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One useful consideration I've come across in my studies is to pay close attention to how historical sources came to be made.
A couple thoughts on that...
A couple thoughts on that...
If, for example, you're comparing sources written by (say) missionaries, it might be advisable to give greater weight to a source written by a guy who lived among [Mi'gmaq] for a few years and learned the language than a guy who stayed a winter.
I say this because there does seem to be a tendency to grant certain ethnographic sources undue extra weight because they are more (from a colonial perspective) "noteworthy" (i.e. the person who produced the document figures more heavily into a particular settler mythology.)
Sure, there are all kinds of other motivations and lenses at play here, and those shouldn't be flattened or ignored, but familiarity through direct experience seems is probably of the most important things to consider. After all, they had books with lies in them back the too.
So if you're a researcher looking to gauge how reliable ethnographic sources are, you might want to start there.
Admittedly, this has lead me down a few curious and counterintuitive paths.
Admittedly, this has lead me down a few curious and counterintuitive paths.
For example, sometimes the extent to which a source is reliable doesn't necessarily correlate with how that particular author felt about Native [anything].
Sometimes shitty people provide super accurate and detailed (if biased) description of things - including their own crimes.
Sometimes shitty people provide super accurate and detailed (if biased) description of things - including their own crimes.
Similarly, sometimes an account that is highly critical, deprecating, and dismissive of Indigenous [anything] might actually be quite a bit more "reliable" than an account that forgoes direct experience and relies upon romanticized rhetorical flourishes and stereotypes.
One example that comes to mind is a missionary who criticized Mi'gmaq for not "disciplining" children using physical violence.
Our approach was a bad thing in his view, so he went into considerable detail trying to make our practices seem super harmful to his readers.
Our approach was a bad thing in his view, so he went into considerable detail trying to make our practices seem super harmful to his readers.
You kind of have to read what he's saying "against the grain" but when you reframe things from a Mi'gmaw perspective, especially using oral history and teachings, it becomes obvious that he was providing an accurate and detailed (if biased) description of Mi'gmaq parenting.
Meanwhile, the other guy who stayed a few months but wrote fancifully about how all the NDNs he saw from the shoreline were elite Spartan-esque badasses might "get all the clicks" despite having a very superficial understanding of what he was seeing and writing about.
Anyway, thems some random thoughts.
