The harsh winds of the North Atlantic roll ceaselessly throughout rocky islets off the north coast of Newfoundland. These outcroppings of rock, topped solely in mosses and lichens, function cemeteries for individuals of a misplaced tradition. For centuries, the Beothuk individuals got here to those islands in 18-foot birchbark canoes bearing the our bodies of family and friends. The lifeless had been placed in graves dug within the meager soil, or below rocky overhangs, wrapped or lined in birchbark. Bark containers, instruments, and typically mannequin canoes barely the size of an arm had been placed beside the dead. Heavy stones had been then organized atop the location to discourage scavengers.
Many of the lifeless wore delicate, fantastically carved pendants smudged with purple ochre. These pendants had been whittled and polished down from fragments of caribou bone till they had been solely flat. The Beothuk then carved them into shapes associated to birds—the wing-feather of an Arctic tern, for instance—and engraved them with geometric patterns. Holes drilled into them allowed the small objects to be worn on a necklace or stitched onto clothes, maybe as a manner for the lifeless to take them on their remaining journey. Archaeologists have no idea their function for sure, as a lot of the millennia-old story of the Beothuk has been misplaced.
The ancestors of the Beothuk could have arrived on Newfoundland as early as the primary century, presumably sharing the island for a short interval with members of the older Dorset tradition, which had expanded south from the High Arctic to Newfoundland round 2000 B.C. Evidence of the Dorset tradition disappears from Newfoundland about 1,300 years in the past, however the individuals of the Beothuk lineage continued to thrive, their livelihood centered on the island’s wealthy coastal areas.
Beothuk settlements had been positioned in protected coves and inlets that allowed them to fish and hunt for harbour seals, hooded seals, and walrus. During the good autumn migrations of caribou, searching events would transfer inland and, if the hunt was fortunate, carry again loads of meat for the winter.
But it was the huge colonies of seabirds that existed alongside Newfoundland’s shoreline that allowed the Beothuk to flourish. Their food plan included Arctic tern, the now-extinct nice auk, geese, and geese, together with the eggs of those birds, which had been gathered and preserved. Eggs had been such an vital staple of the Beothuk food plan that they undertook lengthy and harmful journeys to nesting websites positioned miles offshore.
Hunter-gatherer societies usually affiliate animals on which they rely for survival with religious energy; it’s doubtless that the Beothuk seen the seabirds each as a practical meals supply and as highly effective religious beings.
While the vast majority of Beothuk burial websites have been looted, just a few of them have been professionally excavated by fashionable archaeologists. Many of the graves which have survived, partially or solely intact, comprise a number of bone pendants. Most depict components of seabird anatomy—wing feathers and webbed toes, as an example.
The greatest likelihood of understanding their significance could also be to show to one of many uncommon Beothuk oral histories preserved right this moment. In the early Nineteenth century, a Beothuk girl named Shanawdithit shared that her individuals believed that, after demise, their spirits would go on a journey to a cheerful island distant, “where the sun went down behind the mountains.”
The thought of a journey within the afterlife is frequent throughout many cultures historical and fashionable. For occasion, traditions of the neighboring Mi’kmaq individuals comprise the same factor of the soul journeying after demise. Like the Beothuk, Mi’kmaq burials have included mannequin canoes to help on this passage.
Seabirds are properly tailored to journey between totally different environments, from flying to diving into the ocean for meals to nesting on land. It is straightforward to see that the Beothuk might need thought-about these birds as supreme journey companions within the afterlife. Archaeologists imagine this link between soul travel and seabirds probably explains the bird-shaped bone pendants that had been such a big a part of Beothuk burial customs.
How lengthy Beothuk burials continued following this custom will not be clear. By the time looters discovered and ravaged a number of graves on the north-central coast within the early Nineteenth century, the Beothuk tradition had endured centuries of hostile European contact, together with Norse settlers, Basque fishermen, and whalers. As the foreigners exploited the wealthy coastal assets, surviving Beothuk had retreated inland a long time earlier.
In reality, their connection to the ocean, and to the seabirds charged with guiding their souls to the afterlife, was severed by the 18th century. By the time the graves had been looted alongside the coast, Europeans claimed that there were only a handful of Beothuk left in the world. Shanawdithit was considered one of them, and for many years Europeans known as her the final of her individuals—regardless of Mi’kmaq oral custom that surviving Beothuk had been absorbed into their communities, which has recently been supported by genetic studies. Her relations lifeless from sickness, hunger, or settler violence, Shanawdithit was kidnapped by Europeans. It was then that she advised Scottish creator and explorer W. E. Cormack of her individuals’s traditions—and that she feared not being buried with correct Beothuk rites. When tuberculosis claimed her on the age of 28, her fears had been realized: She was disadvantaged of the funerary customs of her individuals, with out seabirds to see her home.
