This dissertation examines the activities of hunting and exchange and how they are thought about by the northern Quebec Cree of Wemindji. The activities of material production are generated in the dialectical relation of experience to Cree structures of thought. Reciprocity amounts to a paradigm for Cree thought, informing models of both ecological and social relations. The effect of material relations on structural transformations is viewed in discursive genres of several levels, ranging from everyday dialogue to mythico-ritual symbolism. Special attention is paid to four categories of "persons" which have been of consuming interest to the natural and social science of the Crees: Canada geese, black bears, Crees, and "White Men".

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