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only took what we needed. if there was nothing else to get. but Uncle Frank would always have his fall partridge hunt. very much unindian, I used to hear him tell his boys. next week we have to go out Roity Bay partridge hunting. they would spend a week out there. gathering partridge like berries. Uncle Frank had odd ways he and his family would set a lot of
potatoes. fields of them, then in the fall would dig them up. pick out all the small ones. keep the big ones for himself. if he couldent sell the small ones. he would fill up wheel barrows. wheel them out to the wharf. dump them overboard before he would give them away, I suppose it was only right. because if other people did'nt bother to set his own. let him do without them, as part Indian. he did'nt fully understand Indian ways,
It was in this early part of my life as I reached the age of reason. I gradually absorbed into my intellect. all the traditional superstitions of my Micmac ancestors. such as not to point one,s finger at a bear, a strong habit of a person when he's the first one to see a bear. To direct the other fellow where to look. it is believed you will always loose the bear if you do that. strange as this might seem it usually happens, the bear always gets away, it could be possible. that the one who is about to do the shooting. get so damn mad. at the one who pointed his finger. that he gets careless and frightens the bear away. thereby convincing his belief in this all the more. that the finger is to blame. another one is when gathering boughs. to lie on in the camp. be sure to take out
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all the red dry boughs. or if
you sleep on them. you will most likely chop yourself before the fall is over. Uncle Victor Jeddore did this once. and cut his foot. and the only thing the Elders could put the blame on. was the red boughs he slept on. to my knowledge though this was the only time this happened, other taboos never eat a certain small bone in a Beavers foot. or you would sure become crippled, when cleaning the entrails of a deer. and boiling it which is a delicacy? be sure to snip off the very tip of the appendix. before you eat it. if you eat it. the next time you hunt deer. it will see you first and whistle at you. and get away without you seeing it. Uncle Steve Joe ate this once. and this happened to him.nobody ate this part anymore including myself. Even to the present day I avoiod eating it..some other look into the future. was when you shot a partridge. on your furring ground. after you had boiled it and took all the meat off the breast bone. the keel like part. hold it up to the light. if it,s covered with red fine dots. there is lots of animals on your country. if the bone is clean and white theres nothing on your land, this they call animal tracks, when skinning an otter. as you skin out the tail you pull the last
bit off. if theres some hair left on the bone tip. theres more otters on your land. if it comes off
I
clean. you have got the last otter on your land. this and many other signs and predictions. are
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entrenched deep into my system. even to this day. and will always instinctively rise to the surface. whenever the occasion arises, theres one that stands out in my mind. whenever father shot a beaver. he would always look deep into the entrails. and tell how many beaver was in the house. or living together in that particular house. I wish I had tried to find out more about this. because it seems he was always right. it was quite easy for me to tell if the beaver had company. because he was always clean shaven. I found this out on one occasion when I noticed the beaver was clean shaven. and asked pop what happened to the beaver. he said the other one living with him chewed his whiskers off. I have no formal education my senses are all the education I need
in my way of life, my father was my teacher from early childhood. he taught me all the things I need to know to survive, I became a man at a very early age. in these times we had to to survive, everything I know I learned from my father. he was a very great hunter. very strong and knowledgeable. our tradetion and custom was in his blood. as was the lifestyle of our kin the animals. as were all the micmac people of the time, the Micmac where great story tellers. I could lie in the bunk and listen for hours to pop or uncle John Benoit telling stories. /
In my times the only thing on my mind was surviva.l as I said my father taught me how to survive in the most severe condetions, in our travels he told me many stories from
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his fathers times .his grandfathers times also, the feats of human endurance that were accomplished by these micmac people. if accomplished by the european men. would reviberate around the world over and over many times. A true story this as told to by Sylvester Jeddore. in one of his many excursion's in mid winter. as was the way of life of the Micmac people, on this particular day. he was on his way out from gull pond or around there. which was Jeddores country. as he came down to conne steady. as happens many times. while crossing to steady he fell through the ice. no big deal . because he knew the steady well. He also knew the water was only couple feet deep, but as it happened he got wet up to his waist, god he said it was cold. but that did'nt bother him. because he knew there was a wigwam close by. so he headed for it. to his surprise and fear for his life. there were no wigwam where it should be. he must have missed it somehow. but his instincts told him it should be right where he was standing, getting uneasy now and with a great fear of freezing to death. because his clothes was already frozen. by all indications a blizzard was coming on. he walked around in a circle and puzzled bewelderment what happened to the wigwam?. knowing in his heart he
did not miss the location. as he was walking where the wigwam should be. his foot scraped scraped a small bump some snow fell in leaving a dark hole. He peared down was over joyed to see daylight fell on some cloven wood, he relized right away this was the wigwam.
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under about twelve feet of snow, he made the hole a little bigger and dropped down through the rafters. to the ground floorsome six feet below. into the stillness of the wigwam, there he knelt and prayed giving thanks to his maker. while the storm raged outside, there was plenty of wood. so he did not have to get out. for tea he filled his kettle with snow and melted it. now he could weather out the storm in comfort and content. I remember one fictional story that came from Uncle John Benoit. about an old man. who went beaver hunting. he took with him a young boy. they travelled on for two days. without any sign of beaver. the young boy was very disheartened. on the third day well into the evening. they saw a beaver. the young boy was overjoyed. but the old man just kept going on further, on the fourth day in the after noon again they saw more beaver. the boy was very hungry. he was hoping the old man would take a beaver for supper. but not so. the old man just kept going on. on the fifth day it was just after noon. when they saw more beaver. a lot more. to his joy the old man said we camp here. the boy had not eaten for over four days. was very hungry. when they had the camp up. the old man killed a beaver. but acted very strange. he went some distance from camp and built a fire. he then roasted the beaver sat down ate all by himself. Not offering the young boy any. took the rest and put it in his pack. lay back on the boughs and went to sleep. the boy had a hard time going to sleep. because he was too hungry, they arose again the next morning early and travelled on again. this time there were plenty of beaver. but the old man didn't seem to notice. the
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boy being brought up as all Indian children asked no questions. but suffered in silence. all that day they travelled passing beaver houses all along the

way. that evening they camped. early before the beaver left their house to feed. then the old man picked a narrow shallow place in the steady. told the boy to stand there over the spot. he then went and cut a piece of hardwood about four feet long. he then gave the stick to the boy and told him. take this stick and kill every beaver that passed through this narrow place. don't stop until you have killed enough, the boy did likewise as the beaver passed through he lifted the stick and killed one. the dead beaver floated back down along the shoreline stopped there. the boy kept this up till all his strength was gone. he could no longer lift the stick. with a final stroke with the stick the boy fell back exhausted. there he lay. the old man took a beaver and cleaned it and roasted it. then called the boy and told him to eat all he wanted, that night after they had all the beaver cleaned. the boy ventured to ask a question that had been on his mind since the old man roasted the beaver. and would not share with him., saying grandfather why did you not take a beaver for me too when you ate last. you must have known I was hungry also. the old man answered son. had I taken another beaver for you. that would be the only beaver we would ever see for the rest of our lives, but this way all the beaver we passed on our
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way in. came to you for to take while you had the strength to do so. now we have all the beaver we need. Uncle John never
did explain the morale of the story. but left it for our own interpretation, This true story as told to
I
me by my father on one of our many travels, at one time Uncle denny needed some meat. as he came over a ridge. a nice Doe was standing on the barren ground. just the other side of the deer was a pond. couple hundred yards wide. Uncle Denny as always was earring a 30-30 Rifle, no problem he fired at the deer. the deer ran a few yards and fell down, as he walked to the deer he glanced toward the other side of pond, where as he put it. close to the land something was splashing about in the water, he continued on paunched the deer and took what meat he needed . he thought he may as well walk over to the other side of the pond to check out what was

splashing about a little while before, since it was near by where he was headed, when he got where he saw the willom [disturbance in the water] there were two blackducks with the heads shot off both of them, they were right in the line of fire when he shot the deer. the bullet passed right on through the deer striking them both in the neck, one in millions of millions of chances. Some people might say
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this is all crap, but knowing the micmac people as I do. I know it to be true, will the next yarn has something to do with crap, on this occasion Uncle Denny said he went and had a crap beside a big rock. as he finished mossing off. [using moss for toilet paper]his brother Noel came down the barren ground, he said to himself I play a joke on him..he poked his bare butt from behind the rock. and started to jump up and down. Noel he said froze in his tracks. looked for couple seconds then without any hisitation levered a bullet into the chamber of his 30-30 rifle, he said I turned around started hollering and waving my arms. did'nt have time to haul up my pants, that night. he said I asked