Unidentified photographer
1850 (ca)
Molly Muise

Photograph (tintype?)
Parks Canada
Fort Anne, Annapolis Royal, N.S., Reference Number: N-10,810
 
Image information (Accessed: 13 May 2019)
"The picture is of Molly Muise who lived to a great age and was so much respected by her white neighbors that they erected a tombstone to her memory." [Accession Note BA19.6.1, Fort Anne] Her dates of birth and death are not known. This may be the earliest portrait of a Mi'kmaq by a photographic process. Molly Muise (the name was originally the French 'Mius' and is now spelled Meuse and Muse as well) is wearing a peaked cap with double-curve beadwork, a dark shirt, a short jacket with darker cuffs, over which she apparently has draped a second short jacket, its sleeves pulled inside, as a capelet. Her traditional dress with the large fold at the top is held up by suspenders with ornamental tabs. In her hands she seems to be clutching a white handkerchief.
 
(Alan Griffiths, 5 June 2019) Type of photograph and date confirmed by telephone call with Paul Paquette, Fort Anne, Parks Canada. (1 902 532 2397)
 
LL/90671