Huron-Wendat Nation

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Huron-Wendat Nation
Nation Huronne-Wendat - Wendake
HuronWendatNationSeal.png
EstablishedHuron-British Treaty of 1760
Government
  TypeHuron-Wendat Nation Council
  Grand ChiefPierre Picard
  Family ChiefsDave Laveau, Denis Bastien, Carlo Gros-Louis, René W. Picard, Stéphane Picard, Daniel Sioui, William Romain, Jean-Mathieu Sioui
Population
 (May 2022)
  Total
4,605
Time zone EDT DST
Website https://wendake.ca/

The Huron-Wendat Nation (or Huron-Wendat First Nation) is an Iroquoian-speaking nation that was established in the 17th century. In the French language, used by most members of the First Nation, they are known as the Nation Huronne-Wendat. The French gave the nickname Huron to the Wendat, from the French word hure meaning 'boar's head' because of the hairstyle of Huron men, who had their hair standing in bristles on their heads. [1] Wendat (Quendat) was their confederacy name, meaning 'people of the island' or 'dwellers on a peninsula'. [1]

Contents

The nation inhabited the area between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, historically known as Wendake (Huronia), conquered and devastated in the 17th century Beaver Wars, which prompted the surviving Hurons to move east to Quebec, under French protection. [2] It now has two communities and reserves, Wendake 7 and Wendake 7A, at Wendake, Quebec, a municipality now enclosed within Quebec City in Canada.

The 1760 Huron–British North American Peace Treaty, lost in 1824 but rediscovered in the 1990s, showed that a large chunk of land named Seigneurie de Sillery (now part of Quebec City) was sold to the Hurons in 1760 by the Jesuits. Therefore, the Huron-Wendats have a contemporary claim to this valuable land. [3]

Today, Wendake tourism is the main economic drive, which includes a developed historic sector, a residential district and an industrial zone. [2] As of April 2022, registered members of the Huron-Wendat Nation in Wendake, Quebec consists of 4,578 members. [4]

History

In the late 16th century, Wendat Confederacy was formed to defend against their common enemy, which was the Iroquois Confederacy. Wendat Confederacy consisted of four allied nations, including Attinniaoenten (Bear), Atingeennonniahak (Cords), Arendaenronnon (Rock), Atahontaenrat (Deer) and Ataronchronon (Bog). However, the last group Ataronchronon (Bog) may have been a division of the Attinniaoenten (Bear) since they may have not attained full membership. [5]

Huron-Wendat group from Wendake (Lorette) at Spencer Wood, Quebec City, 1880 Groupe Huron-Wendat Wendake 1880.jpg
Huron-Wendat group from Wendake (Lorette) at Spencer Wood, Quebec City, 1880

Due to diseases introduced by the Europeans and a lack of firearms, in 1648 to 1650, the Wendat Confederacy was defeated by the Iroquois Confederacy. After that, Huron refugees joined with the neighboring Tionontati tribe to form Wyandot, which was a corrupted form of Wendat Confederacy. [6]

August 27, 1999, Wendat Confederacy was reaffirmed by signing a document with their mothers blood: The Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma (United States), Wyandot Nation of Kansas (United States), the Wyandot of Anderdon Nation (Michigan, United States) and the Huron Wendat of Wendake (Quebec, Canada). [7]

Demographics

Before the 16th century, the Huron-Wendat's population was approximately 20,000 to 25,000 people. However, when diseases were brought by the Europeans around 1634 to 1642, particularly measles, influenza and smallpox, their population reduced significantly to about 9,000 people. [1] Today, as of April 2022, the number of registered members of the Huron-Wendat Nation in Wendake, Quebec consists of 4,578 members. [8]

In the United States, there are around 5,900 people that are identified as Wyandot or Wyandotte, currently enrolling as members of the federally recognized Wyandotte Nation that has a headquarter in Wyandotte, Oklahoma.

Language

Wendat or Huron was the spoken language of the Huron-Wendat Nation in Quebec, Canada and some parts of Oklahoma in the United States, and it was traditionally spoken by Wyandot, Wyandotte or Huron people. [9] The language was closely related to the Iroquois language.

Wyandot (or sometimes known as Wandat) is considered as a sister language to the Wendat language that was previously used in the Huron-Wendat Confederacy. Some linguists saw this as a dialect or a modern form of the Wendat language. It was reported that the language is mostly used in Oklahoma, United States.

Around the second half of the 19th century, Wendat died out because there was no living speakers. However, in the 1970s and 1980s, attempts were being made to revive the dormant language by using historical dictionaries and manuscripts from Recollet and Jesuit missionaries. [10] In 2010, the Wendat Community of Quebec and the Wyandot Nation of Oklahoma have been teaching Wendat and Wyandot (the dialect of Wendat) to their community members, respectively. [11]

Government

Village, tribe and confederacy made up the basic level of government system in the Huron-Wendat Nation. At the village level, there were several chiefs to represent different clans, and each chief had different status (e.g.: civil or war chief). Most of their status were inherited, but they could fight for that or being appointed by older women of the lineage. The chief organized a council meeting to discuss about current issues within the village, and men and women were welcomed to give opinions. The meeting for the Huron-Wendat Confederacy happened once a year. [12]

Jesuit Father Lallemant, noted of the Wendat in 1644:

"I do not believe that there is any people on earth freer than they, and less able to allow the subjection of their wills to any power whatever – so much so that Fathers here have no control over their children, or Captains over their subjects, or the Laws of the country over any of them, except in so far as each is pleased to submit to them. There is no punishment which is inflicted on the guilty, and no criminal who is not sure that his life and property are in no danger" [13]

Social organization

The Wendats were a matrilineal society in which status and property were inherited through the women's line. Property, clan membership and position could potentially be passed down. [12]

Clan system

Similar to other Iroquois nations, Wendat society used a matrilineal clan system which has clans named after certain animals. There are eight matrilineal clans: Turtle, Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Deer, Hawk, Porcupine, and Snake. In order to unify, each person in each clan, no matter their nation or village, was seen as related. Thus, people would have to marry a person outside of their clan. [14]

Economy

About 70% of the area north and west of Lake Simcoe and south and east of Georgian Bay, where the Huron-Wendat nation occupied, was agricultural land. Because of this, most Huron-Wendat were farmers, and their economy was based on horticulture by growing maize, beans and squash. The Huron (Wyandotte) lived in Ontario near the northern limit of where agriculture was feasible and had less fertile soils than many other regions to the south and west. Nevertheless, with polyculture (practiced predominantly with the Three Sisters), they produced surpluses for trading with nearby non-agricultural peoples. [15]

As the Iroquois and other Native Americans did not plow their land, a team of scholars (Mt. Pleasant and Burt) concluded that their lands retained more organic matter and thus were higher in yields of maize than early Euro-American farms in North America. [16]

Culture

Housing

Similar to other Iroquoian-speaking people, the Huron built in longhouses that had a rectangular shape with rounded roofs that were covered by bark panels. These houses were built to serve as homes for extended families. [17]

Longhouse Longhouse of huron wendat.jpg
Longhouse

Clothing

Wendat clothing was mostly made from deer and beaver hides. [18] Their clothes were very decorative by using porcupine quills, feathers, and wampum, and red was the most favourite colour in their culture. [19]

Men wore loincloths and moccasins on their feet, and in the winter, they wore sleeves and a cloak made of fur. On their backs, they wore fire pouches so that they could carry tobacco pipes, charms and personal belongings. Wendat men tended to smoke, so it was common for them to carry a pipe. Women wore the same thing as men, but instead of loincloths, they wore skirts. [19]

Media

Book

The book, Revisiting 1759, was written by author Thomas Peace and published by the University of Toronto Press in 2012. In chapter 6, Peace talks about how Huron-Wendat Nation responded to changes that happened during the conquest of Quebec from 1697 to 1791. [20]

See also

Related Research Articles

Huron may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wyandot people</span> Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands in Canada and the U.S.

The Wyandot people are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of the present-day United States and Canada. Their Wyandot language belongs to the Iroquoian language family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohawk people</span> Indigenous First Nation of North America

The Mohawk, also known by their own name, Kanien'kehà:ka, are an Indigenous people of North America and the easternmost nation of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wyandot language</span> Iroquoian language

Wyandot is the Iroquoian language traditionally spoken by the people known as Wyandot or Wyandotte, descended from the Tionontati. It is considered a sister to the Wendat language, spoken by descendants of the Huron-Wendat Confederacy. It was last spoken, before its revival, by members located primarily in Oklahoma, United States, and Quebec, Canada. Linguists have traditionally considered Wyandot as a dialect or modern form of Wendat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iroquoian languages</span> Native American language family

The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neutral Confederacy</span> Historic Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands

The Neutral Confederacy was a tribal confederation of Iroquoian peoples. Its heartland was in the floodplain of the Grand River in what is now Ontario, Canada. At its height, its wider territory extended toward the shores of lakes Erie, Huron, and Ontario, as well as the Niagara River in the east. To the northeast were the neighbouring territories of Huronia and the Petun Country, which were inhabited by other Iroquoian confederacies from which the term Neutrals Attawandaron was derived. The five-nation Iroquois Confederacy was across Lake Ontario to the southeast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sainte-Marie among the Hurons</span> Living museum in Ontario, Canada

Sainte-Marie among the Hurons was a French Jesuit settlement in Huronia or Wendake, the land of the Wendat, near modern Midland, Ontario, from 1639 to 1649. It was the first European settlement in what is now the province of Ontario. Eight missionaries from Sainte-Marie were martyred, and were canonized by the Catholic Church in 1930. Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1920. A reconstruction of the mission now operates as a living museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendake</span> Urban Indian reserve in Quebec, Canada

Wendake is the current name for two urban reserves, Wendake 7 and Wendake 7A, of the Huron-Wendat Nation in the Canadian province of Quebec. They are enclaves entirely surrounded by the La Haute-Saint-Charles borough of Quebec City, within the former city of Loretteville. One of the Seven Nations of Canada, the settlement was formerly known as Village-des-Hurons, and also as (Jeune)-Lorette.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wyandotte Nation</span> Federally recognized Native American tribe in Oklahoma

The Wyandotte Nation is a federally recognized Native American tribe headquartered in northeastern Oklahoma. They are descendants of the Wendat Confederacy and Native Americans with territory near Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. Under pressure from Haudenosaunee and other tribes, then from European settlers and the United States government, the tribe gradually moved south and west to Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, and finally Oklahoma in the United States.

John L. Steckley is a Canadian scholar specializing in Native American studies and the Indigenous languages of the Americas. Steckley has a PhD in Education from the University of Toronto. He taught at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario, from 1983 until his retirement in June 2015.

The St. Lawrence Haudenosaunee were an Iroquoian Indigenous people who existed until about the late 16th century. They concentrated along the shores of the St. Lawrence River in present-day Quebec and Ontario, Canada, and in the American states of New York and northernmost Vermont. They spoke Laurentian languages, a branch of the Iroquoian family.

CIHW-FM is a Canadian radio station, which broadcasts to the Huron-Wendat Nation. Broadcasting on 100.3 FM, CIHW is a community radio station operated by the Huron-Wendat Nation at Wendake, an enclave of First Nations land within Quebec City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petun</span> North American ethnic group

The Petun, also known as the Tobacco people or Tionontati, were an indigenous Iroquoian people of the woodlands of eastern North America. Their last known traditional homeland was south of Lake Huron's Georgian Bay, in what is today's Canadian province of Ontario.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iroquois</span> Indigenous confederacy in North America

The Iroquois, also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the endonym Haudenosaunee are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of Native Americans and First Nations peoples in northeast North America. They were known by the French during the colonial years as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy, while the English simply called them the "Five Nations". The peoples of the Iroquois included the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora people from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, from which point it was known as the "Six Nations".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mantle Site</span> Remains of an indigenous village

The "Jean-Baptiste Lainé" or Mantle Site in the town of Whitchurch–Stouffville, north-east of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is the largest and most complex ancestral Wendat-Huron village to be excavated to date in the Lower Great Lakes region. The site's southeastern access point is at the intersection of Mantle Avenue and Byers Pond Way.

The Draper Site is a precontact period Huron-Wendat ancestral village located on a tributary of West Duffins Creek in present-day Pickering, Ontario, approximately 35 kilometres northeast of Toronto. The site is found in a wooded area on existing farmland and may be reached by walking from the end of North Road.

Wyandot may refer to:

Neutral or Neutral Huron was the Iroquoian language spoken by the Neutral Nation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huronia (region)</span> Historical region between the Great Lakes of North America

Huronia is a historical region in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is positioned between lakes Simcoe, Ontario, and Huron. Similarly to the latter, it takes its name from the Wendat or Huron, an Iroquoian-speaking people, who lived there from prehistoric times until 1649 during the Beaver Wars when they were defeated and displaced by the Five Nations of the Iroquois who lived in New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iroquoian peoples</span> Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands cultural area, in eastern North America.

The Iroquoian peoples are an ethnolinguistic group of peoples from eastern North America. Their traditional territories, often referred to by scholars as Iroquoia, stretch from the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in the north, to modern-day North Carolina in the south.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Huron-Wendat". The Canadian Encyclopedia . Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  2. 1 2 "Huron-Wendats". www.quebec.ca. Archived from the original on December 6, 2022. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  3. "Revendications territoriales de la nation Huronne" Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine , La Nation des Autochtones, reprint.
  4. Branch, Government of Canada; Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada; Communications (November 14, 2008). "First Nation Profiles". Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada . Government of Canada. Retrieved May 12, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. "The Huron-Wendat in Wendake". The Story of Ste. Marie II. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  6. "Tionontati | people | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  7. "Wyandot Nation of Kansas Website". www.wyandot.org. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  8. Branch, Government of Canada; Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada; Communications (2008-11-14). "First Nation Profiles". Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada . Government of Canada. Retrieved May 12, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. "Wendat Dialects and the Development of the Huron Alliance". www.wyandot.org. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  10. "Wendat".
  11. Deer, Ka’nhehsí:io (December 21, 2019). "'It's a big dream but we need dreamers': Reawakening the dormant Wendat language".
  12. 1 2 "Lifeways - Wendat". 1704.deerfield.history.museum. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  13. Graeber, David; Wengrow, David (2021). The Dawn of Everything. Signal. p. 54. ISBN   9780241402450.
  14. "Huron Government and Law | Native American Netroots" . Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  15. Hart, John P.; Feranec, Robert S. (April 8, 2020). "Using Maize values to assess soil fertility in fifteenth and sixteenth and Iroquoian agricultural fields". PLOS ONE. 15 (4): e0230952. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0230952 . PMC   7141618 . PMID   32267852.
  16. Mt. Pleasant, Jane; Burt, Robert F. (2010). "Estimating Productivity of Traditional Iroquoian Cropping Systems from Field Experiments and Historical Literature". Journal of Ethnobiology. 30 (1): 54. doi: 10.2993/0278-0771-30.1.52 . S2CID   85696505 . Retrieved 22 March 2023.
  17. "Longhouse | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  18. "Huron Tribe: Facts, Clothes, Food and History ***". www.warpaths2peacepipes.com. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  19. 1 2 "Ontario Urania Historical Parks Sainte-Marie among the Huron's". www.saintemarieamongthehurons.on.ca. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  20. de Gruyter GmbH, Walter. "The Slow Process of Conquest: Huron-Wendat Responses to the Conquest of Quebec, 1697–1791". doi:10.3138/9781442699151-007.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)