The Beothuk Saga: A Story Whose Ending You Know, But You Hope It Won't Happen That Way

A week ago, as a group of Native Canadian young people completed a 1,600 kilometer trek from Northern Quebec to Ottawa, I was reminded  of a .book whose ending I  knew  before I started  reading, but which kept me  fascinated all the way through anyway.  It is The Beothuk Saga by Bernard Assiniwi (translated from French by Wayne Grady, published more than a decade ago, but increasingly relevant.
                
 People who have listened even with one ear to the sad tale of North America's First People know that there are no more Beothuks. But Assiniwi  tells their story with such interesting detail that  half way  through I found myself hoping against hope  that such admirable people would survive.

The novel, which won the Prix France-Quebec in 1997, is divided into three main sections.  The first, "The Initiate."  begins at the start of the last millennium with  Anin two years into a voyage of initiation in manhood, paddling around Newfoundland.   As the story opens, his solitary mission is interrupted as he encounters a young woman, Woasut, whose people have been massacred by enemies from another Native tribe. They continue together, taking care to make winter camp well inland from a Viking settlement they see from afar.  In the  spring they're joined by a Viking woman fleeing her violent countrymen.  Before long the woman's sister also finds them, as do two run-away Scottish slaves.

What is striking about these encounters is the way the Viking and Scots  are shown to be from societies not much more modern than Amin's.  They have metal: the Scots girl slave has run off with an metal axe whose efficiency amazes Amin.  But these outlanders also come from a world where it's important to know about  hunting, fishing, hard work and rough shelter.  If anything Amin's  society offers more than their's did, since in the Beothuks' world there is no slavery, and no God Who damns people who don't believe in Him.

When they all arrive back at Amin's village,  the people he's brought home with him are assimilated into the society, his exploits pass into the Beothuks' oral tradition, and the stage is set for 500 years, more or less, of a hard but agreeable life.

The second section, "The Invaders," jumps forward to the 1500s when the first Portuguese and French explorers arrive.  The Beothuks repel the invaders at first, gaining a reputation as being as dangerous as wolves.  But they are unprepared for life in constant contact with Europeans.  After one final, losing battle in which they try to throw out the new arrivals, they are forced to retreat to the interior of the island .
                 
The third section, "Genocide," is the story of the 18th and 19th centuries, and is heart-breaking.  The Beothuks  struggle to survive, but don't.  We've known that all along, of course, but that doesn't detract from the poignancy.                
           
Born to a  Quebecoise mother and a Cree father, Assiniwi had been  a curator of ethnology and a researcher at the Canadian Museum of Civilization at Hull until shortly before his death in 2000 at  age 65.  He also was  author of nearly 30 non-fiction works   ranging  from books of traditional Native recipes  to the three volume Histoire des Indiens du haut et du bas Canada.

Without knowing Assiniwi's credentials it might be possible to dismiss his descriptions of the Beothuk Golden Age as Noble Savage sentimentalism, since the book has a bibliography but no footnotes.  But start to track his sources down, and it becomes clear  that his story is based on careful archeological and ethnological research.    Jane Smiley's The Greenlanders  (a saga of the Vikings' Greenland) and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel  (about what happens when societies collide ) also support Assiniwi's premises and make great supplementary reading, too.

It should surprise few, of course, that the day the young Cree marchers arrived at their goal--can you imagine! from Hudson's Bay to Ottawa on foot in winter!--Prime Minister Stephen Harper wasn't around to greet them.  Instead he was in Toronto, welcoming two pandas on long-term loan from China.