Among the worst omissions by early European writers was their failure to properly identify the ranks of Chiefs according to the protocol of Mi'kmaq political hierarchy. Whether the Chief they refer to in their journals was a District Chief, Grand Chief, local chief, etc., is anyone's guess. This failing has posed problems in trying to sort out Mi'kmaq historical events.

The way Chief Membertou is identified in the following passages provides a good example of the omission of proper titles. He was the District Chief of Kespukwitk and had been appointed by his peers from the six other Mi'kmaq Districts Grand Chief. Lescarbot described him:

“At Port Royal, the name of the Captain or Sagamore of the place is Membertou. He is at least a hundred years old and may in the course of nature live fifty years longer. He has under him a number of families whom he rules, not with so much authority as does our King over his subjects, but with sufficient powers to harangue, advise, and lead them to war, or to render justice to one who has a grievance, and like matters.

“He does not impose taxes upon the people, but if there are any profits from the chase, he has a share of them, without being obliged to take part in it. It is true that they sometimes make him presents of beaver skins and other things, when he is occupied in curing the sick, or questioning his demon to have news of some future event or of the absent: for, as each village, or company of savages, has an Acutmoin, or Prophet, who performs this office, Membertou is the one who, from time immemorial, has practiced this art among his followers. He has done it so well that his reputation is far above that of all the other Sagamores of the country, he has since his youth been a great Chief, and has also exercised the offices of Soothsayer and Medicine Man, which are the three things most officious to the well-being of man, and necessary to human life.

“Now this Membertou today, by the grace of God, is a Christian. Together, with all his family, having been baptised ... last Saint John's day, the 24th of June, 1610. I have letters from Sieur de Poutrincourt about it, dated the eleventh day of July following. He said that Membertou was named after our good late King Henri IV, and his eldest son (Membertousoichis) after Monseigneur the Dauphin, today our King Louis XIII, whom may God bless.”

Biard wrote that Membertou: “was the greatest, most renowned and most formidable savage within the memory of man; of splendid physique, taller and larger-limbed than is usual among them; bearded like a Frenchman, although scarcely any of the others have hair upon the chin; grave and reserved; feeling a proper sense of dignity for his position as commander.”

Lescarbot says: “Membertou was already a man of great age, and saw Captain Jacques Cartier in that country in 1534, being already at that time a married man and the father of a family, though even now he does not look more than fifty years old.”