Talk:Beothuk

message: Is extinct the right word to use when a nation or ethnic group dies out? I've only seen extinct used about animal species.--Sonjaaa 13:06, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)
:I think extinct is the right word to use, at least for an ethnic group.  I can't think of any other word that could be used. --Lairor 03:30, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: According to extinction scholar Dr. Thom van Dooren, extinction is a long, drawn-out process of ongoing loss of lifeways/ways of life. Extinction can affect any species, not just animals since humans are animals too. Yes, there is a history of equating certain humans with animals in order to validate bad treatment, but this has more to do with human bias and human claims to exceptionalism than any true human-animal value difference. The Human/Animal divide is as bad for humans as it is for animals. Species in this context is not about the biological organism so much as it is about a way of life, a way of being in the world. Extinction can be understood as a process of severing and undoing this way of life. It is complex, and does not mark a definitive "end," even though we often approach it as such. Saying the "last" Beothuk for example is not accurate. New DNA evidence has shown that there are Beothuk descendants, however Beothuk people are not defined by their DNA. Historically, categorizing a people by their DNA alone (or biological characteristics exclusively) has led to government-sanctioned genocides because ultimately this mode of identification is a colonial tool for identification, separation, and exclusion. The Beothuk, like any community, are defined by their place, their language, their values, their relations, their customs and originary practices that endure through time--everything that comprises their culture and a particular way of life. I can't speak to whatever new communities have been created around claims of Beothuk DNA or heritage. While meaningful for individuals, this does seem to be something of a revival rather than an endurance, but I will hold my judgement until I learn more. Cupbearer1980 (talk) 14:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Is extinct the right word to use?

message: I was taught in grade 9 history/social studies that great numbers of the Beothuk were basically rounded up and mass murdered by european settlers, and this was largely how they became extinct.... can't remember any specific texts, but I find it interesting that there's no mention of that here.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.216.91.171 (talk • contribs) 08:46, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Extinction again

message: "The Labrador" Link is now bad. They only keep the past three months issues available online. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.116.223.190 (talk) 04:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "The Labrador" Link

message: I removed the speculative part about the Beothuks having a bloodline that may or may not still exist today. Again, I maintain that it should only be added if proven, but not until that point- not even as "oral history." History, as is my understanding of the term, should be as close to fact as possible and does not include rumours. Reading John Hill's Wikipedia User Profile, I see the sentence "I am of English and French background with a dash of Beothuk" as if this is already an accepted fact. Romantic as an idea as that is, it isn't proven. I find the motivations of people making such claims too suspect and even offensive. I do not agree that mythological and legendary material has a place in this particular article, as John Hill implies above. They were a very real people. 
Jmutford 03:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of Speculation

message: Dear John: I am not trying to argue with you but the "oral histories" I referred to are not based solely on speculation - there is some evidence. Unfortunately, there is no complete "proof." But then, what and how is anything completely "proven"? After all, there are many articles in the Wikipedia with statements such as: "so-and-so had a French (or a Jewish or a German or an American) father". Now, how can this possibly be "proven" without actual DNA testing? Yet we generally accept church records and family traditions on such matters.
There is a very strong and persistent family tradition that we are part Beothuk (and my mother, myself and brother and sister have all been to Twillingate, Lewisporte and other places in northern Newfoundland, where we checked with a number of our relatives who all confirmed this story). Also, we have copies of photos of Susannah Manuel (Anstey), 1832-1911, who is supposed to have been half Beothuk, and her daughter Mary Pond (Anstey) 1858-1895, which show strong "Native American facial features". I can provide scans of these if anyone wishes - though the one of Mary Pond (Anstey) is much clearer than that of her mother.
Now, of course, someone might say that the facial features could have been due to mixing with Mi'kmaq or other native peoples, but this seems most unlikely to have happened so early in the region near the mouth of the Exploits River - and the family stories are quite clear about later mixing with the Mi'kmaq in some (but not all) branches of the family. All sources agree that Susannah Manuel (who was born in Lewisporte in 1832) definitely had a Beothuk mother. 
This seems very possible indeed, as Shanawdithit (who died in 1829 and is often billed as the "last of the Beothuk") reported that a number of men and women (some 12 or 13 in all) from her tribe managed to escape when she was captured. Ingeborg Marshall in her excellent book, A History and Ethnography of the Beothuk, pp. 224-225, reports a number of sightings and incidents involving Beothuk in this region after 1829 - from 1834 to at least 1845, and there is a report that Beothuks "had lived in the watershed area of Bay St. George in the 1840s and 1850s and were said to have intermarried with the whites." 
My mother and sister have paid to have DNA studies done and, while all the results are not back yet, it is unlikely they will "prove" much definitely either way - as there is only some DNA garnered from two stolen Beothuk skulls to compare it with - not enough for a proper sampling. Hopefully, though, they may give some supportive evidence. When and if any evidence is forthcoming from these studies I will certainly post it on this page.
While it is usual for material in the Wikipedia to require some well-referenced source for information such as this - it is my belief that, because so very little is known about the Beothuk people, whatever crumbs of information have survived are precious and should be recorded. The fact that a number oral stories and photos are the only "evidence" we have at the moment should, I believe, be of enough interest for a short entry with, of course, appropriate qualifications.
I would be very grateful to hear what other people think on this subject or if they have anything to add to these stories. Please reply on this page or, if you wish, contact me directly at: wynhill@bigpond.com Many thanks, John Hill 06:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While it is interesting for a family to trace descent, that does not alter the fact that the ethnic Beothuk group, with its culture and language, no longer exists as a whole - that is the meaning of saying the group is "extinct".  I don't think one family's descent has a place in the article.  People do carry all kinds of ancestry.  For instance, a while ago in England, they found that many contemporary males in Cheshire, England had Y-DNA linked to the 6,000-year-old "Cheshire Man", showing relative stability of population in the area.  If a university undertook such a local study in Newfoundland, for instance, found persisting Beothuk genes, and published their results, such material would be valid for inclusion in Wikipedia.--Parkwells (talk) 17:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Speculation? Seeking others' opinions

message: Ah, that song, I used to actually have that recording too from the CBC, but at some point I must have lost it. It's nowhere to be found on my hard-drive now. If anyone out there does still have it, it would be good to hear it. User:Benstox 3:56, 14 August 2008.
:Oh, yes, I would love to hear it again too! I wrote to the CBC about it once but they were very unhelpful. Can anyone else out there find it again, please? John Hill (talk) 21:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've also had trouble trying to get this from the CBC. They didn't cite copyright however, but essentially told me they had lost it by claiming the file was no longer to be found on their network. Further, I also received no response from the professor via email. Looks like this language is still lost for the purposes of the general public. User:TheTyrant  —Preceding undated comment added 01:24, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

text: The Santu father was named KOP and had relations with a man surnamed Toney. The mikmaq  Tony and Googoo were interviewed with out discussion on the male PATERNAL  side KOP FAMILY and the KOP family whom are still alive in the near location as the Santu visit to her family ; these Kop were interviewed on their relative Santu " KOP"-TONEY. The Kop family still have a percentage  of Native American and higher percentage  of European  and Mitachondria  proved not to be of beothuk after they had prior to submission  the Frank Speck  story of their family Member Santu " KOP " was disinformation  and cultural misappropriation forced upon them by the mikmaq ; the Kop family expressed how their grievance and stated, they are Chippewa  and neither beothuk or mikmaq. The evidence was presented in the Supreme Court  entry and AIN Tribunal  Indigenous courts. 2603:6080:7B06:C800:755D:31D:430B:E29E (talk) 09:27, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: The Song

message: Thanks again to another wandering Italian. Giovani Caboto and his imported Mikmak's, proceed to murder and starve the native population for the good of the foriegn country payings his wages.  Think Columbus was bad.  There are No more beothuks' left. 76.71.17.88 (talk) 06:09, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Perheps there are, at least some kind of ancestors. See here: Researchers turn over new Leif in Canadian Viking mystery --88.149.99.14 (talk) 07:00, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Murdered

message: How exactly are Demasduit, Shanawdithit, and  Nonosbawsut not the names of the people in question? The article is inconsistent on the formatting, and MOS:Ety says "A proper name is usually not italicized when it is used, but it may be italicized when the name itself is being referred to (see Words as words)." There are a few instances where the wrds could perhaps fall on the mention side of use-mention (if anything, Mary March looks like it could be that), but for the other instances, if they really aren't names then that should be mentioned in the article and the formatting made consistent. Ergative rlt (talk) 05:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops. I hadn't seen how muddled up that was. All the italics from their proper names are now gone (I think), only the names given to them by the English are italicized, as these were not their proper names and moreover, this is noted as such in most sources. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Names and italics

message: The phrase "discrete ethnic group" is used in the last sentence of the lead.  Is this some ethnographer's use of discrete that I'm not aware of, or should this read perhaps "distinct"? The Interior (Talk) 01:19, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I'm a boob, I was thinking of "discreet".  However, "distinct" might be better, I'm probably not the only one who doesn't know about "discrete". The Interior (Talk) 01:38, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Use of discrete

message: Marshall does not claim that "most modern linguists and historians" support the Algonquian hypothesis, her actual words are that there is a "tendency" to support Alogonquian. Also, note that Marshall's work is a general overview from 1996, while Mithun and Campbell are both specialist works on the history and classification of North American languages, postdate Marshall, and list Beothuk outside of Algic/Alogonquian.
Mithun additionally does not hedge by saying "definite purely linguistic based judgements", and anyway linguistic judgements are the only sort that are valid for linguistic classification.
The claim that "certain linguistic sources regarded it as a language isolate, linked to assumptions about the isolation of the Beothuk from the rest of North America" is supported by Holly only with regards to a single source: Gatschet, writing in the 19th century, with the possibility of other, unnamed early researchers doing the same. These notions aren't involved in the modern debates about the classification of the Beothuk language, and Holly doesn't claim they are. Furthermore, the "all fail to support the isolation argument" is about claims of geographical/cultural isolation, not status as a linguistic isolate, as the surrounding context make clear. Using supposed isolation (per Gatschet) to imply a status of isolate is clearly wrong, but at the same time status as an isolate does not imply cultural/geographic isolation, nor do cultural/geograhic connections imply linguistic relatedness: these are distinct concerns, which Holly makes clear later in the article. Holly in fact never states whether Beothuk is an isolate or not, instead focusing on how claims about the Beothuk language have been used as fodder for those engaging in an ethnographic othering of the Beothuk - a process not limited to those favoring status as an isolate, as several authors mentioned as being responsible for such othering are explicitly treating the Beothuk as an Algoquian group. Ergative rlt (talk) 17:34, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Linguistic classification

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Cayuga people which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 18:44, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: In reviewing the history of the Beothuk page and this talk page, I have to say I find the repeated erasure of Beothuk voices and presence very alarming. Repeated edits from living Beothuk people or those who have done extensive research is deleted by editors who have done no research but instead just offer hypothetical scenarios about how it is possible for individuals to state untruths on wikipedia. This is alarming to me because those acting out of speculation are trumping those contributing from a place of knowledge (even if they don't always follow expected norms for entering material into wikipedia). Indigenous peoples across Canada and the planet are currently struggling to survive ongoing genocides. In Canada this is often described as cultural genocide because of the dominant role policies of assimilation have played in attempted erasure of Indigenous presence. This context is important to understand when editing supposedly objective records like Wikipedia to ensure that we do not reproduce the biases of past generations in these records. The continued refusal of the editors of this page to allow even an acknowledgement that there are still people proudly claiming Beothuk identity is an act of violence (although I see the most recent attempt to add these claims has not yet been deleted, and having lasted a week it is has been one of the more successful attempts). This is an erasure of people and is unwittingly complicit in the genocidal agenda that has pushed so many Indigenous peoples towards extinction, which can be a long road that happens through many tiny acts that often aren't intentionally malicious. Jghampton (talk) 05:06, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Sadly, the evidence appears to be that there are no "living Beothuk people", and anyone who has done extensive research need simply cite that research. The past and ongoing literal and cultural genocides of indigenous people here in Canada and the rest of the world are tragic and horrifying, but that doesn't change the need for verifiable sources on Wikipedia, as per WP:VERIFY. Similarly, someone can't just claim to be a descendant of Abraham Lincoln, however proudly, and have it added without question. --tronvillain (talk) 14:44, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

text: thank you for your complaint; it is attempted  extermination genocide. 2603:6080:7B06:C800:755D:31D:430B:E29E (talk) 09:55, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

text: That's the problem. UNLESS an entry in Wikipedia can be verified by a third-party source (see WP:RS), the information is not likely at all to pass muster. Hope this helps. Regards,   Aloha27  talk  15:48, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disturbing trend towards erasure of Indigenous voices 

message: I would be obliged if someone would correct the citation of Pope et al. (2011), which is evidently not formatted properly.
We showed that although the only two known Beothuk mtDNAs are in the C and X lineages, just as are some Mi'kmaq, there are definite differences between the Beothuk and Mi'kmaq sequences. Given the short fragment length (< 400 bp), the complete mtDNA would likely be quite difference and thus not evidence of close relationship at all.
The problem with the so-called "test result" is that it was likely not done at all. The comparative SNP data are not in the standard database, and the company was not aware of either the 2007 or 2011 papers until reporters told them. They have been furiously back peddling ever since. If the original "results" were produced, they would doubtless show this.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr Steven M Carr (talk • contribs) 17:53, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add reference to Pope et al. 2011 correcting interpretation of Kuch et al. 2007 on "close relationship"; clarify 2016 testing as a bogus claim by the company, which likely did not do any test at all. 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: And also contradicts several things this article says. Update required, I think? </ref> Elinruby (talk) 05:05, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appears pertinent and authoritative 

message: * Writing in a manner throwing up questions is not recommended. There is an implicit question without question mark in the Archeology section. I would recommend to establish first the artifacts, to then perhaps draw a conclusion. But the conclusion is missing from the paragraph: They had nails and fish hooks, which they supposedly had found or stolen. Ergo they did or didn't take part in the fur trade?
* I would like to remove a notion lamenting the quality of written records. 
I don't disagree with the sentiment, but it has no bearing on the Description section. It does have bearing on the accuracy of the description, but that is a different matter and would objectively have to find a better place.
* A description of the relation with settlers is of course important, but that should follow a description of their previously uninterrupted lifestyle, which I just assume they had. The article doesn't mention it. The way it is right now seems highly biased and that throws a bad light on the issue even if the bias might turn out to be correct. The way the notion about source quality is presented between sentences about the population numbers, it appears as if the source were relevant to that, because otherwise it would be really out of place. But the lament is much more general than that. If the cited source has a different idea about the numbers, it would help to cite that instead. I read two pages from the cite and didn't find anything like that.
* In the pages I read, I was surprised to find a mention of contact with settlers in the 16th century. That would be an important fact to have. But how does that fit in with the lede that says the culture formed beginning in 1500? That would explain why little of their previous lifestyle is known.
* The section on notable Beothuk people is simply a copy of the specific articles about those people. That should be shortened to a minimum. 
I understand that the topic is difficult. But following the source it's not as if there were no sources at all, just no written sources from Beothuk. Otherwise, if the source quality was really that bad, that would imply to cut the whole article after that notion: They dwelled in Neufundland -- end of story. I don't think that's in anyones interest. Rhyminreason (talk) 20:33, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested Improvements 

message: I have removed a paragraph and reference added in December 2017, referring to an alleged massacre of 400 or more Beothuk near Hant's Harbour.  The paragraph is a reference to a 1951 Maclean's article written by Harold Horwood.  That article is a significantly sensationalized account of an earlier oral tradition which does not appear to be supported by historical evidence. For a skeptical analysis of the Horwood article, see "Archaeology, History and the Beothuks", Ralph T. Pastore, Newfoundland Studies 9, 2 (1993); link here [SELF EDIT: corrected link].  Note also that the Heritage Newfoundland website article on the disappearance of the Beothuk never mentions this alleged incident at all.  A google search turns up only references back to the original Horwood article.Vulcan's Forge (talk) 16:17, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: UPDATE: removed two similar claims, both based on the same 1951 Maclean's article by Horwood, which remains unsubstantiated by historical evidence.Vulcan's Forge (talk) 16:53, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

text: UPDATE: removed again; same claims, same Horwood reference, same problem: unsubstantiated by historical evidence.Vulcan's Forge (talk) 14:04, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

text: UPDATE: The updated link to the Heritage Newfoundland website is here.Vulcan's Forge (talk) 19:52, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of "[[Hant's Harbour]] massacre" paragraph and reference 

message: This phrasing caught my eye, "Beothuk researcher Ingeborg Marshall", as it's grammatically ambiguous whether it means Marshall is a researcher of the Beothuk people or a researcher who is Beothuk. As I read on in the article, it seems that it's more likely that the meaning is that Marshall is not Beothuk but researches the Beothuk people. Is there a better way to word this to remove the ambiguity? "Researcher of the Beothuk, Ingeborg Marshall" is an option but a bit wordier. Elfangor9 (talk) 19:22, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Beothuk researcher" wording 

message: At the moment, there is a section called "Genocide" that just begins "Scholars disagree in their definition of the term in relation to the Beothuk, and the parties have differing political agendas". Presumably the term in question is "genocide" but the section seem to take for granted that some genocide has been assumed by the reader. Nothing in the preceding section really suggested genocide, only that there had been some hostile encounters and starvation. Source links seem dead, but without some explanation as to why genocide is being put forward and by whom, the section doesn't really make a lot of sense. If it's not the mainstream view, I propose it be the section just be merged with the above section on extinction with more elaboration as necessary as to the exact claims. 2600:8800:23A2:9600:207F:4E1E:2600:119D (talk) 14:41, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genocide