Mi'kmaq Culture

The Mi'kmaq were nomadic. This means they traveled instead of staying in one place all the time. The weather played a big role in the routes the Mi'kmaq traveled between Nova Scotia Canada down through Maine into Massachusetts and back north as far as Newfoundland and Labrador.

Stories passed from generation to generation helped the Mi'kmaq to know the routes they should take. Each story highlighted the best hunting and fishing spots for each passing season, and many of these stories are still told today (1).

These stories not only tell how the Mi'kmaq migrated from north-eastern Canada down through modern East Coast New England, but they also help us to understand the cultural history of this Native American tribe. Cultural history refers to the study of people's culture and how it affected everyday life. One part of cultural history is the study of material culture or the objects that people used or made in order to live their lives. Material culture can include food preparation, clothing, housing, baskets, snowshoes and much more as you will discover in this StoryMap Journal.

Image 5: Territorial map of the Mi'kmaq located at the administrative office in the Aroostook Band of Micmacs in Presque Isle, Maine.

The traditional Mi'kmaq seasons of the year are listed below in Mi'kmaq language with their English equivalent. It also explains what is happening during that season in nature.

Image 6: To the right is artist, Monica Alexander's, depiction of the traditional Mi'kmaq months of the year. Notice how each month corresponds to an event in nature.

The names of the seasons and events show the importance of the environment to the Mi'kmaq nomadic lifestyle. Below are the seasons and what the natural events the Mi'kmaq associated with them.

• "iwkw (Spring) - when the leaves began to sprout, the wild geese appeared, the fawns of moose reached a certain size within the mother, and seals bore their young; 
• nipk (Summer) - when the salmon spawned and the wild geese molted; 
• toqa’q (Autumn) - when the birds migrated; and 
• kesik (Winter) - when the weather became very cold, the snow fell and the bears began to hibernate" (2).

The Mi'kmaq followed a lunar calendar. A lunar calendar is based on the phases of the moon. It also reinforces the importance of events in nature to the Mi'kmaq.

The Mi'kmaq crafted their clothing and food from resources that were easily available to them in the Northeastern area of North America. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, there are about 14,000 Mi'kmaq people living in Canada and Northern Maine in the year 2021 (3). Many wear the same clothes as we do in everyday life but during special ceremonies they wear and celebrate the clothing of their ancestors. Both now and in the past certain types of clothing had special meaning to the Mi'kmaq.

Before the Europeans arrived, the Mi'kmaq made clothes from skins of animals that they killed. Animal skins, especially deer and moose were used for leggings, sleeves, pants and moccasins. In the winter to keep warm, they wore fur robes. The Mi'kmaq used thread made from the tendons of animals like deer and needles made from bones to sew their clothes together. Eventually, European cloth, thread and metal needles replaced these original items to make clothes. This switch to cloth for making clothes most likely occurred in the 1750s (4).

Clothes reflected social status too. For example, chiefs wore the most decorated hides. The Mi'kmaq used dyed porcupine quills and moose hair to create intricate designs in their clothing. Some of these designs included flowers that were part of larger designs on leather clothing, baskets and other items. Later glass beads replaced the quills and moose hair to make designs (5).

Image 10: To the right, Mi'kmaq Mary Christianne Paul Morris, displays her quillwork. Notice also that her dress reflects the pattern of gowns worn by women in Victorian times. She is also wearing a peaked cap which is heavily beaded. Once Mi'kmaq women adopted European styles, they usually wore tube-like skirts that were held up by suspenders covered by a jacket. They wore peaked caps on their heads. This is what makes the photo to the right so interesting because Morris seems to be combining Victorian fashion with Mi'kmaq covering and peaked hat.

Additionally, the colors of the clothing worn by the Mi'kmaq were also important. Just as today people wear clothing as a way to express identity, the Mi'kmaq used color and decoration to do the same. There is a legend that the Mi'kmaq folk hero, Glooskap, helped the people discover different colors for dyeing clothing and art. Orange dye came from the inner bark of the birch tree. Purple came from red cedar roots or the inner bark of red maple. Brown came from acorns and white oak (6). White came from ground shells and black from charcoal (7).

Even today attention is paid to the detail in the decoration on clothing made for important occasions as in this Mi'kmaq Wedding video below.

The Mi'kmaq lived in wigwams, which are specially constructed buildings made by the Mi'kmaq. "The traditional Mi'kmaq shelter—the conical wigwam—was constructed from poles covered with birchbark strips which were sewn together with spruce" and spruce root (8). A traditional Mi'kmaq wigwam was made by the women of the family or tribe . The floor of the wigwam would have been covered with animal furs and skins (9). Fir boughs also covered wigwam floors, according to Dr. Dena Winslow, historian and Tribal Planner and Grant Writer for the Aroostook Band of Micmacs.

Image 14: To the right is a photograph of a traditional Mi'kmaq wigwam taken in the early 1900s. Notice how the people are dressed as well as how the shelter is made.

The Mi'kmaq would also hang animal hides over the entrance to the home. This was done to help keep out the cold, snow, and rain, as well as bothersome insects like mosquitoes and black flies common to the area (10). Everyone worked together to gather the materials for the wigwam, and the top of the home was left open to allow the smoke from the fire to vent outside (11).

Today, the Mi'kmaq live in modern houses. Members of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs live throughout Aroostook County, the US and Canada. Many live on the land that was once part of the Presque Isle Air Base as well as in Littleton, Connor, Caribou and Houlton. The band members have joined together to create a community that celebrates their cultural heritage and Mi'kmaq identity. They have their own tribal government who work to help the members of the band with housing, medical services, clean energy sources and jobs.  Click here  to visit the Aroostook Band of Micmacs website.

Tools, such as stone-tipped spears and knives flaked from stone, were used to hunt and fish (12). Food was sometimes cooked in large wooden kettles made from logs. Mi'kmaq also carved large pots from soapstone. Sometimes these pots were too big to move from camp to camp during the seasonal migration. So each camp may have had its own that was reused whenever seasonal migration brought the Mi'kmaq to the area (13).

The cooking process took planning and time. The process started with them heating rocks in the embers of a fire. Once the rocks were hot, they placed them in the log kettle filled with water. The rocks would heat the water so that it would boil. Then the food was placed into the wooden kettle to cook. (14)

When the Mi'kmaq encountered Europeans in the 1600s, they started to use copper pots. Copper pots replaced wooden kettle troughs and stone pots because the copper pots were not as heavy. The Mi'kmaq could take the copper pots with them during their seasonal migrations. By 1671, the copper pot had completely replaced the wooden troughs for cooking (15).

Food sources for the Mi’kmaq have included “smelts, shad, lampreys, alewives, and salmon; corn, beans, and squash; moose and woodland caribou; clams, oysters, and lobsters; nuts; roots and Jerusalem artichokes; ocean fish, porpoises, and seals; white-tailed deer and black bear; lake fish and brook trout; berries and fruits; small game and furbearers; migratory waterfowl; turkeys and grouse; turtles; and green plants” (16). Stews made from meat, rabbit, eel, and porcupine stews were cooked in big pots like the wooden kettle and the copper pot. You can find traditional recipes for each of these meats  here. 

Not all food was prepared in a cooking trough or pot. Sometimes simple birch vessels were hung over the fire for cooking meat or were placed directly on coals of hemlock. Smoked meat could provide for a family through the cold winter months.

Traditional Mi'kmaq bread, called Luski, is made with flour, salt, and fat and cut into smaller loaves for easy portability. A modernized recipe can be found  here , and a historical version of Lusknikn, or "Mi'kmaq Bannock," can be found  here  along with some of the history. Watch this brief video explaining how to make Lusknikn by clicking  here . As you can see from this video, the Mi'kmaq enjoy their traditional foods but they also eat the same foods as everyone else.

Image 20: To the right is a video about the traditional foods of the Mi'kmaq. Notice how the foods are foods found in Maine and eastern Canada.

Before Europeans made their first visits to the North American continent, it is unclear if the Mi'kmaq used a written language. The Mi'kmaq had created petroglyphs. Petroglyphs are images painted onto or carved into stones. At the Kejimkujik National Historic Site, there are more than 500 individual petroglyphs that show images of the lives of early Mi'kmaq people (17). Another location, Embden Rock in what is now the state of Maine, includes images of a horned snake or dragon being defeated by folk hero, Glooskap (18).  Click here  to see an example of these petroglyphs.

Image 21: To the right is a petroglyph from Bedford Basin near Halifax, Nova Scotia. This petroglyph is connected to a legend about the origins of the Mi'kmaq sweat lodge.  Click here  to learn more.

Another way the Mi'kmaq managed communication was through wampum. They "used a special belt known as a wampum belt to record history. A member of the Mi’kmaq Grand Council called a pu’tus was responsible for the wampum belt. Meetings of the Mi’kmaq Grand Council were recorded and read back by the pu’tus, who organized shells and beads on the belt as a way of recording information" (19).

As Europeans began visiting the continent more and more often, Jesuit and Recollet Catholic missionaries converted the Mi'kmaq to Christianity. They developed a system of images to teach Christian beliefs (20). These ideograms, or pictures stood for words. Sometimes ideograms are also called hieroglyphics. They helped the Mi'kmaq to learn the stories of Christ and the missionaries to learn the stories of the Mi'kmaq (21).

Two of the most recognizable crafts of the Mi'kmaq may be their porcupine quill and birchbark boxes and ash tree baskets. These are some of the most diverse, beautiful, intricate, and dynamic arts of the Mi'kmaq. Many of the arts made by Mi'kmaq involve the same resources used in everyday, domestic items. Animal hides and tendons, porcupine quills, birchbark, ash tree, spruce roots, and sweetgrass are all elements told in Mi'kmaq stories as well as used in household items, traditional medicines, and even jewelry.

Birchbark goods accounted for the majority of items made by Mi'kmaq artists and crafters. They "constructed a wide variety of woven containers for their own storage, using cattails, sweetgrass, spruce roots, and Indian hemp. These were tucked or hung about the wigwam to hold an array of household supplies such as sewing materials, dried medicinal herbs, carved spoons and ladles, and fibers for weaving bags or braiding ropes” (22).

Mi'kmaq basket makers from the past and today prefer brown ash wood, roots, and bark to make their baskets. These materials are known to be flexible and strong. Basket ash or wiskok grows in swampy areas. Once found, the tree is cut down, trimmed, and the bark is peeled. The trunk is pounded repeatedly with the blunt edge of an axe. This causes the trunk to separate along it's annual growth rings into thin layers. These layers are made into long strips for weaving (23).

There was no shortage of color and dye to be used in these fine arts, as well. Knowledge of how to make different colors was shared through stories from one generation to the next. Colors came from sacred plants, trees, berries, and roots all around the area. One story tells of a man making a canoe. He "chewed some of the chips. He spat, and saw that the saliva was black. In this way the people obtained that color. Later, they boiled everything to find out what colors various things would produce; and so obtained all their dyes” (24).

Basketry was more than an art for the Mi'kmaq. It was also a way to make a living as more and more Europeans settled in the area. The height in the demand for fancy baskets came during the late 1800s when wealthy people from Boston and New York came to the coast of Maine to vacation in places like Bar Harbor, Maine. These summer residents bought Mi'kmaq baskets as well as fancy boxes decorated with porcupine quills. Mi'kmaq would migrate to these areas in the summer to sell their baskets and other crafts. (25)

The Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine has many examples of baskets and other crafts made by Maine's Native Americans including the Mi'kmaq. Click  here  and  here  to learn more about the Abbe Museum. To learn how Mi'kmaq crafters create an 8 pointed star with porcupine quills,  click here. 

Image 26: The image to the right is of a birchbark box decorated with porcupine quills. This box is from the private collection of Dr. Dena Winslow who also provided the photograph.

The Mi'kmaq in Maine and eastern Canada participated in potato harvesting on a regular basis until farmers began using potato harvesters on a regular basis. The Mi'kmaq also made potato baskets and sold them to farmers.

Image 27: Baskets made by members of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs. Notice that these baskets are made to hold things like potatoes or other goods. They can be found in the museum of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs.

In 1982, the Aroostook Micmac Council was given a grant to make a basket cooperative. The Basket Bank was developed by  Marline Sanipass Morey  as a wholesale business. The Bank bought Mi'kmaq baskets and then sold them throughout New England. The Maine Humanities Council funded a documentary about Aroostook Mi'kmaq basketmakers, called Our Lives in Our Hands. It premiered in 1985 at the American Indian Film Festival. The documentary brought international attention to Mi’kmaq basketmakers. In 1993, the  Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance  was created with help from Morey. Its members, from each of the four Maine tribes, encouraged the preservation of basketmaking in the state. One of the first presidents of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance was  Donald J. Sanipass . He also served as the first chief of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs.

 Marketing like that done by the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance helped the craft survive even to this day. Those who took up older traditions did so in a very different situation than the people who first developed the crafts. At first, textile arts were created to keep the Mi'kmaq alive and identify the craftsperson as part of a group. Later, they were a way to make money. In the modern day, they became a way for Mi’kmaq to connect to their culture. To see examples of more fancy baskets made by Mi'kmaq in Aroostook County,  click here .

Dena Winslow, Ph.D., who works for the Aroostook Band of Micmacs and is a leading scholar in traditional Ash Baskets, described the labor intensive process for making them in her book on the subject. “Making a potato basket (or any ash splint basket) is a lot of hard work. First one must locate a brown ash tree. These trees are often found in or near wet swampy ground or along the banks of streams and rivers. Having found a brown ash tree is only the first step. It has to be the right tree – ready to be a basket. The tree must be straight with no branches in the lower trunk (because branches mean knots–which interrupt the straight grain of the growth rings needed to make the baskets). A good tree will be about 5 to 10 inches in diameter, and about 8 to 12 feet long (however, this dimension may vary according to basket maker preferences), with a crown full of healthy vigorous leaves. A tree growing towards the sun with few obstructions will allow for the straight fine-grained light colored splints needed to make a high-quality basket. Every basket maker has their own preferred types of locations for selecting the best tree – and they vary from one basket maker to another” (26).

Image 28: The video to the right explains traditional basket weaving.

Winslow also explains the threat to this beautiful, traditional Mi'kmaq craft: The Emerald Ash Borer, an insect that is destroying every Ash tree in North America. This tree, necessary for the making of these baskets, will soon go extinct. “As the Native American basket makers age and the art is lost, there will be fewer and fewer potato baskets made any more. That, combined with the threat to the brown ash tree from the Emerald Ash Borer, will probably mean the end of ash splint potato basket production within the next 50 years or so. However, Dr. Winslow expressed hope that ways will be found to preserve this important art” (27).

Another source credits the loss of this tree to deforestation. "In Nova Scotia, however, deforestation had reduced the availability of ash to the point where a newspaper account claimed in 1880 that the [Mi’kmaq] found his ancient occupation gone" (28). And still, the massive speed at which land is bought, sold, and developed may also contribute to the slow loss of this beautiful art. We can hope that enough trees will survive that this art may carry on into future generations.

The Mi'kmaq have contributed many things to the everyday lives of people from New England and eastern Canada. In addition to baskets, porcupine quill boxes, wigwams, wampum, and beautiful clothing and tattoos, the Mi'kmaq are also credited as the creators of snowshoes, birchbark canoes, and hockey sticks.

Denys, an early European visitor to the Northeast shore, encountered the Mi'kmaq in the late seventeenth century. "Denys reports that [Mi’kmaq] snowshoes were made of beech, although their term in most regional languages incorporates the word for ash tree [Fraxinus species]. Denys described [Mi’kmaq] snowshoes in 1672: ‘The length of each was as a rule the distance from the waist to the ground. They placed there two pieces of wood which ran across, at a distance from one another equal to the length of the foot. They were corded with Moose skin, dressed to parchment; this was cut into very long cords [which were] both thick and thin. The thick were placed in the middle part of the snow-shoe, where the foot rests between the two sticks, while the thin were used at the two ends. Close against the stick in front there was left an opening in the middle of the snow-shoe to aide the end of the foot in walking. This was to order that the snow-shoe might not rise behind, and that it might do nothing but drag’" (29). Anyone caught in a New England or Canadian winter can tell you just how handy a pair of snowshoes is!

Image 30: The embedded webpage to the right explains how Mi'kmaq Damien Benoit made snowshoes. Here is the webpage's url:  https://encyclopediaoflocalknowledge.com/chapter3/tracing-snowshoes-with-damien-benoit/ 

Another artifact created by Mi'kmaq is the birchbark canoe. "Their canoes were typically covered with the unbroken bark of the white birch (Betula papyrifera), also known as Canoe Birch" (30). This method of carving a canoe out of the bark of a tree is common among many indigenous people all over the world, though the type of bark used varies by climate and region.

And, of course, the sport of hockey would not be the same without the Mi'kmaq and their hand-crafted hockey sticks. According to a 2019 documentary, the Mi'kmaq may have been the earliest people to create and play a version of hockey (originally without the skates). Their sticks were sold in and around Nova Scotia as early as the 1850s (31).

Dena Winslow, Ph.D., who works for the Aroostook Band of Micmac wrote the following essay on moose hair embroidery which is another cultural tradition of the Mi'kmaq.

Since human beings have lived on the planet they have decorated their surroundings, both for the spiritual significance of such decoration and for the beauty and delight of both creating the decorations, and enjoying the finished product. There have also been spiritual and political reasons for the decorations. 

Embroidery is a universal art form and has been known throughout various cultures and time periods. Micmac, like other Native Americans, and, indeed, other cultures throughout the world, enjoyed decorating their clothing and other goods with the materials they found around them. For example, porcupine quills were often used, along with bone, feathers, fur, teeth, shells, wood, plants, and other naturally occurring materials.

Image 33: The image to the right shows a birch bark tray embroidered with moose hair. To learn more about it,  click here .

Although today the art form is very little known, the use of animal hair to embellish items has included moose, caribou, reindeer and even horsehair in North America and throughout other parts of the world such as Siberia.

Moose hair embroidery, as practiced by the Micmac, was not as prevalent as was porcupine quill decoration, but it was still used. It was particularly used for creating items that could be sold to the European souvenir markets.

Although the exact origin of moose hair embroidery is unknown, it is thought to have begun with the Ursuline nuns in Quebec who became active in teaching Native American girls the art beginning in the 1640’s. As a result, a strong market for items created on birch bark and decorated with porcupine quills and moose hair embroidery were highly sought-after souvenirs beginning in the 1740’s by wealthy Europeans who came to North America.

Eventually, these natural materials were replaced with colorful glass beads, an art form still known today among Micmacs and other Native Americans.

In practicing this art form, Micmacs and other Native Americans used the long guard hairs on the moose from the back of the neck area and under the chin. These hairs were dyed various colors for use in the embroidery work. There were two types of moose hair embroidery practices. The first was much like that of European silk embroidery – with the use of various stitches to create designs and patterns on fabric (often wool) which was then applied to a birch bark backing to create the finished item. The second type is referred to as “tufting” and is still practiced among some Native American tribes in the far north of Canada. In this form of moose hair embroidery, the hairs are applied, often to leather, and stand up in the form of thick layers of hair (much like they existed on the animal) which are then trimmed to shape them into 3-D designs, which often take the form of flowers.

The French claimed northeastern North America as New France from 1534 to 1763. The Ursuline Nuns from France brought glass beads with them and taught Mi'kmaq women how to decorate with them. The work that they did was called beadwork. The nuns sent the finished products back to France to be sold as souvenirs from New France. Beadwork decorated all types of clothing including collars, men's coats and women's peaked caps as seen in Image 10 of this StoryMap Journal. To see a close up example of a peaked cap decorated with beads,  click here  (32).

In the late 1800s, beadwork became part of the tourist trade between the Mi'kmaq and the wealthy summer people that visited coastal towns like Bar Harbor. The process of making items for this trade started with covering birchbark with fabric. At first, Mi'kmaq women used wool and then switched to velvet. They then placed paper patterns over the fabric covered birchbark to make beading easier. Some of the products made included letter presses, calling-card trays, cigar cases, and beaded smoking caps. Porcupine quills, cotton thread and cotton ribbon were included with the beads as part of the decoration. To see a decorated calling card tray,  click here.   Calling cards were like business cards but used by individuals when they visited other people. If a person was not home, then the visitor would leave their calling card on a tray. The tray usually stood on a table by the front door inside of the house. These calling cards were used mostly by wealthy whites because they were the only ones with servants. The servants answered the front door of houses whether the owners were home or not. If the owner was not home, then the calling card was left. A Mi'kmaq beadwork tray showed that the homeowners had summer homes in towns along coastal Maine and Canada.

Image 36: The video to the right shows how a Mi'kmaq artist creates beaded poppies. Poppies are used to represent the sacrifice of veterans. You might notice veterans offering them for a donation on Veteran's Day. The money they make supports causes for Veterans.

The Mi'kmaq were not the only northeastern Native American tribe to use beadwork to decorate items. The Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and Malecite did so too. Remember these four tribes together formed the Wabanaki Confederacy.  Click here  to see an exhibit of beadwork items made by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy.

Today, Mi'kmaq women have started to do traditional beadwork again as a way to remind them of their culture. Alex Antle is a Mi'kmaq from Newfoundland. She started beadworking as a hobby and made it into an art. Now she has become a well-known beadwork artist that specialized in  Bunchberry Beading  (33).