- Attignaouantan - The Bear People
- Attigneenongnahac - The Cord People
- Arendahronon - The Rock People
- Totontaenrat - The Deer People
The land they lived in became known as Huronia and
although they were considered associates of the Iroquois, they developed a
close association with the French settlers due to the Jesuit missions into
their land and conversion to Catholicism. They built long large structures
to live in and stockades around their towns.
The Huron, like the Iroquois, also grew some crops, two of
which were corn and tobacco. They also played the game of field lacrosse.
There is evidence that their arrival in the southern
Ontario area occur only a few hundred years before the arrival of Europeans
and in fact they may have been pushed out of the St Lawrence River valley by
the Algonquin's where Jacques Cartier had found Iroquois Indians in the
1500's.
During the terrible years of 1638-40 the Hurons were hit
hard by smallpox and influenza which killed up to 20,000 Hurons. Once they
were weakened so drastically the Iroquois of the US North West who had
allied with the English against the French and hence the Huron, carried out
continuous attacks through the late 1640's to the degree that only a couple
of Huron groups escaped to live on Mackinac Island and Quebec were they
settled in a village called Jeune-Lorette which was just north of Québec
city.. The rest were largely eliminated and the Huron ceased to exist as a
player in the game of power politics in the Americas. |
