WHO WERE THE BEOTHUKS
The Boethuks were a group of native hunter gatherers who lived in Newfoundland. Their ancestors apparantly immigrated to Newfoundland from the mainland (Labrador) around 2000 years ago. Their first contact with Europeans were the Vikings around a thousand years ago and that didnt go so well. It would be another five hundred years before John Cabot again came in contact with them.
During spring, the Beothuk used red ochre to paint not only their bodies but also their houses, canoes, weapons, household appliances, and musical instruments. This practice led Europeans to refer to them as “Red Indians”. The use of ochre had great cultural significance. The decorating was done during an annual multi-day spring celebration. It designated tribal identity; for example, decorating newborn children was a way to welcome them into the tribe. Forbidding a person to wear ochre was a form of punishment.
Their main sources of food were Caribou, Salmon and Seals – augmented by harvesting other animal and plant species. The Beothuk followed the seasonal migratory habits of their principal quarry. In the fall, they set up deer fences, sometimes 30–40 miles long, used to drive migrating caribou toward waiting hunters armed with bows and arrows and sometimes driving the caribou off a cliff to their death. The Beothuk are also known to have made pudding from tree sap and the dried yolk of the eggs of the Great Auk. They trapped various fur-bearing animals, and worked their skins for warm clothing. The fur side was worn next to the skin, to trap air against a person’s body.
Beothuk canoes were made of caribou or seal skin, and the bow of the canoe was stiffened with spruce bark. Canoes resembled kayaks and were said to be fifteen feet in length and two and a half feet in width with enough room to carry children, dogs and property. The canoes were apparantly seaworthy enough to go forty miles out into the Atlantic to hunt birds in the Funk island.
One of the rarest groups of natives anywhere (Some accounts claim that there werenever more than a couple thousand of them) and they were one of the first (If not the first) group of natives to come in contact with the Europeans. They are the reason why to this day North American natives are called red skinned. I may be mistaken in general but I have met a lot of natives in my lifetime and I have never seen one who I would refer to as having red skin. But Europeans thought that the Beothuk’s had red skin and even though we know why they thought that in 1520 the idea has stuck to this day. Remember, while in school you learn that “Christopher Columbus discovered America” the basque whalers were in Newfoundland for several decades and Leif Erickson beat him by five hundred years. Columbus wasnt going blind when he set sail.It may have been the rapids before the end of the world dropped off but he knew something was there. John Cabot of course arrived in Newfoundland. So there were a few opportunities for Europeans to come in contact with the Beothuks. Years may have gone between voyages but word eventually got out that there was a new continent found that was populated by people with red skin. I havent seen much evidence of real contact during these early years so it might only have been seeing native people from a distance. But if you think about it its not to far fetched to believe that the people had red skin. Europeans all had white skin. Asia was known and had people who looked different and Africa had Black Skinned people. It wouldn’t be to much of a stretch to think that we found a new continent and they have people with a new color of skin. Later when they finally figured out why they were red it might have been a couple generations later and by that time the image of red people was ingrained in history.
What was going on is that the Beothuks covered themselves from head to toe with something called “Red Ocre”. This apparently became a religious thing and it was a punishment to force somebody to wash it off. They eventually covered everything in red Ore so their villages must have looked like somebody dumped a huge can of red paint on it. I suspect that originally it was deemed to help you stay warm in Newfoundlands somewhat chilly -45 degree winters. Thats how to this day North American natives are known as red Indians (Think Washington Redskins).
The Beothuk lived throughout the island of Newfoundland, particularly in Notre Dame and Bonavista areas. The last well studied Beothuks was the red indian Lake tribe which included a Beothuk named Shawnadithit who died in 1829 and is often listed as the last known Beothuk but there were other inluding ones in the Exploits, The father of Santu Toney and the Northern Peninsula tribe is almost lost in history – and might well be if my mother didnt spend fifty years studying family history.