Abstract

This study is an exploration of body markings and the culture surrounding them within New France during the French Regime dating from 1608-1763. The emphasis will be on early modern European writings, which have created the discourse that has been used to construct meanings for such body decorations. The approach comes from a contemporary perspective, giving contemporary interpretations of body markings within New France. Some of the issues to be addressed are: the prevalence of the practice among the First Nations peoples, the nature of the representations as well as interpretations of their meaning, European writers' understandings of the practice from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, and the appropriation of the practice by the early colonists. Conclusions are formulated by elaborating and assessing the terms in which a specific aspect of Amerindian history--body marking--has been written in order to trace the mutual historical implications of European and aboriginal cultures. The study gathers the widely dispersed information that surrounds this topic in order to lay a factual and interpretive groundwork on which subsequent studies may build.