SIGNIFICANCE OF HUNTING TERRITORY SYSTEMS OF THE ALGONKIAN IN SOCIAL THEORY

Abstract

Speck and Eiseley addresses the debate regarding family land ownership among the Algonkians. They present characteristics of the unusual feature of family land ownership bears an intimate functional relationship to the highly specialized economy introduced by the fur trade. They look at conflicting views of the origins of land ownership of previous scholars. Speck presents instances where native land ownership which that worked independently and even conflicting with Hudson's Bay Company influence. Clearly, the family land ownership does flourish during the time of the fur trade but does that mean that it originated during the fur trade? What seems to be ignored is the fact that non-agricultural Algonquians already relied on beaver as basic economic factor of their existence for both food and clothing. Speck points out that even people who claimed that natives had no land ownership presenting instances where the native informants avoided tracts of land that were occupied by other groups lest they starve each other. This suggests the Mimac already had concepts of the landscape as being occupied and thus they did not blindly wander here to fro. Native societies have very little in common with the European concepts of land ownership. Speck and Eiseley suggest that natives relied on non-migratory animals before contact, early scholars (Le Jeune) words suggesting origins are flawed, and the concept of land ownership was fluid and adjustable. It is their suggestion that non-agricultural Algonquians did have family land ownership and management of game resources. The European concept of land ownership requires conditions of family isolation, permanency of residence and highly localized and constant fauna to be exploited. This article provides the classic argument against the discourse that stated fur trade was the primary driver of observed native behaviors. The use of sedentary animals is reflected in the archaeological record. This suggest that the possibilities of native conceptions of land-tenure prior to the fur trade.