OAS ARCH NOTES 86-1:19-23, 26
John Steckley
There is evidence suggesting that burbot (Lota lota (Linnaeus)) may have been an important food fish for the Huron at the time of early contact. The purpose of this short paper is twofold:
1) to present the evidence; and
2) to ask archaeologists whether their faunal data supports my interpretation of the written evidence.
THE EVIDENCE
In the writing of Recollect Brother Gabriel Sagard, who stayed in Huronia in 1623-4, we find three references to a fish named Einchataon. The first two we find in his journal:
“But the fish, of which they lay in a supply for winter after it is smoked, they store in casks of tree-bark which they call Acha, except Leinchataon, which is a fish they do not clean and which they hang with cords in the roof of the lodge, because if it were packed in any cask it would smell too bad and become rotton at once.” (Sagard 1939: 95)
“Some weeks after the catch of the big fish/atsihiendo/, the savages to catch the Einchataon, which is a fish rather like the barbel/ catfish/ here, about a foot and a half or a little less. This fish is used to give a taste to their sagamite during the winter, and for this reason they make much of it, as well as the big fish; and, in order that it may make their soup smell better they do not remove the viscera, and the fish keep hanging in bundles on the poles of their lodges. But I can assure you that in Lent, when the weather begins to be warm, it stank and has such a frightfully bad smell that our gorge rose at it, while to them, it was musk and civet.” (op. cit., pp. 230-31; additions mine)
The third reference is in Sagard’s dictionary or phrase book, under the heading of “Poissons” (Sagard 1865):
“Autre comme barbeaux. Einchataon.”
In the French/Huron/Onondaga dictionary of the mid 1650’s (see Steckley 1982: 29), there are two entries that appear to refer to Einchataon. In the list of fish names we find the following: “du bord de l’eau/on the edge of the water/. Annentrata,on.” (FHO17)
Elsewhere, in the listing of the months of the year, as an alternative name for what may be either October or November1, is the entry:
“du bord de l’eau. Annentrata,on e,ârok.” (FHO “lunes”)
That the Annentrata,on of these entries is the Einchataon of Sagard’s writing can be more readily seen if it is kept in mind that Sagard often used -ein- where the Jesuit missionary linguists of later times wrote -en-, and sometimes used -ch- to represent what the Jesuits wrote as -tr-. Examples are the following:
| Sagard | Jesuits |
| “Tu pleures, pleure. Sareinta. “2 | sarenta3 |
| “Il demeure,… Hainchontaque. 4 | hentrontak5 |
The word Annentrata,on is comprised of the noun -nnentrat- meaning ‘shore’ (Pot 45O “,annentra / ,annentrata / ,annentara”) and the noun suffic -,on- meaning ‘on’ or ‘in’ (Pot 163 #11 “a,on”), and means ‘on the shore’.
The e,arok in the entry for the calendar of months is comprised of the noun -aar- meaning ‘net’ (pot 446 “,aara”) and the verb -o- meaning ‘to be (in) water’ (Pot 40l #1* ‘o’). The particular combination presented above means ‘one will put a net in the water’ (see Pot 402 and Steckley 1983:12). The term for the month thus means ‘when one will put a net in the water of the shore’.
Was the term ‘on the shore’ the name for the fish, or just an abbreviated version of the phrase for the method of catching it? The fact that the term is not present in the version of the list that appeared in the dictionary at the end of the 17th century (FHL), and two new names appear might give us a clue. The two new terms are: “Morue. /cod/ Sanguietsia.”
“Saumon. /salmon/ honnchionch.” (FHL232, additions mine)
Annentrata,on could not have been the salmon as the Jesuits would have early recognized it. Could Sanguietsia then have been the name for the fish earlier recorded as Annentrata,on? There is a distinct possibility, although the evidence is far from conclusive.
The burbot is a member of the cod family, and is sometimes referred to as the ‘ freshwater cod’ (Scott and Crossman 1973:645). Its range includes the waters of historic Huronia. A tentative translation of the name Sanguietsia can be seen as presenting evidence that points to it referring to the same fish as Annentrata,on.
The name clearly has the verb -es- meaning ‘to be long’, (Pot 385 #47 “etsi”) . The noun is more difficult to determine, but it could be a shortened version of -ngwira- meaning ‘fish tail’. Some Huron nouns drop final -r- when in composition with verbs. An example is “,entara” meaninq ‘red fur’, which becomes “,enta” in composition (Pot 455). If such is the case here, then the noun plus verb combination would mean ‘long fish tail’, possibly a reference to the long dorsal fins of the burbot.
How does the rest of the evidence relate to the burbot? We can answer this question by grouping the evidence into five basic points. The fish we are looking for:
a) is caught some weeks after the atsihiendo;
b) is something like a catfish;
c) is typically a foot and a half or slightly less in length when caught;
d) is not eviscerated after it is caught; and
e) is caught by a net that is cast or stretched out from shore.
When these points are looked at more closely, the burbot seems the most logical candidate for the fish being described.
A fish that is caught some weeks after atsihiendo.
A term for October that appears in all Huron calendar lists is “atsihiendo a, anna,oha”, a phrase that can be translated as ‘(when) the atsihiendo come or run’ (Steckley 1983:12). When Sagard went fishing with the Huron in 1623 to catch atsihiendo they left in October and stayed until some time in November (Sagard 1939: 185-86). If Annentrata,on was caught some weeks after this period, then the reference to Annentrata,on e,arok as a month term would probably be to November rather than October.
The burbot is unusual in being a winter spawner. Scott and Crossman tell us that:
“It spawns from November to May over the whole of its world distribution, but mainly from January to March in Canada.” (Scott and Crossman 1973: 643)
The only other local fish that spawns around that time is the whitefish. But it has a different name in Huron. The usual term for November was “chionh8a a, anna,oha. pesche du poisson blanc” (FHL244), meaning ‘(when) whitefish come or run’ (Steckley 1983:13).
In his attempt to identify Sagard’s Einchataon, Heidenreich looked at a number of fish (including the burbot) and concluded:
“Of these, the catfish comes perhaps the closest. The fact that the Huron caught the Einchataon in the late fall after the trout and … /atsihiendo/ … had gone corresponds to the habits of the catfish, who seek out the spawning areas to feed on the eggs.” (Heidenreich 1971:211)
One weakness in this conclusion is that the Huron had a different term for catfish, “tonnen8actont” (see FHL232).
A fish that is something like a catfish.
It is useful here to look at what exactly was written in the original French.
The phrase was:
“un poison quelque peu approchant aux Barbeaux de par-deca” (op. cit.)
The expression quelque peu is better translated as ‘slightly, to a slight extent’
(see Dubois 1979:534) than the ‘rather like’ of the published English translation.
With its long slender barbel on the tip of its chin and the similar barbel-like extensions from its nostril openings (Scott and Crossman 1973:641) the burbot is ‘slightly’ like a catfish. Bullheads (black, yellow or brown) are too much like catfish to qualify according to strict reading of this translation. In addition, they are early summer spawners, and are too short to answer to the description in Sagard (op. cit., pp. 591, 595 and 598).
A fish that is typically a foot and a half or slightly less in length when caught.
The evidence here again points to the burbot. The average length of the burbot is 15 inches or 381 mm (op. cit., p. 641). They reach sexual maturity, thus being part of the spawning, during their third or fourth year (op. cit., p. 643). At that time, the female at least is 11 .0 to 18.9 inches (280 – 480 mm) in length. In a 1954 study of Lake Simcoe burbot reported in Scott and Crossman (op. cit., p. 643), burbot were recorded as reaching an average of 432 mm at age three, only slightly less than the 457.2 mm or the reported foot and a half.
A fish that is not eviscerated after it is caught.
Why would a fish not be eviscerated? There is a good reason in the case of the burbot. The liver of the burbot has a high nutritional value. According to Scott and Crossman:
“The vitamin A potency of burbot liver oil is stated to be about 500 units or more per gram, and analyses of the vitamin D potency of the oil obtained from the large liver have shown it to be as good as that obtained from cod liver.” (op. cit., p. 645)
Unfortunately, the way the non-eviscerated fish was processed may make it difficult for the significance of the burbot to show up clearly in the archaeological record. When Champlain wrote of the corn soup of the Huron he claimed that:
“When it is all cooked they take out the fish, and crush it very fine, not caring whether they take out the bones, scales or entrails as we do, but putting it together into the same pot, which usually gives it its bad taste.” (Champlain 1929: 127)
A fish that is caught by a net that is cast or stretched out from shore.
The burbot spawns in shallow waters, so it would appear that it could get caught in this way. Scott and Crossman tell us that:
“. ..the spawning site is usually in 1-4 feet of water over sand or gravel bottom in shallow bays, or on gravel shoals 5-10 feet deep.” (op. cit., p. 643)
That burbot can be profitably fished using nets during winter spawning can be seen by the fact that in the winter of 1964 in Manitoba researchers netted 50,000 pounds of burbot in 3 days, using trap nets (op. cit., p. 644).
CONCLUSION
It would seem that burbot is the Einchataon of Sagard’s writing and the Annentrata,on of the Jesuits. It remains for the archaeological record to support or question this hypothesis.
FOOTNOTES
1. The problem here is that although “du bord de l’eau. Annentrata,on e,arok.” appears to be the second entry for October, “Ora,eniat Aratsi ok8etonx8a” equally appears to be the second entry for November in this dictionary, while in other dictionaries (see FHL244) it is given as the first entry for December.
2. Sagard 1865 “Pleurer”.
3. Pot 173 #77.
4. Sagard 1865 “Demeurer, ne bouger”.
5. Pot 392 #17.
REFERENCES CITED
Champlain, Samuel de
1929 The Works of Samuel de Champlain, vol. 3, 1615-18, H.P. Biggar ed., Toronto, The Champlain Society.
Dubois, Marquerite-Marie ed.
1979 Dictionnaire Moderne Francais-Anglais. Paris, Librairie Larousse.
FHL
c1697 French-Huron dictionary ms.
FHO
c1654 French-Huron-Onondaga dictionary ms.
Heidenreich, Conrad
1971 Huronia: A History and Geography of the Huron Indians. Toronto, McClelland and Stewart Ltd.
Potier, Pierre (Pot)
1920 ‘Radices Huronicae” in the Fifteenth Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario. Clarkson W. James, Toronto, pp. 159-455.
Sagard, Gabriel
1865 Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons. Paris, Edwin Tross.
1939 The Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons. G. M. Wrong ed., Toronto, The Champlain Society.
Scott, W.B. and Crossman, E.J.
1973 Freshwater Fishes of Canada. Ottawa, Fisheries Research Board of Canada, Bulletin #184.
Steckley, John D.
1982 “Huron Clans and Phratries” in Ontario Archaeology 37:29-34.
1983 “The Huron Calendar” in Arch Notes Jan/Feb pp. 11-13.