Margaret White Interview Side 1

Margaret Elena White Interview, Side 1

Transcript at 0 minutes, 0 seconds: (00:00)

DAVE PYSOCK (DP): Good afternoon. My name is Dave Pysock. Today is March 28, and I am doing an interview with Margaret Elena Liture [phonetic spelling] White, who is from Milwaukee [there is no Milwaukee in Quebec. He might mean Maniwaki, which is a city in Quebec and which sounds much more similar to what EW says later], Quebec, Canada. She was born in 1910. She is now 66 years old and now living in Big Bay, Michigan. Her parents--her mother was an Algonquin Indian, and her father was a French Canadian. They were both born about the year 1860, and what Elena and I are gonna be talking about today is comparing the way of life of the traditional Indian as compared to comparing the way of life of when the white man came in. When Elena was younger, she used to live in the woods most of her life, and as she got a little bit older, she started living the white man’s way of life. And what we are gonna do today is compare the two different ways. So Elena, can you tell me as much as you can remember about your parents?

ELENA WHITE (EW): Well, I guess I will just start from the time that we left Maniwaki. We had fourteen birchbark canoes we made, my dad made and my brother, and we tagged along the way, and we’d stop wherever there was fur. At the place (??) in the springtime, we would stop wherever there was pelts, you know, beaver. We would catch the beaver, and then we skin them and dry the skin, the hide, and then whenever we would go out to where there was people we’d trade the pelts for flour and salt and salt pork. At that time, there was lots of salt pork. The Indians went for that pretty much, that salt pork, you know. Anyways, we would stop where there was fur and camp. One place we stayed about two weeks because one of my sisters was born. We waited there until my mother was strong enough to travel. We start traveling, and we’d go around. Whenever there was a place where we had the portage, all of us kids would have to carry something small, and it made no difference how small we were, we had to carry something of course until we get to put the canoe in the water again. We done that for about 2 or 3 years, I guess, traveling from one place to the other. And then we got to St. Patrick’s Lake, and we stayed in a--my mother--in a shack--but it was kind of a house, but to me it was a shack because it was made out of timber--and we stayed there for a long time. There were Indians that had stayed before us in that place, and we stayed there for a long, long time, and then I got married.

Transcript at 4 minutes, 0 seconds: (04:00)

DP: Can you tell me about the way you lived between going from camp to camp and year after year? Like, when you were in the woods when you were younger how you did things.

EW: Well, we used to kill moose in the summer time--my dad did, not me, because I was too small--and we’d cut the hooves out and dry it because it was in the summer time. And sometimes my mother would salt some of that meat so we would have like fresh meat, you know, not dry meat all the time. Whenever--in the fall, whenever the trout was to spawn, we used to go and spear some trout that we would salt after the winter, and we would eat that in the winter time during Lent especially, when dad was there. Religious, you know. All during Lent we had to eat fish like every day was Friday, you know. The beaver, we eat that. I remember we used to catch fish, and we didn’t catch beaver in the summertime, just in the fall and in the spring. Sometimes in the wintertime, but summertime we didn’t hunt the beaver. And we had muskrats, mink, otter, and fish, lynx, bobcat, all that kind of fur we used to catch. And we would skin them down. My dad, he skinned that fur, and my mother folded them, and then they stretched them on the…stretched them on the goiter. (???) [inaudible crosstalk]

DP: [inaudible crosstalk] A trap.

EW: [inaudible phrase] …and then they would lay that beaver skin on there to dry. The muskrat, you take a willow twig and then you bend that--you know, like that--and put the muskrat skin on there, and then everybody would go out there and pull that stuff at the same time. You do that with sticks that you got in the woods, you know.

DP: Now, what did you do with these skins and pelts?

EW: We used to sell them to a place where they buy fur. Like, there used to be some white fur buyers from Maniwaki and from Ottawa that used to come and buy the fur where we were staying, and other places we would trade the pelts for flour and beans and peas, sugar, and salt pork.

Transcript at 7 minutes, 50 seconds: (07:50)

DP: What about medicine? What did you use as medicine in them days?

EW: We used to use herbs, like all kind of herbs you can get in the woods. Of course, I don’t know their names, but my mother knew the names, and I don’t know that. I remember for a person with a blood disorder, a blood root, you break that root, and you see the blood coming out of it. You boil that down and drink the water. It’s the only one that I can remember the name. But for fever, they made--a kid had fever, and mom would get the lily pad root, and she’d give us that lily pad root for fever. And when we had ear ache, she’d put--she’d take that grease from the otter’s tail. She would put that by the fire, that otter’s tail, and she’d get oil, and that’s what she’d put in our ear to take the ear aches away. And toothache, there’s a root. I don’t know the name of it, but there’s a root that is picked for a toothache and [inaudible word] is a [inaudible word] wood. That would be it, and then (??). But we never had any doctor’s medicine of any kind. We didn’t know what doctors even are. There was sixteen in our family, and my dad put us all in this world by himself, and my mom.

DP: So your father delivered all the kids by himself?

EW: Yeah.

DP: And he did this while you were moving from camp to camp?

EW: Yep.

Transcript at 10 minutes, 14 seconds: (10:14)

DP: Can you tell me how you lived, like during the summer and during the winter?

EW: In the summertime, when mom used to clear up some ground, especially where there was all those trees, she’d take all the older trees, and she’d plant some stuff there, potatoes and onions. She’d take that from one place to the other and keep a little bit, you know, to plant. She’d plant corn and stuff like that. And then in the wintertime, we would have what she growed in the summertime. We’d have that for the rest of the winter, that vegetable work.

DP: So what were the kinds of vegetables that you grew, or herbs, whatever?

EW: Well, mom used to grow tomatoes, onion, and corn. She would dry that corn. And then whenever she wanted to eat that corn, she’d take some ashes from the stove, and she’d fix that corn so it would be real soft. And you could make soup with it or just eat it like that. And we would [inaudible word]. I saw her do. And after, we would make it in the wintertime. Well then, my dad and my mom, they do the hunting all winter. And then…and then they just put the pelt away for until the guy would come along, and he would come along like once a year to pick up the pelts. Sometimes, we had two or three bags of pelts for the fur buyer to get, and this fur buyer from Ottawa, his name was Goldberg, and he’s a Jew. He used to bring up some dry goods and jewelry and things like that, and we used to buy some [inaudible word] goods from him to make dresses and clothes for us. But the jewelry, she never bought any of the clothes. They didn’t have no use for them. They never wore jewelry of any kind. If we did, it would be a necklace made out of drift (??) wood. That’s only kind of jewelry we certainly (??) knew (??). And anyway, she used to buy the [inaudible word] goods to make dresses and—not dresses, but more or less [inaudible word]. And our feetwear, we had moccasins for the wintertime. She would make us bear hide moccasins that don’t--that doesn’t get wet, you know, and--

DP: Mukluk like?

EW: No, they were just moccasins that she would make. The fur wasn’t on there, just the plain bear hide, but the water didn’t go through that. You can walk in the water, and it won’t go through. And well, Dad, him and my brothers used to make their feetwear with the moose. He would take the back leg of a moose, you know. It kind of looked like that, you know.

DP: The calf?

EW: Yeah, like they called it moose shack (??), and that would take all the winter (??). But we had snowshoes to walk in the wintertime. Us kids we didn’t go very much because my dad would make a shack, and we’d stay in that shack through the winter.

Transcript at 14 minutes, 45 seconds: (14:45)

DP: So, you pretty much stayed in one place? You didn’t move around during the winter?

EW: No, because it was too cold to move around. Except one time, my--we decided to move to an old depot that was still in the woods. There was nobody else around, and we were moving there with the sleighs, and everybody was dragging a sleigh with stuff on it. And I remember my brother--I was on my brother’s sleigh--or it was me and my sister. I’m not sure. And he had us wrapped up in blankets, and he was going down a hill and dropped the tow line that was holding the sleigh. And that sleigh went down the hill and turned over in the snow, and it was a good thing we weren’t covered over the head because we would have been all frozen. Anyway, we crossed a lake, and my mother was carrying the baby, and she sunk in the water right under, right under the water. Because of the baby she would have sunk like too(??) [inaudible word]. The baby was under [inaudible word] the ice, so my dad took her out of there, and he hurried and made a big fire, changed her clothes. The baby wasn’t wet, just our mom. We stayed there for a couple of days, you know, until she felt better. Then, we moved to that big farm. No, it wasn’t a farm. It was a depot.

Transcript at 16 minutes, 49 seconds: (16:49)

DP: Can you tell me how you lived when you were moving from camp to camp, as far as shelters, bedding, and what did you use for food?

EW: For fuel?

DP: For food.

EW: Food, well, we always brought our food with us, and when we moved from one place to the other, whatever food you bring--you had you bring with you until we hit another keepover (??), lumberjack keepover (??). And then, we’d trade fur for flour and stuff like that, and we needed flour and salt, and that’s the way we kept eating from one place to the other.

Transcript at 17 minutes, 37 seconds: (17:37)

DP: What about when you were moving? As far as shelter, you told me that you used to make your own lean-tos, or something like that?

EW: Yeah, my dad used to make a lean-to for us to sleep, or we’d put a tent up, for us kids especially. He and mom would sleep under the lean-to, but us kids we had a tent, a great big tent. It wasn’t that big, but to us it was a big tent, and they would put us all kids in the tent to sleep. And anyway, we had blankets, and my mom must have gotten those from the camps, you know, the lumber camps. We’d have to bring that every time we moved from one place to the other. We had to bring everything, you know. Now, just to--stuff to cook and dishes to eat. Well, at that time, there was no such thing as glass dishes. They were all tin. Tin dishes, tin cups, and everything tin.

DP: Where did you get all of this from?

EW: Down by a lumber camp.

DP: And you traded for these?

EW: Yeah. And you made your tea over an open fire and food over an open fire. No such thing as a stove. When it came wintertime, when dad was still… [pause] to build a shack for us to live in, fix up a place like a fire place, like [inaudible word]. And we would make a place there where mom could cook her bread in there, too. It was all made out of rock, and she’d do her cooking there all winter. And this whole time, we’d stay (??) where (??) there (??) was (??) lumberjack would have stayed there, and the stove stayed there. Why, then we’d use the stove.

Transcript at 20 minutes, 0 seconds: (20:00)

DP: Can you tell me about the type of bedding you were telling me about making out of rabbit furs?

EW: Oh, well that’s--we would catch the rabbit—many, many, many rabbits--and we would tan the hides. We would go to cut all little strips, and then you braid it and then sew it together to make a blanket so there’s fur on both sides of the blankets because it’s all braided together.

DP: And what was this used for now?

EW: To cover up.

DP: When you slept on snow or something like that?

EW: No, we never slept on snow. You just put them—well, you take your snow broom, and you take the snow away. And then, you put your [inaudible word] in the brushed area and put your tarp or your something--your bear skin or something, you know, whatever you have--and then you cover up with the rabbit blanket because that’s the warmest one. [coughs] The snow broom, they take all the snow away, take all the snow away right down to the ground.

DP: Now, did these rabbit furs really kept you warm? Did you have to sleep with your clothes on and stuff?

EW: I don’t remember taking my clothes off, except our feet, but most the time we slept with them when it was cold. And in the summertime, we would put on--we must have put on sleeping clothes like the nightdress that Mom used to make, nightclothes.

Transcript at 21 minutes, 44 seconds: (21:44)

DP: How did you used to keep warm as far as did you have any tricks of building fires during the winter or anything? Lean-tos or anything?

EW: Oh, yeah. You go by--you see this lots in Canada. There’s lots of them big rocks, you know, and you make your lean-to towards the rock. You build a fire by the rock. Well, after that rock is warm, it keeps that lean-to warm.

DP: That’s a big flat rock or something?

EW: One big square, square rock.

DP: Yeah.

EW: You know, the face of it is square. That was the best kind to keep warm. You take a tree that’s turned over the way--turn it over, you know, like. You made your fire right at the stump of it. You’d put your lean-to facing it then, yeah, between the fire and the heat and your lean-to.

DP: How’d you build these lean-tos?

EW: You cut two little forks, put them down in the ground. Then, you take one pole (??) through like that, and you put the other one right on top, and you take bark, and you cover them up with it.

DP: Now was this water proof, these lean-tos?

EW: Oh, yeah. You put the bark up the right way, the water won’t go through there. You have to have a whole lot of it.

DP: How long would it take to build one of these?

EW: Well, whenever there’s two or three people, it usually doesn’t take too long because—see, my two--I have two brothers that were big, that were big enough to work, and I had three sisters who was big enough to help. You just put them all together, and one of them done one job and the other one done the other job, so in no time flat, they got it all built up.

Transcript at 23 minutes, 54 seconds: (23:54)

DP: Where did you get your tools to make all these stuff, and what kind of tools did you use?

EW: Well, we had an axe. We got that from the lumberjacks, too, and (??) the (??) axes (??) too (??), and we had to have the axes to cut wood. We even got a cross-cut saw from them. I guess we didn’t--we had like the real old kind. Because they were old-time Indians, they were using [inaudible word]. They--and too, in fact, they had rocks, axe made out of rocks, and they had knife made out of rocks, they had spear heads, and all that stuff was what the old Indians had. We never had that, because Dad was--already knowed that we have the white people, see. So, that’s how come we got all them tools from the lumberjacks.

Transcript at 25 minutes, 13 seconds: (25:13)

DP: Can you tell me about what did your father and mother teach you, yourself? What kind of duties did you have when you were younger?

EW: Well, when we was younger, we had to all do our share of everything like cooking or fix up the tent or fix up the bed or cut (??) the (??) [inaudible word], put them on the bed, or something like that. We all had--each of us had something to do. When I was about ten years old, I guess, my mom showed me how to bake bread or learned me how to bake bread.

Transcript at 26 minutes, 1 second: (26:01)

DP: How’d you bake bread?

EW: Well, at that time, we just had a dry--we had a round, and then we had boxes, and we used to get that from the lumberjacks, too, you know. We had to bake bread for the lumberjacks, and you’d mix that stuff at night. You soak that yeast first, and then you’d mix it with flour. And then you’d leave that overnight, and then in the morning, that pan would be full. And then, you’d make your bread. You mix your bread. You put some salt in it, water and flour. You let it raise for a while, and then you punch it down. And then, you do the same thing again. You put it in the pan, and then you cook it after. We used to cook it in a big iron pot like that with the cover on.

DP: A Dutch oven?

EW: No, these were big iron pots. I don’t think they called them Dutch ovens. Anyway, we would make a fire, and we would warm up the sand. And then, we would put the buried pot in the sand, hot sand, and that’s the way we’d cook our bread.

DP: What else did your mother teach you how to do?

EW: She taught me how to knit. She taught me how to make moccasins. She taught me how to make knits (??), blankets, and a blouse. I guess that’s about all that she taught me.

Transcript at 28 minutes, 1 second: (28:01)

DP: Do you remember any of the things your father taught your brothers how to do?

EW: No, because the girls were always together with the mother, and the boys were always together with the father, so we didn’t pay too much attention to what the boys did. We didn’t know anything about boys or—like, we didn’t know what marriage was because my father and mother were strict, and they never told us anything about other people but ourselves. When I--we were at St. Patrick’s Lake then. We got cows there and pigs and chickens, and Dad used to make some moonshine.

DP: Moonshine, eh?

EW: Moonshine. And the lumberjack used to come over in the fall when they would go off to the camp, I guess to start doing what they did. Dad would make a beef (??), cut the wood, [coughs] and Dad did the moonshine. And then, we started--me and my sister--we started… We’d find that funny, you know, other people beside us.

DP: You mean you didn’t know that there were any other people besides your family out there, kind of.

EW: No, like, you know, just people coming over there at the house. And then, me and my sister, we started to--you know, stupid, I would say we were. We’d blacken our face and put some paint on and step dance, and them guys would give us some money for step dancing. I… [laughs] And I don’t know why we put the black stuff on our face, but we were pretty good step dancer, you know. We--whatever money we’d make, well, Mom used to buy us some clothes, and she used to go down to [inaudible word] to get the stuff for the winter, like, you know, like all the winter food, like flour and sugar and tea. And then sometimes, they would bring apples, and they had to bring that with a wagon in the fall, a great big log—and maybe sometimes it would cost about maybe 50 dollars for a great big load of stuff, big wagon and all that stuff, maybe for a hundred (??) pound of flour and sugar and stuff like that.

DP: So what are-

Recording note: [TAPE CUTS OUT]