Background
Pre-Contact History
The Mi’gmaq people first appeared in their homeland roughly ten thousand years ago. It is believed that their descendants crossed the Bering Straight from Asia into North America around 18,000 years ago. Before contact with Europeans, the Mi'gmaq were a hunter-gatherer people [1]. The Mi'gmaq people left many traces of their existence. Weapons and tools made of various material has been found as well as ancient burial grounds and stone walls in Nova Scotia that are believed to have been built by the Mi'gmaq people [2]. Ancient petroglyphs left behind give a glimpse of ancient Mi'gmaq history. There are over 500 petroglyphs in Kejimkujik National Historic Site depicting different clothing worn by the Mi'gmaq as well as ocean going canoes and hunting traditions [3].
Post-Contact History
The Mi'gmaq first made contact with Europeans in 1497 when John Cabot arrived on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River [4]. The Mi'gmaq set up a trade relationship with the Europeans at first. However as conflicts in Europe began to impact North America, the Mi'gmaq joined with the French in a failed attempt to keep the British out of Canada.
Etymology of Name
There are many different hypotheses on the origin of the Mi’gmaq name. It could come from ‘family’, or megamingo, meaning earth, or possibly nigumaach, meaning ‘my brother’ or ‘my friend’. According Ethnologue, Mi’gmaq is spoken by 8960 people in Eastern Canada and 330 people in the northeastern United States. The Mi’gmaq language is an Eastern Algonquian language that is in the same family as Delaware and Powhatan, to name a couple.
Listuguj
The Mi’gmaq that this wiki will concentrate most on is the Listuguj dialect. Listuguj is located in Eastern Quebec, right on the border of New Brunswick.