Red Earth Worth a Read

Having grown up in British Columbia, I’m somewhat familiar with West Coast Native culture, traditions and lore; the East Coast, not so much. However, I’m attempting to remedy that lack of cultural knowledge now that I live in the Maritimes. Recently I picked up a little book by Marion Robertson, called Red Earth – Tales of the Mi’kmaq, to start me off.

Red Earth starts off with an introduction to the customs and beliefs of the Mi’kmaq and covers such topics as Hunting, Food, The Wigwam, Clothing, Ornaments, Tools and Pottery, Canoes, Pipes, Warfare, Feasts, Dances and Games, Language, Birth, Courtship and Marriage, Sickness and Death, Religion and Glooscap, a culture hero who figures greatly further along in the book.

Obviously it wasn’t a detailed and comprehensive discussion of Mi’kmaq customs and beliefs, however I found this to be a good introduction of both things that are brought up later on in the book and sufficient amount of information so as not to be an overwhelming study of customs. Basically it captured my interest enough to read on and to also find out more from other sources.

The next section which is the main meat of Red Earth is titled, Tales and Traditions of the Mi’kmaq. This section or chapter is further dived into six sub-chapters. These chapters included: Tales of Niscaminou — the Very Great, Tales of the Stars and the Moon, Tales of the Origin of Things, Tales of the Little People, (one of my favourites), Tales of the Great Glooscap, and Tales and Historical Traditions. Each of these sub-chapters has a number of Mi’kmaq legends devoted to the topic at hand.

The section titled “Mi’kmaq Informants” is basically a half-page ” acknowledgement page. The “Notes” section though is about twelve pages long and well worth reading I might add. It’s far more interesting than the standard bibliography section, which is what comes next. I should also note that throughout Red Earth, there’s line drawings which are from tracings of petroglyphs; that was a nice touch I thought.

For such a slim book, Marion Robertson managed to collect a wide variety of wonderful stories that are rich and captivating. It almost felt like I was sitting in someone’s wigwam listening to these stories. Reading Red Earth has also given me yet more appreciation for the history and culture of Nova Scotia and has inspired me to find out even more about the Mi’kmaq.

If Native North American lore and traditions interests you, then Red Earth is definitely worth a read. I would also say that if legends and mythology in general interests you then this is also a good book to read as it will give you another perspective to compare other legends to, including some of the more recent stories.

Red Earth – Tales of the Mi’kmaq is available from Amazon, Chapters/Indigo and directly from Nimbus Publishing.