The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-06-13
CONSERVATION OF GAME
AMONG THE INDIANS

AMONG THE INDIANS
Long before the first white man set
foot in America, the conservation of
certain natural resources was most
carefully practiced among the Indians
of what is now the northeastern part
of the United States, as Prof. Frank
G. Speak of the University of Penn
sylvania was first to show. To the
Indian Professor Speck well says, there
was no wilderness. Trackless to the
whites, to hmm all the land was known
and within the limitations set by his
knowledge of natural resources all of
it was used.
Among the Algonkian tribes each
family-in our sense of the term, a
group of relatives-owned hunting
ground of its own, usually of from two
hundred to four hundred square miles
in area, within which their right to
kill game was exclusive and supreme.
The boundaries of this hunting ground
were determined by rivers, lakes, rid
ges, or other natural features. In
some regions, however, the boundaries
were marked by signs blazed on the
trees, or by cut-out figures in bark
representing the animal emblem of the
owner.
At times the shape of the family
hunting ground was determined by
the local distribution of game animals.
Thus it might extend from the lower
lands where moose were naturally
abundant lin virgin forest districts)
in long narrow strip to the higher
regions denuded by fires where bears
were to be found.
Each hunting ground was known by
the inheritance in the male line from
one generation to another. 1t was
protected from tresspass, the punish
ment for which sometimes was the su-
preme penalty, in certain cases suppos-
ed to be inflicted by conjuring against
the tresspasser's life or health. In
dams passing through the hunting
ground of another family usually
permission, and if necessary game
had to be killed, the pelts were deliv-
cred or other compensation was made
to the owners of the land. 1t was GUS
tomary, in some cases, when par
ticular family had poor season on
its own hunting ground, for it to Sc
cure the temporary right to use part
of the hunting ground of one neigh
boring family until times improved.
Within each family hunting ground
the conservation of the game was
looked to with the greatest care. The
indian family knew the approximate
number of deer, bear, moose, caribou,
otter or beaver in its own hunting
ground, and in case of some tribes,
regulated with strictness the number
to be killed each year, so as not to en-
croach upon the necessary increase.
If the season for large game had been
bad the family would sometimes re-
strict itself to fish diet for months on
end rather than endanger the breeding
stock.
Beaver in particular were most
carefully conserved. The number of
young and old beaver in each beaver
house was known. Before the era of
European influence the Indians never
destroyed all the members of beaver
family, but took such care of the
beaver, as we'll as of the other food
animals in his hunting ground, as the
farmer does of his herd and fiocks.
Nowadays, however, the natives have
realized the hopelessness of conserv-
ing their resources where they have
to compete with the avarice of white
frontiersmen so in some regions they
undertook to get all they could be-
fore the white man cleaned it up"
The Tmagami band of the Ojibways
"eveE went so far as to divide their
districts into quarters. Each year the
family hunted in different quarters in
rotation, leaving a tract in the CEN
ter as sort of bank, not to be hunt
ed over unless forced to do so by a
shortage in the regular tract" Among
certain Indians, like the Micmacs,
these tracts were held together so
long as there were sons, grandsons, or
nephews in the male line to inherit
them, and they were sometimes in
creased by intermarriage or inheri-
lance.
"The Indians of Kentucky" says
DR.. Clark Wissler, "were in the habit
of burning off forest areas regularly
so as to provide pasturage for the buff
falo, thus enticing him to remain in
the country" Again, the Indians liv-
ing in the regions where wild rice
grows, were observed to take certain
precautions to protect the rice beds,
even to facilitate their growth.
The conservation of game in the
family hunting ground was the essen
tial fact in the existence Of these In
dams, who lived mainly on game, for
upon it their lives depended. Other
uses of natural resources by them
were relatively small, although the