Micmac

Member of an American Indian people numbering about 8,100 (1990) and whose language belongs to the Algonquian family. Formerly they lived in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island

The Micmac economy was based on hunting caribou and moose in winter and fishing, gathering shellfish and hunting seals in the summer. In winter they lived in skin-covered cone-shaped wigwams and in summer in open-air oblong-shaped ones. Micmac leadership was based on individual achievement and the society as a whole was divided into a number of clans. In the 20th century they have intermarried with the white population and work primarily as wage-labourers.

The Micmac language belongs to a different language family from their neighbours and it is believed they migrated from the west to Canada's eastern provinces in prehistoric times. They may have been encountered by Norse travellers and, after the voyage of Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) in 1497, they mediated between the Europeans and the American Indians of the interior. They were largely converted to Christianity by French Jesuit missionaries and intermarried with French settlers and allied with them against the English throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.