Mi'kmaq Hieroglyphic Prayers: Readings in North America's First Indigenous Script

Richard W. Parker is an associate professor and chair of the Classics
Department at Brock University in St. Catharines.

This books features a selection of sacred readings in Mi’kmaq. The
readings incorporate a nonalphabetic script that has been mainly put to
religious use for over two centuries. The history of this hieroglyphic
script is sketched in the book’s introductory section and will be of
some interest to those who wish to understand first contacts. Among the
Eastern Algonquian peoples, there existed various traditions of
pictographic memory aids. In the 1670s, a French missionary named
Chrestien Le Clerq sought to establish a standardized set of symbols.
His hieroglyphs proved popular with the Mi’kmaq and were further
developed by other missionaries.

The readings in this book are grouped into three types: common prayers,
the sacraments, and “The Passion of our Lord.” Each text is laid out
in horizontal bands, with the hieroglyphic text presented above a
transliteration (in the Roman alphabet) into Mi’kmaq, which itself
appears above a translation into literal English. An English translation
of the whole selection is also provided. The translations are
characterized by simple dignity and elegance. More explanatory notes
would have been helpful.