Final answer:
The Micmacs, like the Rock Cree and other Indigenous groups in Canada, engaged in hunting as a spiritual and respectful practice, viewing animals as equals that could willingly give themselves to hunters. These traditional practices emphasized a symbiotic relationship with nature. The arrival of European trade altered these practices through a drive for commercial exploitation of animal resources.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Micmacs, and other Indigenous peoples of Canada such as the Rock Cree, had a deep spiritual and respectful relationship with the animals they hunted. The Rock Cree hunters, studied by cultural anthropologist Robert Brightman, believed that successful hunting depended on the voluntary offering of the animal to the hunter, imbuing the hunt with a sense of cooperation and respect. Accordingly, it was essential that no part of the animal be wasted, and certain rituals were performed to honor the animal's spirit, including hanging bones in trees to signify that the hunters were finished with the animal. This was believed to allow the animal to regenerate and rejoin the environment.
Such attitudes contrast sharply with the market-driven hunting where the value placed on animals was more commercial than spiritual, a shift that occurred with European contact and the trade for manufactured goods. The hunting practices and respectful use of animal resources are seen as a key aspect of Indigenous culture and independence, even as many Indigenous societies became settled and incorporated wage labor into their subsistence systems.
These traditions highlight how Indigenous hunter-gatherers maintained a fundamentally different view of their relationship with animals and their role in the world compared to pastoral or industrial societies. They illustrate the complexity of the relationships between humans and wild animals, which are an integral part of Indigenous people's cultural identity and provide a lens for understanding our broader human relationship with the natural world.