Second Landing
Huron-Wendat
Reconstruction of Huron-Wendat longhouses. COURTESY RON WILLIAMSON.
SECOND LANDING
Huron-Wendat
What You’ll Learn in this Section
The Huron-Wendat were the northernmost Iroquoian language speakers, who in the seventeenth century inhabited the area between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, known historically as Wendake. Faced with declining populations due to epidemic diseases and warfare, losing nearly 60 percent of their citizens, the Huron-Wendat in the mid-seventeenth century could no longer defend themselves in their homelands. They needed political, economic, and military support so they turned to their French allies and the Anishinaabek for help. They relocated to new settlements seeking shelter and protection. As a result, there is a strong vibrant Huron-Wendat community today in Québec.
The Huron-Wendat were forced to move constantly due to diminishing soil fertility, dwindling supplies of firewood, as well as managing considerable quantities of organic refuse. Such moves involved the clearing of new forests, preparing agricultural fields, felling of thousands of saplings and cutting of hundreds of sheets of elm and cedar bark to construct dozens of houses and palisades.
The houses of the Huron-Wendat were an ingenious design partly due to the varying length. Their longhouses varied with the size of the family, each housing a mother and her daughters, or a group of sisters, along with their husbands and children. Families shared each of the hearths that were situated along the central corridor of the structure walls, with holes in the roof that allowed smoke from the hearth fires to escape.
The “Three Sisters” are crops of corn, beans, and squash. The Huron-Wendat grew these three crops along with others such as sunflower and tobacco. The Three Sisters were grown together in small mounds as complementary crops, using a companion or intercropping strategy. It’s ingenious because of the way the three plants provide a microclimate and structural and nutritional support for each other. Planting these together starting long ago reveals the deep knowledge of the environment held by Indigenous people.
Farmers to the South
The Huron, or Wendat, were the northernmost Iroquoian language speakers who, in the seventeenth century, inhabited the area between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay known historically as Wendake. Their confederacy consisted of four allied nations: the Attignawantan (Bear), Attigneenongnahac (Cord), Arendarhonon (Rock), and Tahontaenrat (Deer). Another population, known as the Ataronchronon (Bog), appear to have been a division of the Attignawantan. Their name for themselves, Wendat, has been interpreted as meaning “islanders” or “dwellers on a peninsula.” Today, the current Huron-Wendat Nation within Canada is situated north of Québec City, and is also known as Wendake. In the United States, there are people of Wendat and mixed descent in Anderton, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
Reconstruction of Huron-Wendat longhouses. COURTESY RON WILLIAMSON.
Territories of the Huron-Wendat Nation
LEFT: Map showing the locations of Wendat nations and villages in the early seventeenth century. The Huron-Wendat endonyms for their various nations include Hatindiawanten (Attignawantan – Bear), Hatingënnoniahahk (Attigneenougnahac – Cord), Yärendahrönon (Arendarhonon – Rock), and Tahonhtayenrat (Tahontaenrat – Deer). COURTESY RON WILLIAMSON. RIGHT: Present territory of the Huron-Wendat Nation. © HURON-WENDAT NATION. COURTESY HURON-WENDAT NATION AND OFFICE OF NIONWENTÏO.
While over 20,000 Huron-Wendat people lived in villages throughout old Wendake, they hunted and fished farther afield in both the Trent Valley to the east and throughout Muskoka. Their route to trade with Europeans in the St. Lawrence Valley via the French River and Lake Nipissing took them along the coast of Georgian Bay. They interacted and traded with Anishinaabek groups in Muskoka and further north.
Faced with declining populations due to epidemic diseases and warfare with the Haudenosaunee, losing nearly sixty percent of their citizens, the Huron-Wendat in the mid-seventeenth century were faced with a dilemma. They could no longer defend themselves in their homelands. They needed political, economic, and military support so they turned to their French allies and the Anishinaabek for help. They relocated to new settlements seeking shelter and protection. As a result, there is a strong vibrant Wendat community today in Québec.
Illustration of a Huron-Wendat Village, by Ivan Kocsis. COURTESY RON WILLIAMSON.
Planning the Community (and the Next One)
The Wendat inhabited large, sometimes fortified villages situated near a source of fresh water. Because of constantly diminishing soil fertility, dwindling supplies of firewood, as well as managing considerable quantities of organic refuse, these villages were only occupied for a decade or so. Planning for their next communities thus began years before abandoning the ones in which they lived. Such moves involved the clearing of new forests, preparing agricultural fields, felling of tens of thousand of saplings, and cutting of hundreds of sheets of elm and cedar bark to construct dozens of houses and a palisade. All the while, the current community had to be maintained.
The length of the longhouses in which the Wendat lived varied with the size of the family, each housing a mother and her daughters, or a group of sisters, along with their husbands and children. Two families shared each of the hearths that were situated along the central corridor of the structure walls, with holes in the roof that allowed smoke from the hearth fires to escape.
Navigating Ancestral Landscapes
While the Huron-Wendat are not known to have created stone pictographs or petroglyphs, distinctive rocks in the landscape link directly with their cosmology. Every individual has two souls, one of whom makes the journey to the sky world. That passage was through a mixture of identifiable landscape features and mythological figures. The journey was dangerous. It involved passing by a 16-metre-tall standing rock (Ekarenniondi), located near present-day Collingwood, Ontario where a spirit named Pierce-head would draw the brains out of the heads of the dead to differentiate the living and the dead within a shared landscape.
Ekarenniondi (Standing rock). PHOTO ©2022 MARKZELINSKI.COM FROM THE BOOK NIAGARA ESCARPMENT: LAND BETWEEN WATERS.
LISTEN TO OUR STORIES
Ron Williamson, Archaeologist, on the history of the Wendat people in Ontario. (Length: 1:35)
The Necessities of Life
The Wendat grew corn, beans, and squash (the “Three Sisters”) as well as sunflower and tobacco. They also harvested wild plant foods, fished, and hunted. In the seventeenth century, over fifty percent of an individual’s diet, was corn, measured from the chemical signature the plant left in Huron-Wendat teeth. Large communities were surrounded by hundreds of acres of cornfields. The Three Sisters were grown together in small mounds. The Wendat were the first true farmers of the north and have been nominated recently for a national planning award for achieving an outstanding system of agricultural fields along the north shore of Lake Ontario and in historic Wendake.
The Huron-Wendat were described by the early Europeans as “the granary of the north” meaning that the Wendat always grew enough corn to feed themselves, to provide in case of crop failure due to drought, but also to trade with Anishinaabek peoples to the north for hides. Some people from the northern Anishinaabek nations wintered in Huron-Wendat villages.
LISTEN TO OUR STORIES
Louis Lesage, Huron-Wendat Nation, describes the community of Wendake and its values. (Length: 1:40)
Make a Match!
Companion plants are fruits and vegetables that help each other grow when planted side-by-side. The Huron-Wendat use companion planting with the Three Sisters to grow crops more efficiently. Match these plants correctly to learn which crops can be planted together to help your at-home garden thrive!
ICONIC OBJECTS GALLERY
Explore objects that reflect Misko-Aki’s ancient Indigenous history.
Objects Gallery
Ceramic vessel, c. 1450–1500 C.E. (Huron-Wendat). The designs on this ceramic vessel place it firmly in the second half of the fifteenth century for sites in Huronia. The projection on the rim of the pot is called a castellation. Archaeologists are unsure of their function although it is a beautiful design element. Ceramic. On loan from the Huronia Museum. L023.9
Ceramic vessel, c. 1425 C.E. (Huron-Wendat). This vessel has a complex design characteristic of the Lower Ottawa Valley and northern New York. It is evidence of a Huron-Wendat potter living in a village on the north shore of Lake Ontario and decorating pots in the style of her ancestors. Ceramic. On loan from Huron-Wendat Nation. L023.11
Wyandot style cooking pot. Richard Zane Smith, (Sǫhahiyo – Bear Clan, Wyandot Nation of Kansas). Ceramic. 022.11
Wyandot style contemporary art pot, 2022. Richard Zane Smith, (Sǫhahiyo – Bear Clan, Wyandot Nation of Kansas). Ceramic. 022.11
Complete pipe, c. 1450 C.E. (Huron-Wendat). Ceramic smoking pipes with anthropomorphic effigies facing away from the smoker are rare. It is a type common on Saint Lawrence Iroquoian sites. As many as 30% of the Arendarhonon Nation and 5% of the Tahontaenrat Nation may have descended from Saint Lawrence Iroquoian people. Ceramic. On loan from Huron-Wendat Nation. L023.11
Awl, c. 1450 C.E. (Huron-Wendat). Painted lines on bone awls, which are used to pierce hides, are very rare. The paint is an animal grease mixed with a ground black mineral. A cluster of ancestral Wendat sites on the north shore of Lake Ontario had numerous painted awls and deer phalange toggles. Bone. On loan from Huron-Wendat Nation. L023.11
Projectile point, c. 1525 C.E. (Huron-Wendat). Huron-Wendat projectile points were usually made of stone, but bone was also used. In the historic period, the use of metal became common. This bone point is notched and is decorated with three serrations on one lateral edge. Bone. On loan from John Morrison Collection, Huron-Wendat Nation. L023.13
Pendant or bracelet fragment, c. 1450 C.E. (Huron-Wendat). This beautiful pendant or bracelet/armband fragment is decorated with parallel ladder and serpent imagery. Perhaps the ladder leads to the underworld where the serpent resides suggesting this object had significant power reflecting Huron-Wendat worldview. Turtle shell. On loan from Huron-Wendat Nation. L023.11
Toggle, c. 1450 C.E. (Huron-Wendat). This is a beautiful, polished, and decorated deer phalange used as a toggle to tie a hide cloak. It is ground flat on the opposite side to the decoration, a trait found on similar items on Saint Lawrence Iroquoian sites in the Lower Ottawa Valley. Bone. On loan from Huron-Wendat Nation. L023.11
Figurine, c. 1630 C.E. (Huron-Wendat). This is a bone figurine of a type found on historic period Huron-Wendat sites. It is not known what they represent. Bone. On loan from Ron Williamson, Frank Ridley Collection. L023.12
Pipe effigy, c. 1750 C.E. (Huron-Wendat). This is a snake effigy that had been broken off a ceramic smoking pipe. Every adult Wendat male likely possessed both a pipe and a tobacco pouch as pipe-smoking was a prominent feature of daily life and diplomacy and occurred in both ritual and non-ritual settings. Ceramic. On loan from John Morrison Collection, Huron-Wendat Nation. L023.13
Pipe effigy, c. 1550 C.E. (Huron-Wendat). This is a heavily polished anthropomorphic effigy that had been broken off the bowl of a ceramic pipe. It is of a rare two-faced type called Janus pipes. Note the different facial expressions. Ceramic. On loan from John Morrison Collection, Huron-Wendat Nation. L023.13
Huron-Wendat style moccasins, 2022. Manon Sioui (Huron-Wendat Nation). Moose hair, quills, and beadwork. 022.8 Manon Sioui is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist from Wendake, who has been evolving in the artistic field since the late 1980s. She draws all the inspiration for her creations from the culture of her ancestors. Manon loves to share her passion by giving workshops and demonstrations on corn husk doll making, corn husk weaving, and wampum belt making.
Bury the Hatchet Wampum Belt (replica), 2022. Brian Charles (Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation). Wampum belts are also called truth belts by the Huron-Wendat Nation. According to Huron-Wendat oral tradition, this belt may have originally been made to mark the conclusion of a peace treaty at the time of the Conquest of Canada by the British in 1760. 022.3
LISTEN TO OUR STORIES
Richard Zane Smith demonstrates methods used to make a traditional Wendat clay pot. (Length: 14:41)
7 GRANDFATHER TEACHINGS
BRAVERY (THE WARRIOR)
The Huron-Wendat communities in the early seventeenth century faced extraordinary pressures from European disease, Jesuit disruptions, and an ongoing war with the Haudenosaunee. After attempting to attack the Mohawks in 1609, bolstered by a new alliance with French and Algonquin allies, the Huron-Wendat suffered a retaliation that was so fierce, they were forced to abandon their homelands and resettle. The courage, intelligence, and fortitude of their leaders and people allowed the Huron-Wendat to survive the onslaught. Despite becoming more scattered and much reduced in population, the bravery shown by the Huron-Wendat is much to be admired
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