Cree Fish Names from Eastern James Bay, Quebec

Fish names were compiled in three ways: actual identification of the fish during field studies; by interviews with tallymen (senior hunters in charge of registered traplines); and by interviews with selected informants of known expertise for identifications and proper spelling of names in Cree syllabics. Field identifications were made in Fort George and Eastmain during ongoing studies of fisheries biology and human ecology. Interviews with tallymen, who are people respected among the Cree as experts on the local environment, were made with a subsample of about half the tallymen in each of the communities of Fort George, Wemindji, Rupert House and Great Whale. In the remaining Cree communities of Waswanipi, Nemaska and Mistassini, and in the Naskapi Band at Schefferville, information was obtained only by interviews with selected informants. In group and individual interviews, the identification book, Freshwater Fishes of Eastern Callcida (Scott, 1%7) was used, with supplementary material from other texts and field guides.