This week, Bill tells us about culturally significant, living artifacts of Indigenous life and beliefs that many in northern Ontario may not be aware of
Indigenous peoples have long utilized trees for many reasons. In particular, cedar trees provided materials for shelter, clothing, bedding, food gathering and preparation, transportation, and cultural and spiritual activities.
Background There are not many published resources on culturally modified trees. Indigenous Corporate Training Inc. has authored an excellent overview and permission for the following was granted by Ally Pascuzzi, the organization’s Learning Experience Coordinator. Culturally modified trees are recognizable by the scars remaining from the removal of bark, planks or test holes. Generally, material harvested impacted no more than one-third of the circumference of a tree, which allowed the tree to keep growing.
Bill Weaver is a retired family doctor turned archaeologist with an interest in Anishinaabe pictographs and star charts. Find the 2015 book Muzzinabikon – An Introduction to the Sacred co-written with Kathy Kujala. "As living artifacts, they are recognized as both culturally and ecologically valuable features of the landscape that offer insight into the interactions between humans and the forest environment. A lack of knowledge means culturally modified trees are poorly understood and oft misidentified which leads to poor recognition, documentation, and protection.”
"The concept that trees are living beings and possess ‘manitou’, ‘medicine’, or ‘spirit’ is identified in the Haudenossaune ‘False Masks’ carved into living trees in Southern Ontario. Culturally modified trees also acted as a valuable resource used in a great many capacities from Tikinagan construction, to canoe building, birch bark shakers, fish net making, clothing, planks and roofing in shelter building, fire starting, paddles, bowls and ladles, as a food source, and for medicines.
One of the largest documented concentrations of culturally modified trees in Northern Ontario is located in Nagagamisis Provincial Park near Hornepayne where an estimated 30 to 100 trees have been documented since 1999.
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