Nova Scotia Archives

George Creed - Mi'kmaq Petroglyphs

Tracing of a petorglyph possibly of a medicine man's bag

Date: 1888

Petroglyph tracings L: Nondescript and unclassified #8. 3 negatives and 7 positives. Marion Robertson's Rock Drawings of the Micmac Indians interpret this petroglyph as "perhaps a medicine man's bag… An important item of the medicine man's regalia was his medicine bag. One examined by Father Chrétien LeClercq contained a stone--the medicine man's oüahich, or manitou, which was the source of his power (the size of a walnut 'wrapped in a box which he called the house of his Devil'); a bit of bark with the figure of a wolverine in black and white wampum; a small, foot-long bow with a cord interlaced with quills; a fragment of bark wrapped in skin and decorated with drawings of children, birds, bears, beavers, and moose; a stick adorned with white and red porcupine quills and a strap bearing two dozen dewclaws of moose; and a wooden bird which the medicine man carried with him when the Indians when hunting, believing it would enable them to kill many water fowl."

Reference: George Creed - Petroglyphs Nova Scotia Archives MG 15 Vol. 14 L8

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