Transmission of Indigenous Knowledge and Bush Skills Among the ...

Human Ecology, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1997

Transmission of Indigenous Knowledge andBush Skills Among the Western James BayCree Women of Subarctic Canada

Kayo Ohmagari1'3 and Fikret Berkes2

The transmission of 93 items of women's indigenous knowledge and bush skillswas studied in two subarctic Omushkego (West Main) Cree Indiancommunities, Moose Factory and Peawanuck, Ontario, Canada. About halfof all bush skills were still being transmitted at the "hands-on" learning stage.Some skills such as setting snares and fishnets, beadwork, smoking geese, andtanning moose and caribou hides were transmitted well. Many skills no longeressential for livelihoods, such as some fur preparation skills and foodpreservation techniques, were not. Loss of certain skills and incompletetransmission of others (a lower level of mastery than in older generations) wereattributable to changes in the educational environment, diminished timeavailable in the bush, problems related to learning bush skills at later ages,and changes in value systems. These factors seemed to impair the traditionalmode of education based on participant observation and apprenticeship in thebush, which provided the essential self-disciplining educational environment.Policy measures to counteract these trends may include the institution of ahunters' income security program to provide incentives for family units to goon the land, rather than all-male hunting parties.

KEY WORDS: indigenous knowledge; traditional skills; knowledge transmission; learning;livelihood systems; mixed economy, subsistence; Cree; James Bay; subarctic Canada.

1Department of Anthropology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2,Canada.

2Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2, Canada.3Present address: 6-25-24 Higashirinkan, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 228, Japan.

197

0300-7839/97/0600-0197$12.50/0 C 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation

198 Ohmagari and Berkes

INTRODUCTION

Systems of indigenous knowledge and resource use have been of interestto human ecologists, but the systematic study of such knowledge and its rec-ognition as a distinct field of scholarly inquiry is relatively new (Brokenshaet al, 1980; Warren et al, 1995). Accumulating evidence suggests that indige-nous knowledge is important not only for its own sake but also for its poten-tial to help design more effective management for various ecological systems(Gadgil et al, 1993; Berkes et al., 1995). The documentation and use of in-digenous knowledge systems have become a part of international environ-mental policy, especially since the 1992 Earth Summit, which took a strongstep to help legitimize indigenous concerns (Cicin-Sain and Knecht, 1995).

Yet some of the central issues concerning indigenous knowledge haveremained elusive, not only for policymakers, but also for scholars engagedin such research. Almost all researchers refer to the great store of knowl-edge held by indigenous elders and its impending loss. Pinkerton (1994),for example, comments: "the challenge ... is first to foster the documen-tation of the precious and fast-disappearing traditional knowledge of FirstNations." Aboriginal groups in Canada are similarly concerned with theloss of knowledge held by the elders, and a number of studies on traditionalknowledge initiated by aboriginal groups themselves have focused on in-terviewing and recording elders (e.g., Dene Cultural Institute, 1993). Yetvery few studies have systematically investigated the nature of the trans-mission process and the magnitude of loss among traditional peoples, eventhough the loss of cultural diversity has been compared in importance toloss of biodiversity (Gadgil, 1987). Quantitative data on mechanisms oftransmission of cultural traits is also important from a theoretical point ofview, for the study of processes of cultural evolution (Cavalli-Sforza andFeldman, 1981).

There is a large anthropological literature on the transmission of cul-ture, the human mode of information transmission through symbolic com-munication. These studies have stressed values, personality traits, andattitudes, "rather than the mundane details of the transmission of practicalskills and knowledge" (Hewlett and Cavalli-Sforza, 1986). Exceptions in-clude two detailed studies, one on the transmission of traditional food pro-curement techniques in the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela (Ruddle andChesterfield, 1977), and the other on the transmission of bush skills andcultural knowledge among the Aka Pygmies of the tropical forest regionof Central Africa (Hewlett and Cavalli-Sforza, 1986). As Ruddle (1993)has observed, the transmission of local and indigenous knowledge remainsa neglected field.

Transmission of Knowledge and Skills 199

This paper is concerned with the transmission of indigenous knowledgeand bush skills where "transmission" refers to the process of transferringcultural items, such as a skill, from one individual to another. Whether agiven cultural item has been transmitted effectively depends on the levelof mastery of the skill. Hence, transmission is not considered to be inde-pendent of the mastery of a particular item. The term "indigenous knowl-edge" is used here to mean local knowledge held by indigenous peoples,or local knowledge unique to a given culture or society (Warren et al,1995). "Traditional ecological knowledge" is defined as a cumulative bodyof knowledge and beliefs, handed down through generations by culturaltransmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans)with one another and with their environment (Berkes et al., 1995). Indige-nous knowledge is used here as the broader term, covering not only eco-logical knowledge but other knowledge and skills related to making alivelihood. The term "bush skills" refers to expertise and competencies in-volved in being self-reliant and making a livelihood off the land. "Bush"is any part of land away from settlements, including forest and wetland."Harvesting" is the term preferred by the Cree to refer collectively to theactivities of hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering (Berkes et al., 1994)."Sustainable livelihood security" is an integrating concept proposed byChambers (1988) in which livelihood is defined as adequate stocks andflows of food and income to meet basic needs, security refers to controlof, and access to, resources and income-generating activities, and sustain-able refers to the maintenance or enhancement of resource productivityon a long-term basis.

Our work does not argue in favor of the return of traditional practicesfor their own sake. Rather, we argue that any measure that improves sus-tainable livelihood security is likely to have positive value, including thetransmission of appropriate bush skills. Cree community leaders considerparticipation in bush life important for Cree social and cultural health. Suchjudgments about what is "good" for the Cree have been substantiated, forexample, by the work of Niezen (1993) who found that reduced bush ac-tivity in an eastern James Bay Cree community impacted by large-scalehydroelectric development has been accompanied by an increase in the so-cial service caseload, which is a measure of health trends and social prob-lems, such as increased suicide rates.

The paper is based on a study with Omushkego Cree Indian womenfrom the remote and sparsely populated James and Hudson Bay area inthe Canadian Eastern Subarctic. To understand indigenous knowledgetransmission in a contemporary society, we examined the process of bushskill acquisition among these Cree women who live in an area in which

the traditional economy based on hunting, fishing, and trapping is still ac-tive, and traditional skills are essential for sustainable livelihood security.

In our previous studies in this area, we found that fishing and huntingin the region as a whole provided about 400 g meat or about 100 g proteinper adult per day (Berkes et al., 1994). The replacement value of bushfood, together with the other products of the land (fur, fuelwood, berries)was $8400 (in 1990 Canadian dollars) per household per year. We foundthat almost all able-bodied men took part in hunting and fishing. Partici-pation rates in waterfowl hunting were 81% in Moose Factory and 84% inPeawanuck; in fishing, 69% and 78%; small game (snowshoe hare, grousespecies, and ptarmigan) hunting, 69% and 68%; and in trapping, 17% and33%, respectively. Community networks for the sharing of food, a key Creecultural value, were also extensive. In Moose Factory, 50% of all respon-dents shared their food with four or more families; and in Peawanuck, withfive or more families (Berkes et al., 1994). The hunters also reported that42% of their wives in Moose Factory and 57% in Peawanuck took part inharvesting activities, but we did not at the time follow up on this finding,as the study focused on male hunters and not on women.

For hunting, fishing, and food processing, certain kinds of knowledgeand bush skills are essential; this is true not only for the elders' generationbut also for the current generation. For example, a knowledge of fish dis-tributions and behavior, as well as the ability to navigate the coast are pre-requisites to successful fishing in James Bay (Berkes, 1977). Although mendo most of the hunting in the contemporary Cree economy, it is well knownthat women and children traditionally accompanied the hunters on theland, and women frequently engaged in small game hunting and fishing.The role of women was considered equal in importance and complementaryto that of men. Women were in charge of the bush camp, and were gen-erally, but not exclusively, responsible for food processing, fire-making andcooking (Rogers and Rogers, 1963). After the Cree settled into permanentvillages, women lost their role as equal partners in the bush; all-male hunt-ing teams became more common than family-unit bush camps (George andPreston, 1987; Feit, 1989).

The present study was undertaken to find out more about the role ofwomen in the contemporary Cree land-based economy, including the ques-tion of changes in cultural orientation (Ohmagari, 1995). The present paperreports our findings in regard to the transmission of bush skills and indige-nous knowledge from the older generations to the younger, discusses thechanges in the nature of the transmission process, and identifies the prob-lems and factors that affect or impede transmission. We conclude with adiscussion of the likely effects of loss of traditional knowledge and skills,and some of its policy implications.


Transmission of Knowledge and Skills

Fig. 1. Traditional territory of the Omushkego (West Main) Cree. Adapted from Honig-mann (1981).

THE STUDY AREA AND THE PEOPLE

The land of the Omushkego Cree Indian people of Northern Ontarioextends from the Quebec border along the coast of James Bay and HudsonBay to the Manitoba border (Fig. 1). The area is one of the largest wetlandregions of Canada, dominated by slow-moving rivers, and consists of a mo-saic of forest, bogs, and fens. Typical vegetation is black spruce, Sphagnummoss, and ground lichen in the bogs, and sedge, birch, and tamarack inthe fens. Stands of white spruce, balsam fir, trembling aspen, balsam poplar,and white birch occur in the better-drained areas. There is no agriculturein the area, although small gardens are found in some villages. The entirearea was covered by glaciers until about 10,000 years ago, and there is littlesoil suitable for growing crops. Geographically, the region is part of the

201

subartic, with mean daily maximum temperatures of 20° to 23°C in July,-15° to -18°C in January, and 200-240 cm mean annual snowfall.

The people of the area have been referred to as the West Main Creeor Swampy Cree, a branch of Algonquian-speaking peoples (Honigmann,1981). Their term for themselves is Omushkego, literally the people of themuskeg, a Cree word that has entered the Canadian English language. TheOmushkego Cree of the Western James Bay and Hudson Bay Lowlandhistorically ranged 200-300 km inland from the coast, to the limits of thewetland area. Presently the Omushkego Cree make up the bulk of the resi-dent native population of the region, which was about 6500 in 1990, ac-cording to band council records. Moose Factory (pop. 1750), historicallyimportant as the one-time headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, isone of the two major settlements in the region, the other being Moosonee,a nonnative town. The second village in the study, Peawanuck (formerlyWinisk, pop. 227), is the smallest settlement of the region. Cree is the majorlanguage used at home in Peawanuck and for some families in Moose Fac-tory. English is used to a greater extent in Moose Factory, and youngerfamilies in Peawanuck have been using more English in recent years.

Traditionally, the aboriginal people of the region lived in scattered lo-cal bands, moving with the seasons and subsisting on fish and game. Theytraveled by canoe in summer and snowshoes and toboggan in winter. Theirpursuits were well adapted to what their environment produced; they de-veloped technology, skills, customs, institutions, and ethics appropriate toa hunting way of life (George and Preston, 1987).

In the twentieth century, the locus of "home" gradually changed fromthe bush to village settlement (R. Preston, 1986). The population no longerlived in scattered hunting groups but came to be concentrated in permanentcommunities from which hunters made trips to the bush for subsistencefood harvesting and for fur trapping, the main source of their cash incomeuntil about 1950 (Honigmann, 1981). Until the 1950s, these trips were ofseveral months duration and involved the whole family. In the 1990s, thispattern of harvesting the land has all but disappeared, although there werestill some families in Attawapiskat (a neighboring community, see Fig. 1)that followed the traditional pattern (Berkes, field notes). More typically,however, in Western James Bay of the 1990s, harvesting is carried outthrough camping trips which are usually of a few days' duration and rarelylonger than a month.

Moose Factory, as a permanent settlement (as opposed to a tradingpost), started as early as the 1920s; urbanization accelerated after 1945.The status of Moose Factory as a permanent settlement and regional centerwas consolidated with the establishment of the hospital in 1951 and theexpansion of the residential school in 1955. In the case of Peawanuck, the


former site (Winisk) was only a summer gathering place for nomadic familygroups until about 1950. It gradually became a permanent settlement be-tween 1950 and 1960. Some present day Peawanuck families did not settlethere until 1973.

RESEARCH METHODS AND FRAMEWORK

Two communities, Moose Factory and Peawanuck, were selected forthis comparative study in order to provide a contrast between a large anda small village, one in the south and the other in the more remote northof the region, and one of them a longer-standing permanent settlementthan the other. Moose Factory is not considered a "traditional community"by the Cree. Peawanuck is considered more traditional, but it experiencedstress associated with profound cultural change when a defence installationwas constructed in the area in the 1950s (Trudeau, 1966).

Three research techniques were used: structured interviews, unstruc-tured interviews with key informants and elders, and participant observa-tion. The key informants were chosen from those who were active in bushlife and acknowledged by the community to be experts. Structured surveyswere prepared on the basis of the results of the unstructured interviewswhich generated a list of women's traditional bush skills consisting of 93items. The Cree are eclectic about what they consider "traditional." Forexample, goose hunting is a traditional pursuit. The use of a modern shot-gun, which is a tool only, does not change the fact, in the Cree mind, thatthe goose hunt is defined as a traditional activity.

The 93 items were largely generated by the key informants as "tradi-tionally important skills for bush living," and included a few older but non-aboriginal skills, such as making bannock, as well as some recent skills suchas the ability to drive a snowmobile. The list also included a small numberof imported but long-practiced items such as waterproof stitching for seal-skin boots (from the Inuit) and food preservation by pickling/salting (fromEuropeans), The list of 93 items is by no means exhaustive. For example,the use of bush medicine was treated as one item when, in fact, it couldhave been turned into over 50. But the project would not have been man-ageable if a longer list had been used. Also left out for practical reasonswas location-based knowledge of land and animals which is important inCree culture, as families tend to have microcultural traditions based onknowledge of their territories (Preston, 1975, 1982). Traditional knowledgepertaining to belief systems, spirituality, and cosmology were also left outof the scope of study. The list was explicitly devoted to items in whichindigenous knowledge and bush skills could be treated as a complex inwhich practical knowledge and skills are considered together.


Quantitative data were obtained by the use of structured interviewsconducted in both communities. Each interviewee was asked to answerthree questions on each of the 93 items on the list: (1) Did you learn theparticular skill? (2) If yes, who was your major teacher? and (3) How oldwere you when you learned the skill?

For comparative purposes, bush skills and knowledge transmissionamong the older informants were also studied. Unstructured interviewswere used for this purpose because the elders did not respond well to struc-tured questions (as experienced by other researchers elsewhere, see Kater,1993). Altogether, structured interviews were used with 16 younger womenand unstructured interviews with 30 older women (aged fifties to seventies)in Moose Factory. In Peawanuck, structured interviews were used with 19younger women and unstructured interviews with 11 older women (late for-ties to seventies).

For Moose Factory, this sampling represented 13% of the women over15 years of age (excluding members of the Mocreebec First Nation whoare of Eastern James Bay Cree cultural background). Sampling was notstratified but included people who were reachable through local contactsand willing to be interviewed. Since this was a self-selected group interestedin traditional skills, it can be said that the sampling was biased in favor ofthe bush-oriented sector in Moose Factory. In the case of Peawanuck, thesample represented 48% of all women over 15 years of age. The samplecan be considered representative, as it basically covered all women whowere available and willing to be interviewed.

The participant observation technique was used for subsistence harvestingtrips for hunting moose, trapping fur animals, hunting goose, and fishing. Aswell, participant observation was carried out in the villages with regard to foodprocessing, cooking, skin preparation, and craft work. Some of this hands-onparticipant observation could be considered apprenticeship in the Cree senseof education and knowledge transmission. It included the learning of the sim-pler steps in several skills. Such practical work provided the context for thestudy, and allowed the formulation of more appropriate research questions.

The study used the framework provided by Ruddle and Chesterfield(1977) to analyze the sequences of learning traditional skills. These authorsidentified eight stages or processes of the learning complex: (1) familiari-zation or the identification of the skill to be learned; (2) observation ofthe teacher performing the skill; (3) helping with simple steps; (4) helpingwith the entire skill complex; (5) performing the skill complex under su-pervision; (6) becoming an assistant or apprentice to the instructor; (7)independent performance of the skill complex by the apprentice and abilityto experiment with the task; and (8) becoming a peer (or equal partner)to the teacher (Fig. 2).



Fig. 2. The learning sequence fortraditional skills and knowledge.After Ruddle and Chesterfield(1977).

However, the present study did not ask how informants evaluated theirlearning of each of 93 tasks with respect to all eight of these stages of skillacquisition because of the potential problem of "informant fatigue." In-stead, the study used an abbreviated version of the framework involvingonly three stages: (1) learned by hands-on experience; (2) learned by ob-serving only; and (3) not learned.

TRADITIONAL TRANSMISSION: THE BACKGROUND

Many elders pointed out that bush skills were not taught by formaleducation, in the abstract. Their way was "learning by doing" (Preston,1975, 1982) through apprenticeship. The apprenticeship started as soon asa Cree child learned to walk; she was expected to help with and share inthe work of the bush camp (Long, 1978). The child was not usually givenverbal instructions but encouraged to learn skills by playing and by imitatingadults through participation in subsistence production activities (Flannery,1995). At the same time, the child acquired the Cree values of self-reliance,independence, and competence, and also of sharing and cooperation (Sin-dell, 1987). Children learned skills from parents, grandparents, older sib-lings, and members of the extended family with whom they camped. Parentshad the main responsibility for their children's education. However, mem-bers of extended families were readily available to take over teaching re-sponsibilities whenever needed (S. Preston, 1986).

After an extended period of learning by watching and helping (Ruddleand Chesterfield's learning stages three and four), the child was encouragedto attempt and repeat the observed skills. Depending on the complexity ofthe skill, the apprentice started to perform one part of the skill complexand eventually learned the entire skill complex. Mastery of the skill complexwas a gradual process and only achieved by trial and error (Preston, 1979;Blythe et al, 1985; S. Preston, 1986).

In this process of trial-and-error, teachers were patient and supportiveeven if the apprentice failed many times, as long as she was diligent. Theapprentice was told, "Keep trying, never give up until you get it right."Furthermore, she was expected to follow the prescribed ways to master theskill. When she did it properly, the teacher praised her saying ekute (thatis the way). In traditional Cree culture, parents taught their children ade-quate survival skills that allowed them to live in the bush by the time theyreached their mid to late teens (Flannery, 1962, 1995; Rogers and Rogers,1963; Blythe et al., 1985). Informants of the present study also identifiedthe age range, 13-15 years, as the key time period for the mastery of mostof the bush skills.


The Euro-Canadian school system had a major impact on aboriginalculture. The traditional system of education started to break down withthe placement of children in residential schools as early as 1900. Mission-aries emphasized the education of children in order to assimilate the Indianpopulation into the dominant Euro-Canadian culture (Nock, 1988). Thefirst residential schools in the western James Bay region were establishedin Fort Albany by the Oblate Fathers around 1892 (Long, 1978). ManyCree had by that time been Christianized. Under the strong influence ofmissionaries, the Cree began to send their children to schools.

Until 1945, missionaries encouraged parents to leave their children inschool while they were in bush camps and discouraged them from campingnear the school (Johnston, 1988). Missionaries were interested in educatingthe young because they considered the older generation "beyond redemp-tion" (Nock, 1988). As the younger generation was the only hope for as-similation and social change, it was necessary to disconnect children fromtheir home environment and to eliminate or reduce parental influence (Ti-tley, 1986).

Education of children serves to recruit new members to society in or-der to maintain existing social systems (e.g., Spindler, 1977). However,when the missionaries and the government took over the control of Creeeducation, Cree children were recruited to a society other than their own.The children who grew up in and who were socialized in residential schools,acquired values and orientations that were not adaptive for bush life. Bythe time they finished their schooling, they had become foreigners to Creetradition, not only by failing to acquire skills and knowledge of the land,but also by lacking an appropriate attitude for life on the land. Thus, formalschooling led to the weakening of the existing social system (Barman et al,1987). Although some residential school children managed to learn Indianways, or re-learned later, the conventional wisdom is that the residentialschool system (which persisted in western James Bay until the mid-1970s),is responsible to a major degree for the loss of culture and tradition (e.g.,Barman et al, 1987; Miller, 1987; Sindell, 1987). Less well known is whetherthe children in local day schools fared any better with regard to retainingCree culture and learning traditional knowledge and skills.

TRANSMISSION OF KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Transmission Rates

The transmission status of bush skills and indigenous knowledge bygroup of skills is shown in Table I. In Moose Factory, 56% of 93 bush skillswas learned by the interviewees by hands-on experience and another 13%


Table I. Transmission of Bush Skills and Indigenous Knowledge, Mean Scores by Groupsof Skills, by Percentagea

Items

Fur-preparation skills (n = 8)Food preparation, preservation, and

cooking skills (n = 26)Bush camp-related skills (n = 26)Hunting, fishing, and trapping skills (n

= 11)Skills related to making of clothing, im-

plements, and crafts (n = 22)Total (n = 93)

Percentage Reporting the Skills

Moose Factory

Y

3461

7171

39

56%

O

810

79

35

13%

N

5829

2220

26

31%

Peawanuck

Y

1753

6453

38

45%

O

715

38

20

11%

N

7632

3339

43

44%aY: learned by hands-on experience, O: learned by observation only, N: not learned, n: numberof items.


was learned by observation only. In Peawanuck, 45% was learned by hands-on experience and another 11% by observation only. To put this result inperspective, it should be remembered that the interviewees in Peawanuck(the more "traditional" of the two communities) were a representative sam-ple, whereas the Moose Factory sample was a self-selected group of womenmore heavily representing the bush-oriented sector of the community. Thetable lists six groups of skills, ranging from the poorly transmitted fur prepa-ration skills to the rather successfully transmitted skills related to bush camps.

The low transmission rates in fur preparation skills is attributable to thedeclining role of trapping in the Cree economy since the 1940s. There wassuch a sharp drop in fur prices in international markets in the 1980s thattrappers in Peawanuck commented that returns on fur were not sufficienteven to cover fuel expenses of snowmobiles going to bush camps. The trans-mission rates of skills related to the higher valued species such as beaver(Castor canadensis) and marten (Manes americana) were relatively high;those related to the smallest fur animals (which had virtually no fur value by1990) were notably low, 0-5%. One significance of the latter finding is thatit indicates a loss of learning opportunities, since small animals such as squir-rels were traditionally used for practicing skill development.

Food preparation skills showed a mix of poorly transmitted and welltransmitted items. For example, skills related to fish cleaning, smoking, anddrying; goose (mainly Branta canadensis) cleaning and barbecuing (mainlyapwan and sakapwan methods); and moose (Alces alces) meat preparationwere very well transmitted. All of these animals are major items in theCree diet (Berkes et al., 1994). By contrast, some skills were almost totallylost, including those for preparing ruhiggan type of pemmican, a food itemof the fur trade days, made with pounded dried meat, fat, and dried berries

(Isham cited by Lytwyn, 1993, p. 234). Also lost were skills relating to mak-ing grease from fish and seals; these oils were used for lighting, cooking,and dog food preparation.

In skills related to bush camps, there was also a mix of well transmittedand poorly transmitted items. Basic camping skills, such as knowing whereto obtain water, starting fire, knowing how to dress warmly, using axe andsaw, were all transmitted well, along with the modern skills of operatingsnowmobiles and outboard motors. Some traditional skills such as buildingaskikan (winter lodge made of split logs and covered with sod of Sphagnummoss for insulation), handling dog teams, and use of sails, were transmittedpoorly or not at all.

Among skills related to hunting, fishing, and trapping, there was nearly100% knowledge of some of the modern skills, such as the use of gunsand rod-and-reel fishing. As well, there were high rates of transmission ofbasic women's food-getting skills: setting fish nets and snaring small game.Some skills, such as ice-fishing with nets and seining (drag net) were bettertransmitted in Peawanuck (48 and 26%, respectively, not shown in the ta-ble) than in Moose Factory (33 and 7%, respectively). Other skills, suchas the knowledge of animal movements and imitating animals calls, werebetter transmitted in Moose Factory (47 and 66%, respectively) than inPeawanuck (16 and 32%, respectively).

Handicraft-making skills are highly regarded and commercially impor-tant, and the transmission rates of such skills were relatively high. For ex-ample, the transmission rates for beadwork skills were 87% in MooseFactory and 95% in Peawanuck (not shown in the table), moccasin-makingskills were 66 and 69%, skills related to making mittens (essential for wintertravel) were 73 and 58%, and making goose-feather blankets (essential forspring and winter camping) were 80 and 42%, respectively. By contrast,skills related to waterproof stitching for sealskin boots, woodworking andbone tools were not transmitted, as these items had been replaced by com-mercially manufactured goods.

Learning Age and Teachers

Table II shows the mean age of skill acquisition for a selection of impor-tant bush skills. There was variation by skill type and by community; someskills were acquired by the age of seven or eight, but others such as mooseand caribou tanning by the young women of Moose Factory were not acquireduntil 18 years of age. For the set shown in Table II, the mean age of transmis-sion was about 14 years in Moose Factory and 11 years in Peawanuck. Theseages were consistent with the narratives of the older women who had learnedthe same skills by the age of 13-15, and mastered all bush skills before the


Table II. Age of Skill Acquisition and Transmission of Key Bush Skill Items (Hands-onLearning)

Bush skills

Dressing warmlyGetting woodUsing axeMaking bannocka

Sakapwanb

Smoking fishSmoking goosec

Setting snaresSetting fish netsPaddlingSetting up tentOrientating in bushStretching beaver pletTanning-caribouTanning-mooseMaking moccasins

Moose factory (n = 15)

Mean age

88

1312161218151515141316161816

Transmissionrates

100%100%100%100%100%94%73%87%

100%93%

100%73%60%76%67%66%

Peawanuck (n = 19)

Mean age

78

10101312129

1112121211121213

Transmissionrates

100%95%

100%73%42%71%63%95%63%95%95%53%58%79%68%69%

aBread made of flour, lard, baking powder, and water. Originally introduced by the Scotsemployed by the Hudson's Bay Company. Often flavored with berries and fish roe.

bWhole goose on string cooked barbecue style. The low transmission rate in Peawanuck re-flects the preference of the Peawanuck Cree for the alternative goose roasting method, apwdn,goose on stick.

c"Smoked goose" refers especially to the nameshtek method of smoking goose that takes outall bones. There are four methods in all.


age of marriage. Competency in the bush was very important because compe-tent women attracted husbands who were good hunters, as noted also by Ro-gers and Rogers (1963). Other studies on traditional skills also found the ageof transmission to be about 15 years (Hewlett and Cavalli-Sforza, 1986, p. 933;Ruddle and Chesterfield, 1977, p. 104).

However, the meaning of "learning" of the skills in Table II was dif-ferent from that of the older generations. Interviews with the elders re-vealed that they had learned the skills fully by their mid-teens, perhaps atthe level of stage seven (Fig. 2) in Ruddle and Chesterfield's (1977) learn-ing sequence. By contrast, most of the girls and young women were no-where near that stage at the ages indicated in Table II. Although Table IIindicates hands-on learning (that is, beyond stage two), interviews indicatedthat learning was incomplete or was at the elementary levels (mostly stagesthree and four) among members of the younger generation.

Survey data confirmed that the parents, especially the mothers, werethe principal teachers in both Moose Factory and Peawanuck, accountingfor one-half to two-thirds of all transmission. Grandparents were also im-portant (Table III). There were regional differences with respect to secon-

Table III. Instructors in the Transmission of Bush Skills and In-digenous Knowledge, by Percentage

Main source of knowledge

MotherFatherBoth parents

Subtotal (parents)GrandmotherGrandfatherBoth grandparents

Subtotal (grandparents)AuntSisterMother-in-lawHusbandBrothersUncleOthers (e.g., friends)

Subtotal (others)Total

Moose Factory

32171261641

11315

12214

28100%

Peawanuck

45121572842

1432.5122.512

14100%


dary teachers. In Moose Factory, "others" transmitted 28%, including hus-bands at 12%. This pattern was not observed in Peawanuck where grand-parents and "others" contributed 14% each. By comparison, Ruddle andChesterfield (1977, p. 125) also found that parents were the primary teach-ers among Venezuelan peasants, and Hewlett and Cavalli-Sforza (1986, p.932) found that most of the traditional skills (80%) were transmitted byparents among the Aka Pigmy.

One interpretation of the rather large percentage of nonparent teach-ing in Moose Factory is that bush skills were no longer a prerequisite fora good marriage in town life. In many cases, women were learning bushskills, not from their parents but from anyone willing to teach, especiallyhusbands and in-laws, after marrying into bush-oriented families. This in-terpretation is also consistent with the finding of higher mean age of skilltransmission in Moose Factory (Table II). But there is another aspect tothe finding of high rates of nonparent teaching, one that signifies dynamicculture change. In the cultural evolution model developed by Cavalli-Sforzaand Feldman (1981), nonvertical transmission permits a higher rate of cul-tural evolution than does vertical (that is, parent-to-child) transmission,which is like biological transmission and highly conservative.

CHANGES IN THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF TRANSMISSION

Decreased rates of skill and knowledge transmission may be attribut-able to the fact that the traditional mode of education, learning by watching

and apprenticeship, is not fully operative in the current educational envi-ronment. This section of the paper examines why the traditional mode oftransmission, observation and apprenticeship, is no longer working well andwhy it is not well adapted to contemporary conditions. The relevant factorsare no doubt complex and interrelated. For analytical purposes, we focuson four elements in present social conditions that appear to be workingagainst the traditional educational system: (a) changes in the educationalenvironment and peer influence; (b) effects of the diminished time avail-able in the bush due to formal schooling and wage employment; (c) prob-lems related to learning bush skills at later ages, or delayed transmission;and (d) effects of changes in value systems.

The Changing Educational Environment

The traditional educational environment was well adapted to living offthe land for most of the year. Hence, sedentarization after World War II,along with government's assimilation policy and compulsory school educa-tion, caused a drastic change in the educational environment. As familiessettled in the village to be closer to their children, men went to the bushalone to harvest food and to generate cash income from trapping. Locatedfar from the game, the Omushkego Cree (along with many other aboriginalgroups in Northern Canada) adopted new technologies such as snowmo-biles after the 1960s to enable them to harvest extensive areas while basedin a permanent village. These new technologies enabled them to developa new lifestyle of "going in between" the village and the bush (George andPreston, 1987).

The adoption of new technology, in return, increased cash expendi-tures and forced men to go into the bush alone, without their families (tominimize costs) and to seek cash income. Bush trips became shorter andshorter, and families could not afford to spend much time in the bush to-gether. Blythe et al. (1985) observed that most of their informants, womenaged 30-44, were rarely taken to the bush when they were growing up.Since many bush skills were relevant only in the bush, children lost theopportunity to observe, practice, and learn. As well, many lost contact withkey Cree traditional values, such as sharing, self-reliance, patience, and dili-gence, as those values were often acquired through bush life which providedthe essential self-disciplining educational environment (Preston, 1975).

The kind of schooling children received is often considered importantfor the transmission of culture. Table IV compares data on skill transmis-sion success among two groups: women who studied in residential schools,staying away from their families for long periods of time, and women whowent to local schools and lived with their own families in the village. Of


Table IV. Transmission Success (Hands-on Learning): Residential Schools (RS) vs. LocalSchools (LS), by Percentage

Group of skills

Fur preparation skills (n = 8)Food preparation, preservation,

and cooking skills (n = 26)Bush camp-related skills (n = 26)Hunting, fishing, and trapping

skills (n = 11)Skills related to making of

clothing, implements, andcrafts (n - 22)

Mean of 93 skills

Moose Factory (n = 15)

RS (n = 7)

5467

7679

51

66%

LS (n = 8)

1756

7163

27

51%

Peawanuck (n = 19)

RS (n = 10)

2560

7257

48

53%

LS (n = 9)

445

5548

26

40%


the two groups, there was higher transmission success among those whowent to residential schools than those who went to local schools. This trendholds for both villages and across each of the five skills groups. In one skillset (fur preparation), the differences are relatively large; in the other foursets the differences are relatively small but consistent. If only the set ofeight "modern skills," such as use of gun and snowmobile, are considered(not shown in table), the differences disappear in the case of Moose Factorybut not in the case of Peawanuck.

These results run contrary to the conventional wisdom that residentialschools were primarily responsible for the damage to aboriginal cultures(Barman et al, 1987; Miller, 1987; Sindell, 1987). They do not, however,mean that residential schools were conducive to the learning of bush skillsand knowledge; rather, the explanation appears to lie in the differences inthe learning environment of the two groups of students. Many of thewomen who went to residential schools had better access to the traditionaleducational environment than those who went to day schools in the village,in that they tended to come from bush-oriented families in the first place.Whenever they were not in school, during the summers and Christmas holi-days, their parents took them on prolonged camping trips in the bush. Theirparents were more likely to be interested in teaching bush skills, since theythemselves had chosen a traditional way of life, and gave their childrenopportunities for hands-on learning.

By contrast, many of the women who came from settled families andwent to local schools were seldom taken to the bush because the parentsthemselves were often village-oriented people. In some cases, their parentsdid not teach them bush skills at all. The children had the benefit of beingwith their families year-round, but this was not sufficient for the teachingof traditional skills because village living did not offer a good environmentfor traditional education (Trudeau, 1966; Blythe et al, 1985).

Insufficient Time in the Bush

Schooling poses a problem for traditional knowledge transmissionsince Cree children spend more time in Euro-Canadian education than intraditional education. In the 1990s, all Omushkego Cree communities hadlocal day schools. As children attend schools, they are not at home to learnskills by watching their mothers. After they come home from school, chil-dren are often busy playing with their friends and watching television.

Attendance at secondary school poses further problems because mostnorthern communities do not have schools with the upper grades. InPeawanuck, a very small village, the community school offers only kinder-garten and grades 1-8. Thus, Peawanuck children are sent to southerntowns as early as age 13 to attend junior high school. There is no longeran institutionalized residential school system, but most of the younger chil-dren board with host parents who are of nonaboriginal origin. By contrast,Moose Factory students have the option of going to high school inMoosonee, on the mainland across from Moose Factory Island. There isanother high school in Attawapiskat in western James Bay. However, somestudents still go south to receive an education because it costs less in thesouth (the local governments or Band Councils pay for it).

Students going to school in the south come home only twice a yearfor the 2-month summer vacation, and for the Christmas holiday. Manychildren lose their command of Cree while they stay in southern towns.When they come home, they are not interested in learning during theirvacation time but are more interested in being with their friends whomthey have not seen for a long time. Some researchers report conflict be-tween parents who want children to do chores, and children who want toplay (Sindell, 1987).

Since time and money have increasingly become the most importantelements in making a living in the village, young people are mostly inter-ested in investing their time in a way that can generate cash income. Manyseek wage employment after they finish school, but there are not enoughjobs for everyone. Hence, the youth participate in the traditional economyas a secondary option to wage employment (George, 1989). Nevertheless,they expect to get paid to serve apprenticeship, as in paid training pro-grams, but this is not possible because there are no such programs for hunt-ers, trappers, and fishers.

From the parents' point of view, community living restricts time forbush life. Cash income has become necessary to provide adequately for thefamily's needs. Thus, parents take whatever employment that happens tobe available, full-time, part-time, or seasonal. In some cases, fathers tem-porarily leave the community to work elsewhere or to take training courses



in the south. Mothers may be working and burdened at the same time withthe care of the home and children. Many mothers prefer to get their house-work done while the children are at school, with the result that there islittle opportunity for girls to watch their mothers preparing and cookingfood, processing skins or doing crafts. Bush skills become less visible; theyare taught less and practiced less in the community. Parents and childrendo not spend much time together, as Zitzow (1990) also observed; parentsare too busy to teach children at home and to take children to the bush.

Learning of Skills at Later Ages: Delayed Transmission

Many people who want to learn or improve their bush skills find thatthey must do so later in life. Thus, seeking teachers at later ages (ratherthan before the teen years) has become common. Such delayed transmis-sion may be considered an adaptive strategy; however, it has certain limi-tations.

The first problem is the gap between the aging "expert generation" andthe slow rise of interest in the younger generation. There is general concernamong community leaders that the younger generations are not picking upthe skills as quickly as the older generations are disappearing. Although manypeople do eventually become interested in learning by the time they reachtheir thirties or forties, many of the knowledgeable women in the family areinactive by that time, or too ill (or dead) before they can transmit their skillsand knowledge. Moreover, the school system and other influences havecaused a shrinkage in the bush skill and knowledge base of the community,with the consequence that many skills that were once common no longer are.Some of the more specialized skills and knowledge may be held by only afew people in the community, and younger people interested in learningthose have a limited pool of experts to whom they can turn.

The second problem stems from the common traditional Cree valueof noninterference with other persons and respect for others' wishes. Creeparents generally adopt a noninterference policy over their grown children'saffairs. Even with the younger children, Cree parents tend to be permissiveby Euro-Canadian standards (R. Preston, 1986). In many cases, parents donot try to teach their children because they consider it an intrusion intosomeone else's life. Thus, if grown children wish to learn, it is expectedthat they would take the initiative themselves (Blythe et al, 1985).

Additional problems have to do with the loss of contact between gen-erations. A communication gap may exist because some elders are mono-lingual in Cree and some youths are not sufficiently bilingual in Cree andin English. A generation gap may exist, with the elders thinking that youngpeople do not have adequate respect for wisdom or enough patience for

listening and learning, and young people not valuing elders' knowledge andteaching methods. The same problem exists, probably even more severely,between older hunters and young men. Expert hunters have commentedthat the lack of respect is a major barrier to bush skill transmission. Theyconsider that long years of schooling results in reduced attention span andpatience, and loss of observational powers, generally impairing one's abilityto learn in the bush.

For their part, youths who have school education seem to want ac-knowledgment from elders, and do not wish to be dismissed merely becausethey are young. Some young hunters, for example, become quite proficientin shooting waterfowl, and young women may become experts in traditionalcrafts. Embarrassed that they have not learned the skills earlier, manyyoung people do want to approach elders but do not know how to do sowithout losing face;

Effect of Changes in Value Systems

Social changes caused by sedentarization, schooling, and the introduc-tion of television have induced value changes among the younger generation.Since most material needs are easily available from the store, it is difficultfor the young people to see the necessity of learning bush skills. Many arenot interested in bush skills because these skills, by-and-large, are not neededin village life. Television, in particular, has a disorienting effect. Televisionprograms reveal a level of material wealth in the south that astonishes theCree, and makes them self-conscious of their own living conditions, an expe-rience repeated throughout the Circumpolar North (Stenbaek, 1987). SomeCree have come to believe that they are poor because their Indian cultureand lifestyle are inferior to southern Canadian ways.

Some have learned to become consumers rather than producers of fishand game, preferring to eat store food already processed and easily cooked(including canned spaghetti in sauce). In some cases, there is value change;people may be self-conscious about eating traditional foods such as beaverand muskrat or may never have acquired the taste for bush food (Berkesand Farkas, 1978). Others consider bush work and skills mere menial labor,rather than a part of living tradition and Cree culture. Some of the youngerwomen openly state that they are not learning bush skills because they aresimply not interested in them; they prefer office work. Some daughters havechosen to marry men who are not bush-oriented and hence do not needto have bush skills. Some of these women and their husbands have securewage employment and lead a southern Canadian lifestyle with material pos-sessions. Such people often prefer to spend their money on traveling to


popular vacation spots, rather than investing in equipment needed for hunt-ing. When they want to eat bush food, they go to their parents' home.

There are also cases that involve a reverse value change, mainly inMoose Factory, associated with the revival of interest in Cree tradition. Someof the younger women have decided to learn bush skills after marriage orafter having children. There were five such women out of the 46 interviewedin Moose Factory. They married bush-oriented husbands and this changedthe course of their lives. They started to go to the bush with their husbands,learned to appreciate bush food, and rediscovered tradition. These werewomen who, before marriage, were not interested in plucking geese or gut-ting fish. However, after cleaning and preparing meals became part of theireveryday life, first they become accustomed to it, and later came to considerbush food healthier than store-bought food, probably improving in the proc-ess their family's nutritional status and the transmission of traditional skills.

CONCLUSIONS

Over the entire Canadian Subarctic and Arctic, the major produce ofthe land is wildlife and fish. It is therefore sensible, both ecologically andculturally, to make use of this renewable resource base. The limited amountof wage employment opportunities and transfer payments from the gov-ernment provide the monetary income for people to invest in the necessaryharvesting equipment to become self-reliant in protein. Most northern vil-lage economies consist of these three mutually reinforcing sectors (subsis-tence, wage employment, and transfer payments). Such a mixed economyin the land of the Omushkego Cree appears not to be a transition stageto the conventional economist's ideal of an economy based on wage-labor,but an arrangement that may persist in a culturally and environmentallysustainable manner (Berkes et al., 1994).

Omushkego Cree hunters seem to have made the appropriate adap-tations to continue to produce a livelihood from the bush, and there aresimilar findings from other parts of the North American Arctic andSubarctic (Berkes et al., 1994). The situation of the women of these north-ern communities is more problematic than the men because of their in-creasing isolation since the 1950s from traditional activities on the land.Traditionally, certain bush skills and knowledge were held by women, andtheir overall role and knowledge were considered as important as those ofmen. However, since settling into permanent villages, women have lost theirrole and some of their knowledge base. Men, as hunters, seem to havebeen able to carry out their part in the subsistence economy in the lastfew decades, but the increasing isolation of women from bush activitiesmay become a barrier to the sustainability of the subsistence economy.


Thus, an issue of central importance for the Omushkego Cree is whetherreduced transmission of bush knowledge and skills among the women isbecoming a liability for livelihood security for the society as a whole.

In this regard, our findings must be evaluated in a historical perspec-tive. Given the changes that have occurred in the last half century, it isperhaps surprising that about half of all traditional Cree bush skills arestill being transmitted. The losses can be explained by the realities of villagelife and changing economic conditions. First, those skills that are no longerneeded or no longer essential for livelihoods in the village have not beentransmitted. People can buy commercially manufactured clothing, goods,and foods. Some kinds of fur preparation skills are no longer essentialeither, because the fur economy has declined. Second, those skills that arestill needed but take a considerable time to master, such as reading animalmovements, orientation in bush, and tanning hides, are transmitted incom-pletely because urban life makes it difficult for young people to investenough time to learn them. Finally, the most important concern in thetransmission system, as voiced by Cree elders themselves, may be the in-complete transmission of bush skills and knowledge. Many women of theyounger generation are familiar with a skill, but the level of mastery of theskill tends to be low compared to that of the older generation.

The loss of some skills and knowledge, and the incomplete transmis-sion of many of those not lost, will no doubt have an impact on OmushkegoCree society in the long-term. At the practical level, the loss of subsistenceknowledge and skills affects livelihood security of a group of people makingextensive use of local wildlife and fishery resources. Moreover, as pointedout earlier, "the loss of subsistence or hunting practice deprives the Creeof the experience with which culture can be transmitted" (Berkes et al.,1994, p. 358). For subsistence is not merely a way of obtaining food butalso a way of life and a mode of production that sustains social relationshipsand distinctive cultural characteristics of a society, as in sharing bush foodin community networks. Indigenous knowledge, values and culture aretransferred to successive generations through the repetition of the subsis-tence cycle (Freeman, 1993).

In general, however, the findings presented here may be interpretedin a favorable light for the reproduction of Cree culture for several reasons.First, the transmission of key women's bush skills is still strong; for example,the selection in Table II indicates transmission rates of 100% in many itemsand better than two-thirds in most of the rest. Second, there is renewedinterest in Cree culture and traditional knowledge, especially in some ofthe larger communities. This is why the self-selected group of women inMoose Factory show higher rates of transmission than the representativesample in Peawanuck, a more "traditional" community. Some traditional


activities now take precedence over town living. For example, schools takea "goose break" during the goose hunting season in spring.

The "cultural renaissance" and innovation apparent in Moose Factoryseems to go hand-in-hand with higher rates of nonvertical transmission inthat community than in Peawanuck (Table III). This finding is consistentwith the model developed by Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman (1981), in whichthe rate of cultural evolution is predicted to be greater with nonverticalthan with vertical (parent-to-child) transmission. Table III shows that aboutone-half of all transmission in Peawanuck and two-thirds in Moose factorycome from people other than the mothers of the young women. The factthat many kinds of teachers other than the same-sex parent are possibleteachers must be considered a characteristic that confers a degree of re-silience to Cree traditional education.

A number of policy measures are available to strengthen the role ofwomen in the contemporary economy, assuming that this is a valid objec-tive. Of these measures, we focus on two. First, experience from easternJames Bay, Quebec, shows that incentives can be created for family-unitbush camps (rather than all-male hunting parties) through a hunters' in-come security program in which the structure of benefits recognize the im-portance of women in bush life (Feit, 1989). Our results strongly indicatethat increased women's participation in bush camps will increase the ratesof transmission of bush skills and traditional knowledge. Such programsrequire considerable budget allocations but tend to produce long-termbenefits to communities, including reductions in welfare payments (Feit,1989). In the case of the Quebec Cree, the income security program wasone of the benefits of a 1975 treaty; the experience is being monitored bythe Omushkego Cree and other aboriginal groups.

Second, it is feasible to transfer some of the traditional skills of womento new applications in the modern village economy. Cree trappers say thatit is extremely important to have good planning in the bush camp. Knowingwhat supplies and how much food to bring is mainly women's work. Oncethe managers of the bush household, women have not become the man-agers of the village household after sedentarization. Most do not have theskills to manage household finances in the village mixed economy, but forthat matter, neither do the men. Various government departments runtraining courses in northern communities. Many of these tend to be male-oriented, such as those on carpentry and small-engine repairs. Thesecourses rarely include subjects such as household financial planning whichcould build on traditional women's skills in management, thus strengthen-ing their role in the mixed economy of the village and contributing to live-lihood security for the whole society.


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