ABSTRACT
“A MAN WAS building a canoe, and chewed some of the chips. He spat and saw that the saliva was black. In this way the people obtained that colour. Later they boiled everything to find out what colours various things would produce, and so obtained all their dyes.” This charming Micmac Amero-Indian folktale emerged from their remarkable specialisation. As mentioned earlier, in the 17th century, the Micmacs were noted dyers of porcupine quills with only black, natural white and madder red, which was much admired by the French. So might this story give an explanation of the discovery of Turkey red? 1
