Acoutsina

Acoutsina (c. 1697 – after 1719), the daughter of Chief Ouibignaro, was an Inuk from Labrador who was enslaved by Augustin le Gardeur de Courtemanche.^[1] She taught François Martel de Brouague, his stepson and a French colonist and commandant of the coast of Labrador, the language of her people.^[1] The name "Acoutsina" is believed to be a French derivation of an Inuit term, akutsiarq, meaning the beautiful apron.

It is difficult to ascertain the heritage of Acoutsina due to the limited information that exists from this area at this period in history. The French adopted the term "Eskimo" from the indigenous people in North America, but their use of the word referred to several Nordic Amerindian groups in the area, including the Naskapi and the Beothuk, who are not part of the Eskimo group. Jacques Rousseau, a professor of ethnobiology, asserts that Acoutsina was part of the Eskimo people and not Naskapi or Beothuk, due to the translation of her name from the Eskimo language, her instruction of the Eskimo language to children and the Eskimo cultural practices that she is recorded to have demonstrated.^[1]

Acoutsina's father was Ouibignaro, a chief of the Inuk people. She described Eskimo customs and legends to the Europeans.^[1]

• Bogliolo Bruna, Giulia (1999). "Passer les frontières : Acoutsina l'interprète et Marguerite la convertie". Il Polo. 25–26 (Alla ricerca della quadratura del Circolo Polare : Testimonianze e studi in onore di Jean Malaurie (Giulia Bogliolo Bruna scient. ed.)): 137–144.
• Bogliolo Bruna, Giulia (1999). Passer les frontières: les Inuit du Labrador (fin du XVIème - première moitié du XVIIIème) (Passar as fronteiras, II Colóquio Internacional sobre Mediadores Culturais, Séculos XV a XVIII, Rui Manuel Loureiro and Serge Gruzinski ed.). Lagos: Centro de Estudos Gil Eanes. pp. 81–110.

• List of people of Newfoundland and Labrador