Description of The Beothuk Indians Culture

Adjacent to the Labrador Eskimos and the northern Algonkins, upon the Island of Newfoundland, dwelt the Beothuks, or “Red Indians,” now extinct, who has custom and language differed much from their neighbors of the mainland. Although called “red,” they are also said to have been unusually light in complexion, and the term was applied to them from their habit of smearing their bodies with a mixture of grease and red ochre. They are further described as of medium stature, with regular features and aquiline noses, the hair black and the beard scanty or absent.

In several elements of culture, they had marked differences from the tribes of the adjacent mainland. Their canoes were of bark or of skins stretched on frames, and were in the shape of a crescent so that they required ballast to prevent them from upsetting. The winter houses they constructed were large conical lodges thirty or forty feet in diameter, having a frame of light poles upon which was laid bark or skins, generally the latter. Hunting and fishing provided them with food, and they have left the reputation of irreclaimable savages. They had no dogs, and the art of pottery was unknown; yet they were not unskilled as artisans, carving images of wood, dressing stone for implements, and tanning deerskins for clothing. An examination of their language discloses some words borrowed from the Algonkin, and slight coincidences with the Eskimo dialects, but the main body of the
 idiom stands alone, without affinities. Derivation was principal if not exclusively by suffixes, and the general morphology seems somewhat more akin to Eskimo than Algonkin examples

Who were the Beothuck Indians?

Adjacent to the Labrador Eskimos and the northern Algonkins, upon the Island of Newfoundland, dwelt the Beothuks, or “Red Indians,” now extinct, who in custom and language differed much from their neighbors of the mainland. Although called “red,” they are also said to have been unusually light in complexion, and the term was applied to them from their habit of smearing their bodies with a mixture of grease and red ochre. They are further described as of medium stature, with regular features and aquiline noses, the hair black and the beard scanty or absent.

In several elements of culture they had marked differences from the tribes of the adjacent mainland. Their canoes were of bark or of skins stretched on frames, and were in the shape of a crescent, so that they required ballast to prevent them from upsetting. The winter houses they constructed were large conical lodges thirty or forty feet in diameter, having a frame of light poles upon which was laid bark or skins, generally the latter. Hunting and fishing provided them with food, and they have left the reputation of irreclaimable savages. They had no dogs, and the art of pottery was unknown; yet they were not unskilled as artisans, carving images of wood, dressing stone for implements, and tanning deerskins for clothing. An examination of their language discloses some words borrowed from the Algonkin, and slight coincidences with the Eskimo dialects, but the main body of the
idiom stands alone, without affinities. Derivation was principally if not exclusively by suffixes, and the general morphology seems somewhat more akin to Eskimo than Algonkin examples

Beothuck Indian Canoes

BEOTHUK INDIAN CANOES.

These varied from sixteen to twenty-two feet in length, with an upward curve towards each end. Laths were introduced from stem to stern instead of planks—they were provided with a gunwhale or edging which, though slight, added strength to the fabric—the whole was covered on the outside with deer skins sewed together and fastened by stitching the edges round the gunwhale.

Beothuck Indian Language

BEOTHUK INDIAN LANGUAGE

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The language of the Beothuks, Mr. Cormack is of opinion, is different from all the languages of the neighboring tribes of Indians with which any comparison has been made. Of all the words procured at different times from the female Indian Shaw-na-dith-it, and which were compared with the Micmac and Banake (the latter people bordering on the Mohawk) not one was found similar to the language of the latter people, and only two words which could be supposed to have had the same origin, viz.: Keuis—Boeothick—and "Kuse" Banake—both words meaning "Sun,"—and moosin Boeothick, and moccasin, Banake and Micmac. The Boeothick also differs from the Mountaineer or Esquimaux language of Labrador. The Micmac, Mountaineer, and Banake, have no "r." The Beothuk has; the three first use "l" instead of "r." The Boeothick has the dipthong sh.—the other languages, as before enumerated, have it not. The Boeothicks have no characters to serve as hieroglyphics or letters, but they had a few symbols or signatures.