No Man's Land: British and Mi'kmaq in 18th and 19th Century Acadia
Publication Details
This dissertation begins with a problem of alienation as it has historically emerged in Canada's Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. The estrangement of the region's aboriginal population from white arenas of social valuation provides a point of departure for this historical analysis of pre-Confederation Mi'kmaq-white relations; and the religious life of both peoples provides the raw material from which is constructed an understanding of both the evolution of alienated forms of existence in this context, and the possibility of freedom from these. With an initial assumption that religion is the mode by which human beings orient themselves in the world so as to ensure that their existence is meaningful, this analysis focuses on the human relationship with landscape in colonial Acadia. It is the fundamental need to feel 'at home' that is explored in respect to both aboriginal and white populations; and the religious symbols and myths that arise out of this necessity betray the emergence of two distinct forms of human alienation that of the Mi'kmaq from white colonial society, and that of whites from an authentic appreciation of the place in which they are situated. The dissertation concludes with suggestions for constructively utilizing knowledge of the religious structures that underpin the historical fact of New World alienation.
Physical Description: 209 pp.