Waswanipi Realities and Adaptations: Resource Management and Cognitive Structure.

• Main Author: Feit, Harvey
• Other Authors: Anthropology
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 1978
• Subjects: Ethno-ecology; Ecosystems Analysis; Cognitive Models; Ecological Anthropology; Nature-Culture; Hunting Knowledge and Recipies; Local Resource Management; Hunting Territories; James Bay Cree; Waswanipi Cree; Canada; Cris; James Bay
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/24244

The thesis copy in this Repository includes a page with notes of a few errors in labelling hunting territories, and corrections on the relevant pages. These errata are not on the thesis copy available at McGill University, at: http://digitool.library.mcgill.ca/thesisfile43592.pdf. The preparation of the thesis was done during two distinct blocks of time. When the James Bay Hydro-electric Project was announced in 1971 the Cree people from the region decided to fight the project in the courts, and then to negotiate a settlement with the Governments of Quebec and Canada. I was asked and to participate in their opposition, the court case and then in the negotiation and implementation of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement that ensued. I welcomed the opportunity. It thus worked out that the information and knowledge recorded by the co-research done jointly with Waswanipi Cree people between 1968 and 1970, and reported in the initial drafts of the thesis in 1971-72, were applied and used before the full results of the research were in a form that was appropriate for university thesis submission. The thesis preparation and writing were completed part-time in 1977-78 during the continuing initial implementation of the JBNQA, and the thesis was defended in 1979. The thesis is very long and not as readable as it would have been with additional editing and cutting. The main information and findings of the thesis research are presented in a series of articles published both prior to and following thesis completion. Preliminary reports of the dissertation research were presented in: 1971, L'ethno écologie des Cris Waswanipis, http://hdl.handle.net/11375/23942; edited and reprinted in English in 1973 as, The Ethno-Ecology of the Waswanipi Cree, http://hdl.handle.net/11375/24143; 1972, The Waswanipi of James Bay, http://hdl.handle.net/11375/23561; 1973, The Twilight of the Cree Hunting Nation [editor’s title], http://hdl.handle.net/11375/23564; and, 1973, Expert Testimony in Superior Court, Québec, Case No. ...