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345 Chapter 7 Using European Artifacts to Interpret Petun Sites 7.0 Introduction The use of artifacts to date the archaeological sites on which they were found has already been discussed (Chapter 6.0.1). In this chapter, archaeological sites in the Petun Country will be dated by their association with a number of the most time-sensitive goods imported from Europe,both for trade to the Native Peoples and for the use of the French themselves. These items include glass beads,brass and copper wares,iron knives,iron axes,swords, guns, brass bezelled finger rings,and certain other French imported goods.These are by no means the entire range of goods imported by the French for themselves and to trade; according to Charles Lalemant (JR 4: 207), in 1626 the list included tools, various articles of clothing, food, and even tobacco and Indian corn. In 1635 the Hurons, no doubt including the Petuns, wanted “little beads or tubes of glass, knives, awls, blankets, kettles, hatchets, and similar things” (JR 7: 223). Not unexpectedly, no evidence of any of the listed organic items traded to the Petun has survived for recognition in the archaeological remains of PetunVillages, and one might doubt that the French traded Indian corn and tobacco to the Petun. On the other hand, all the inorganic objects listed by Lalemant (hatchets, iron arrowheads, bodkins, swords, picks to break the ice in winter, knives, kettles) have been found, in addition to glass beads, machine-turned discoidal shell beads, scissors, guns, and gun supplies, which are not mentioned .As no method has yet evolved to determine the date of iron arrowheads, bodkins (possibly awls), ice picks, and scissors to any Glass Bead Period (GBP), the distribution of these goods in the Petun Country is not further examined here. As with Chapter 6, each artifact type will be examined for an indication of the dates when it was in use.The results will be combined and reconciled as GBPs to achieve the probable dates when the Petun villages and camps were active, and for any other corollary information, such as site sequences and inter-site relationships. In his review of the development of the New World fur trade,William R. Fitzgerald added the reminder that, initially, the “European goods...first introduced into the New World...generally did not, with the notable exception of glass beads, serve the purpose for which they were manufactured,” being desired by the Native Peoples “more for their symbolic value and metaphorical associations”(Fitzgerald 1995:36) and,it should be added, as raw material.This certainly applied to the Petun, who were able to cut up and adapt swords, iron knives, and axes for purposes other than their makers had intended (Garrad 1969a, 1997h, 2002a, 2003b). The cultural preconditioning of the Native Peoples to 346 USING EUROPEAN ARTIFACTS TO INTERPRET PETUN SITES interpret European goods by their colour and material rather than their function has been ably studied by Dr. George R. Hamell (e.g., 1981, 1983, 1987, 1992) and this matter is not pursued here. The presence of European goods on Petun sites is interpreted as inherently being the result of trade.The extent to which the Petun may have acquired European goods other than by trade (Pendergast 1994) is considered to be so slight that the term,“European trade goods” may be used unconditionally for all goods of European origin in possession of the Petun. It is appropriate to note here that trade of all kinds in Native culture imposed reciprocal social obligations on the trading parties: Trade was embedded in a network of social relations and the exchange of goods was carried out largely in the form of reciprocal gift-giving… [The relationships between]… trading partners were modelled on those between relatives… All trading partners were expected to conform to the hospitality, gift-giving, and careful observation of various formalities that made up the conventions of this trade… Many Hurons appear to have had trading partners among each of the tribes they visited.These were the persons with whom they stayed and exchanged goods.They often referred to these partners as their kinsmen and were probably linked to them through formal bonds of adoption.(Trigger 1987: 64) The people of the Petun village of Ehwae and others nearby, on whom the Huron Joseph Chihwatenhwa imposed to secure accommodation for the Jesuit Fathers Garnier and Jogues during the winter of 1639-1640, were described as his “relatives” (JR 20: 59), and were probably his...

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