concerned, speak the "Woods Cree" or ð-dialect and today occupy the Churchill River drainage in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The people of the Cree communities of Granville Lake and Pukatawagan on the Churchill River in northwestern Manitoba identify themselves in their own language as Nihiðawak 'Crees'. To distinguish themselves from other Cree divisions, they use either Asiniskaw-iðiniwak 'people of the country of abundant rock' or Kiwitinaw-iðiniwak 'northern people'. When speaking English or French, they identify themselves as "Crees." I refer to them hereafter for brevity as "Rock Crees," a gloss that several individuals suggested for Asiniskaw-iðiniwak . The Swampy, Rock, Thickwoods, and Plains Cree divisions now recognized both by Crees and by anthropologists reflect a complex history of amalgamations and migrations. The project of putting contemporary bands into correspondence with groups noted in early documents is complicated by the fact that group names can refer to three levels of social inclusiveness: broad ethnic divisions, regional bands oriented to particular summer fisheries or trading facilities (later reserves), and hunting groups into which regional bands divided in winter. A Cree of Pukatawagan, Manitoba, might be defined in different contexts as Nihiðaw 'Cree' (as opposed to other Indians or to whites), as Asiniskaw-iðiniw 'Rock Cree' (as opposed to Swampy Cree or Plains Cree), as Pakitawakan-iðiniw 'Pukatawagan person' (as opposed to other regional hands or reserve groups), and as Mwakwa-sakahikan-iðiniw 'Loon Lake person' or member of a group that hunts and traps at Loon Lake (as opposed to other Pukatawagan trapline groups). It is not always dear to which of these levels of social classification the names given in documentary sources refer. Neither, given the fluidity

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