Changing social and economic organization among the Rupert House Cree ...

• Main Author: Knight, Rolf
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2011
• Subjects: taiga; Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0105640; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0105640

This thesis is based mainly upon field work among the Cree community at Rupert House, Quebec, in the summer of 1961. I have documented the present range in the composition and activity of production and consumption groups and indicated change over the last sixty years. This description is set in the frame of major changes that have occurred in the habitat and the external social environment. The nature of the transitional taiga-tundra biome is delineated. Changes in the manner and extent of its exploitation are described. Certain changes in the plant community have led to the replacement of herd caribou by solitary moose; this in conjunction with new tools has allowed for decrease in the size of trapping-hunting groups. Nevertheless, trapping-groups have remained larger, on the average, than the nuclear family. This is due to the still desirable aid and cooperation of more than one adult man while trapping. Country foods are shown to play a major role in consumption despite the decline in the utilization of ...