Nova Scotia Archives

George Creed - Mi'kmaq Petroglyphs

Tracing of a petroglyph of a Mi'kmaq juggler's lodge and a petroglyph of a full-rigged ship with a high poop

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Date: 1888

Petroglyph tracings C: Ships and vessels #19. 4 negatives and 5 positives. The tracings bear a red 'X' mark which indicates that they were found at the Port Medway River. Marion Robertson's Rock Drawings of the Micmac Indians interpret this petroglyph as a "Medicine man's lodge… when these drawings were traced from the rocks of Kejimkoojik in 1888 there where Indians still familiar with the old ways of the Micmac who identified tge tracings as the ground plan of a medicine man's lodge and [c19] as the ground plan for a juggler's lodge. There was little difference between the medicine man and the juggler since the medicine man performed feats of magic as well as ministered to the sick through invocations to his oüahich, his source of power. The partitions in the medicine lodge dividing it into rooms with human figures and other designs, suggest the celebrations performed in the various divisions of the lodge. The bare branch of a tree attached to the side of a lodge as in [c19] identifies it as belonging to a juggler."

Reference: George Creed - Petroglyphs Nova Scotia Archives MG 15 Vol. 11 C19

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