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 HURON

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HURON

As for the ctjTnology of the word, it may be said to derive from one of two roots, either ahouinda, meaning an extent or stretch of land that lies apart, or is in some way isolated, and particularly an island; or aniicnda, a voice, command, language, idiom, promise, or the text of a discourse. That these two terms were all but identical, may be inferred from the fact that the compound word sktiouendal has the twofold signifi- cation of "one only voice" and "one only island". Skaouendat is composed of the irregular verb, at, to be standing, to be erect, and of one or other of the above mentioned nouns, thus, aouenda-at, contracted (Elem. Gramm. Hur., p. 66) aouendat. But the verb at, when it enters into composition, does so with a modified meaning, or, as Potier puts it, "At . . . cum partic- ula reiterationis significat unitatem unius rei". The first example given is Skat, with the meaning of "one only thing" (Rad. Hur., 1751, 197); and, among several other examples which follow, the word Skaouendat occurs. Dropping the first syllable, formed with the particle of reiteration, Ouendat re- mains, with the meaning "The One Language" or "The One Land Apart " or "The One Island ". But which of the two substantives was combined inouendat had probably lapsed, in the course of time, from the memory of the Hurons themselves. Plausible rea- sons, however, may be alleged which militate in fa- vour of both one and the other.

That the tribe should have styled themselves the nation speaking the one language, woidtl be quite in keeping with the fashion they had of laying stress on the similarity or dissimilarity of speech when desig- nating other nations. Thus, with them the Neutrals, a kintlred race, went by the name of Attiouandaronk, that is, a people of almost the same tongue, while other nations were known as Akouanake, or peoples of an unknown tongue. On the other hand the probability of Ouendat deriving from ahouinda, an island or a land by itself, seems equally strong. In the French-Huron dictionary, the property of Reverend Prosper Vincent Saouatannen, a member of the tribe, under the vocable He, the term atihouendo or atihouCndarack is given with the meaning "les Hurons" with the explanatory note: "quia in insula habitabant". From this one might be led to conclude that the appellation was given to them, as a nation, only after their forced migration to Gahoendoe, St. Joseph's or Christian Lsland, or after their sojourn in the He d'Orleans. Nevertheless it is certain that, long before either of these occurrences, they were wont to speak of their country, Huronia, as an island. One instance of this is to be fount! in Relation 163S (Quebec edition, p. 34; Cleveland edition, XV, 21), and a second in Relation 1648 (Q. ed., p. 74; Clev. ed., XXXIII, 237, 239). Nor is this at all singular as the term ahouenda might aptly be applied to Huronia, since it signified not only an island strictly speaking, but also an isolated tract, and Huronia was all but cut off from adjoining territory by Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching on the south and east, the Severn River and Matchedash Bay on the north, the waters of Georgian Bay on the west, and by the then marshy lands contiguous to what are now called Cranberry and Orr's Lake on the south-west. Corresponding to Ouendat, as applied to the members of the tribe and to their language, the name Ouendake denoted the region in which they dwelt. Potier, in his "Elementa", p. 2S, while ex- plaining the use of the perfect of the verb en, to be, that is to say, ehen, adds that it takes the place of the French word feu joined to the name of a person or a thing, as in English the word late, v. g. Hechon ehen, the late Eehon, which was de Br^beuf's, and later Chaumonot's, Huron name. Then, among other examples, he gives Ouendake qhen, "La d^funte Hur- onie", literally "Huronia has been", recalling singu- larly enough the well known Fuit Iliutn.

If Wendat, or the slightly modified English form

Wyandot, is the correct appellation of these Indians they were, notwithstanding, luiiversally known by the French as Hurons. This term originated in a nick- name given to a party of them who had come down to Quebec to barter. Though no hard and fast rule obtained in the tribe as to their head-dress, each adopting the mode which appealed for the nonce to his individual whim, this particular band wore their hair in stiff ridges, extending from forehead to occiput, and separated by closely shaven furrows, suggestive of bristles on a boar's head, in French hure. The French sailors viewed them with amused wonderment, and gave expression to their surprise by exclaiming, "Quelle hure!" Thereupon the name Huron was coined, and was later applied indiscriminately to all the nation. It has stood the test of time and is now in general and reputable use. Other names are to be met with which at various historical periods were used to designate the Hurons; they may be said without exception to be misnomers. Some are but the names of individual chiefs, others the names of particular clans applied erroneously to the whole tribe, as Ochasteguis, Attignaountans, etc.

3. The Huron Country. — ilany theories have been devised to solve the problem as to what part of North America was originally occupied by the great Huron- Iroquois Family; much speculation has been in- dulged in to determine, at least approximately, the date of their dismemberment, when a dominant, homogeneous race, one in blood and language, was broken up and scattered over a wide expanse; sur- mises to no end have been hazarded relative to the cause of the disruption, and especially that of the fierce antagonism which existed between the Iroquois and the Hurons at the time when Europeans first came in contact with these tribes; in spite of all which, the solution is as far off as ever. For, unfor- tunately, the thoroughly unreliable folk-lore stories and traditions of the natives have but served to per- plex more and more even discriminating minds. It would seem that the truth is to be souglit not in the dimmed recollections of the natives themselves, but in the traces they have left after them in their pre- historic peregrinations — such, for instance, as those found in the early sixties of the last century in Mon- treal, between Mansfield and Metcalfe Streets below Sherbrooke. The potsherds and tobacco pipes, un- earthed there, are unmistakably of Huron-Iroquois make, as their form and style of ornamentation attest, while the quantity of ashes, containing many other Indian relics and such objects as usually abound in kitchen-middens, mark the site as a permanent one. A discovery of this nature places within the realm of things certain the conclusion that at some period a Huron or Iroqiiois village st(5od on the spot. As for the unwritten traditions among the Red Men, a few decades are enough to distort them to such an extent that but little semblance to truth remains, and when it is possible to confront them with authenti- cated WTitten annals, they are found to be at variance with well ascertained historical events.

In 1870, Peter Dooyentate Clarke, an educated Wendat, gave to the public a small volume entitled "Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandots". "The lapse of ages", he says in the preface, "has rendered it difficvdt to trace the origin of the Wyan- dots. Nothing now remains to tell whence they came, but a tradition that lives only in the memory of a few among the remnant of this tribe. Of this I will endeavour to give a sketch as I had it from the lips of such, and from some of the tribes who have since passed away. My sketch reaches liack about three centuries and a "half. . ." From the following passage, which is to be found on page 7, a judg- ment mav be formed as to how much reliance may be placed on such traditions even when received from intelligent Indians, under most favourable cir-