Date Published:
October 2004

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Papinachois Indians

[This text was originally published in 1907 by the Bureau of American Ethnology as part of its Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. It was later reproduced, in 1913, by the Geographic Board of Canada. The work done by the American Bureau was monumental, well informed and incorporated the most advanced scholarship available at the time. In many respects, the information is still useful today, although prudence should be exercised and the reader should consult some of the contemporary texts on the history and the anthropology of the North American Indians suggested in the bibliographic introduction to this section. The articles were not completely devoid of the paternalism and the prejudices prevalent at the time. While some of the terminology used would not pass the test of our "politically correct" era, most terms have been left unchanged by the editor. If a change in the original text has been effected it will be found between brackets [.] The original work contained long bibliographies that have not been reproduced for this web edition. For the full citation, see the end of the text.]

Papinachois ( Opâpinagwa , 'they cause you to laugh.' - Hewitt). A Montagnais tribe or division living in the 17 th century about the headwaters of the Manikuagan [Manicouagan] and Outarde rs., N. of the Bersiamite. They visited Tadoussac and received religious instruction from the missionaries, and by 1664 the latter had penetrated their country, finding them tractable and inoffensive. Charlevoix believed that this and other tribes of the same section had become extinct in his day. As late as 1721 they joined in a letter to the governor of Massachusetts . Chauvignerie mentions a people of the same name living N. of lake Superior in 1736, numbering 20 warriors and having the hare as their totem, but these were a distinct people.

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Source: James WHITE, ed., Handbook of Indians of Canada, Published as an Appendix to the Tenth Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, Ottawa, 1913, 632p., p. 382.