Waswanipi Cree Management of Land and Wildlife: Cree Cultural Ecology Revisited.

• Main Author: Feit, Harvey A.
• Other Authors: Anthropology
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Carleton University Press 1988
• Subjects: Ethno-ecology; Local Resource Management; Aboriginal Rights; Subsistence Hunting Strategies; Aboriginal Consent; Conservation by Hunting; James Bay Cree; Waswanipi Cree; Baie James; eskimo*; Cris; James Bay
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/24145

This article is a summary of some of the main findings of my PhD thesis completed in 1978. A previous 1971 French version of this paper, based on an early thesis draft, appeared in a special issue of Recherches amèrindiennes au Quèbec that was published speedily in the fall of 1971 shortly after the announcement of the James Bay Hydro-electric Project in April of that year. It was a rare intervention by a scholarly journal in response to a need for a public debate on a planned project, assembling articles by ethnographers, natural scientists, administrators, journalists and residents of the region, including reports of responses in Cree villages. My contribution was: “L'ethno-écologie des Cris Waswanipis, ou comment des chasseurs peuvent aménager leurs ressources,” Recherches amérindiennes au Québec 1 (4-5): 84-93, available at http://hdl.handle.net/11375/23942 and http://recherches-amerindiennes.qc.ca/site/produit/la-baie-james-des-amerindiens-version-pdf-1971 . A revised English version of the 1971 article was published in 1973 as “The Ethno-Ecology of the Waswanipi Cree: Or How Hunters Can Manage Their Resources,” in Cultural Ecology: Readings on the Canadian Indians and Eskimos. Bruce Cox, ed. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. Pp. 115-125, available at: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/24143 . The 1988 publication is a significantly revised and expanded text with calculations updated based on the ongoing analysis and finalizing of the thesis, and a more extended re-evaluation and reformulation of the findings based on new research undertaken from 1978 to 1982. The 1973 publication generated several formal and informal scholarly responses and questions, and in the 1986 Postscript for this version of the article I also responded to some of the earlier commentaries and queries. It is a common assumption that game animal hunters exercise little control over the resources on which they depend or the environments in which they live, unlike agriculturalists and pastoralists. But many biological and ethnographic ...