Wyandotte people

The Wyandot people, or Wyandotte and Waⁿdát, are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Wyandot are Iroquoian Indigenous peoples of North America who emerged as a confederacy of tribes around the north shore of Lake Ontario with their original homeland extending to Georgian Bay of Lake Huron and Lake Simcoe in Ontario, Canada and occupying some territory around the western part of the lake.

The Wyandot, not to be mistaken for the Huron-Wendat, predominantly descend from the Tionontati tribe. The Tionontati (or Tobacco/Petun people) never belonged to the Huron (Wendat) Confederacy. However, the Wyandot(te) have connections to the Wendat-Huron through their lineage from the Attignawantan, the founding tribe of the Huron. The four Wyandot(te) Nations are descended from remnants of the Tionontati, Attignawantan and Wenrohronon (Wenro), that were "all unique independent tribes, who united in 1649-50 after being defeated by the Iroquois Confederacy."

After their defeat during prolonged warfare with the Five Nations of the Iroquois in 1649, the surviving members of the confederacy dispersed, some took residence at Quebec with the Jesuits and others were adopted by neighboring nations, such as the Tionontati or Tobacco to become the Wyandot. Later they occupied territory extending into what is now the United States, especially Michigan, northern Ohio, Kansas and finally northeastern Oklahoma due to U.S. federal removal policies.

They were related to other Iroquoian peoples in the region, such as their powerful competitors, the Five Nations of the Iroquois who occupied territory mostly on the south side of Lake Ontario but had hunting grounds along the St. Lawrence River. They were also related to the neighboring Erie, Neutral, Wenro, Susquehannock and Tionontate; all traditional enemies of the Iroquois and who at one period also engaged in warfare and trade with one another.

In Canada, the Wyandot sister nation is known as Huron-Wendat Nation. They have two First Nations reserves within Wendake, Quebec.

Wyandot peoples also lived to the west and south in western Ontario and what became the United States, particularly around Michigan. Those in the US were removed to Indian Territory in the early 19th century, areas of Kansas and Oklahoma. Today, numerous Wyandot in the US are enrolled members of the federally recognized Wyandotte Nation, which is headquartered in Wyandotte, Oklahoma.

By the 15th century, the pre-contact Wyandot occupied the large area from the north shores of most of the present-day Lake Ontario, northward up to the southeastern shores of Georgian Bay. From this homeland, they encountered the French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1615. They historically spoke the Wyandot language, a Northern Iroquoian language. They were believed to number more than 30,000 at the time of European contact in the 1610s to 1620s.

After 1634 their numbers were drastically reduced by epidemics of new infectious diseases carried by Europeans, among whom these were endemic. The weakened Wyandotte were dispersed by the war in 1649 waged by the Iroquois Confederacy of Five Nations, or ''Haudenosaunee'', then based largely south of the Great Lakes in New York and Pennsylvania. Archaeological evidence of this displacement has been uncovered at the Rock Island II Site in Wisconsin.

In the late 17th century, the Huron (Wyandot) Confederacy merged with the Iroquoian-speaking Tionontati nation (known as the ''Petun'' in French, also known as the Tobacco people for their chief commodity crop). They may originally have been a splinter colony of the Huron, to their west to form the historical Wyandot.

The Huron Range spanned the region from downriver of the source of the St. Lawrence River, along with three-quarters of the northern shore of Lake Ontario, to the territory of the related Neutral people, extending north from both ends to wrap around Georgian Bay. This became their territorial center after their 1649 defeat and dispossession.

Etymology: Wandat--plus Erie, Huron

In the early 17th century, this Iroquoian people called themselves the Wendat, an autonym which means "Dwellers of the Peninsula" or "Islanders". The Wendat historic territory was bordered on three sides by the waters of Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe. Early French explorers referred to these natives as the Huron, either from the French ' ("ruffian", "rustic"), or from ' ("boar's head"). According to tradition, French sailors thought that the bristly hairstyle of Wendat warriors resembled that of a boar. French fur traders and explorers referred to them as the "" (good Iroquois).

An alternate etymology from Russell Errett in 1885 is that the name is from the Iroquoian term ' ("Cat Nation"), a name also applied to the Erie nation. The French pronounced the name as ''Hirri-ronon'', and it gradually became known as ''Hirr-on'', and finally spelled in its present form, ''Huron''. William Martin Beauchamp concurred in 1907 that ''Huron'' was at least related to the Iroquoian root ' ("nation").

Other etymological possibilities are derived from the Algonquin words ' ("straight coast") or ' ("crooked coast"). In the late 17th century, elements of the Huron Confederacy and the Petun joined and became known as the Wyandot, a variation of Wendat.

History

Origin, and organization: before 1650

Early theories placed the Huron's origin in the St. Lawrence Valley. Some historians or anthropologists proposed the people were located near the present-day site of Montreal and former sites of the historic St. Lawrence Iroquoian peoples. Wendat is an Iroquoian language. Early 21st-century research in linguistics and archaeology confirm a historical connection between the Huron and the St. Lawrence Iroquois. But all of the Iroquoian-speaking peoples shared some aspects of their culture, including the Erie people, any or all of the later Six Nations of the Iroquois, and the Susquehannock.

In 1975 and 1978, archaeologists excavated a large 15th-century Huron village, now called the Draper Site, in Pickering, Ontario near Lake Ontario. In 2003 a larger village was discovered away in Whitchurch-Stouffville; it is known as the Mantle Site and was occupied from the late 16th to early 17th century. It has been renamed as the Jean-Baptiste Lainé Site, in honor of a decorated Wendat-Huron soldier of World War II.

Each of the sites had been surrounded by a defensive wooden palisade, as was typical of Iroquoian cultures. A total of four Wendat ancestral village sites have been excavated in Whitchurch-Stouffville. The large Mantle Site had more than 70 multi-family longhouses. Based on radiocarbon dating, it has been determined to have been occupied from 1587-1623. Its population was estimated at 1500-2000 persons.

Canadian archaeologist James F. Pendergast states:

The Wendat were not a tribe but a confederacy of four or more tribes who had mutually intelligible languages. According to tradition, this Wendat (or Huron) Confederacy was initiated by the ''Attignawantan'' ("People of the Bear") and the ''Attigneenongnahac'' ("People of the Cord"), who made their alliance in the 15th century. They were joined by the ''Arendarhonon'' ("People of the Rock") about 1590, and the ''Tahontaenrat'' ("People of the Deer") around 1610. A fifth group, the ''Ataronchronon'' ("People of the Marshes or Bog"), may not have attained full membership in the confederacy, and may have been a division of the Attignawantan.

The largest Wendat settlement and capital of the confederacy, at least during the time of Jean de Brébeuf and the Jesuits was located at Ossossane. When Gabriel Sagard was among them however, Quienonascaran was the principal village of the Attignawantan, when Samuel de Champlain and Father Joseph Le Caron were among the Hurons in 1615, a village called Carhagouha

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases