“The real men”
The Anishinaabeg1Algonquian People is a native group settled in western Quebec. He lives mainly in the Great Lakes region and the St. Lawrence River valley. His origin go back thousands of years.
The Anishinaabeg are descended from the Kitchesipirinis nation and belong to the Algonquian linguistic family. Their language, called Anicinàpemowin or Omàmiwininimowin, is now extinct, although a minority still speak it. They are fluent in French and English.
The nation has nine communities in Quebec and one in Ontario. Along with the Outaouais, Odawa, Potawatomi, Nipissing and Ojibwe, they form the Anichinaabe (Anishinaabeg) group, which literally means “real men”. The term “Algonquin”, derived from the Maliseet elakómkwik meaning “These are our allies / our kin”, was given to them by the Europeans. But the original term Anishnabe means “real men”.
Before the arrival of Europeans, they lived by hunting, fishing and gathering, but also by growing the Three Sisters (corn, squash, beans), harvested maple or birch sap in spring. They used moose hide for clothing, and birch bark for basketry. In deep symbiosis with their environment, they lived in a birchbark dwelling called “wikiwàn” or in “mikiwàn wood”.
Animists, they believed in the presence of “manitòk” spirits and practiced the ceremonies of the Midewiwin; a religious society made up of spiritual advisors and healers, the Mide.
Samuel Champlain met them at Tadoussac in 1603. After 1650, they were chased by the Iroquois to the Outaouais region, then deported during colonization to Abitibi-Témiscamingue.
Contact with Europeans led to a smallpox epidemic2the “picotte” that decimated much of the population in 1670, resulting in contagious disease, famine and conflict between the French and English, not to mention bloody
battles with the Iroquois for control of the region. During the trade agreements created by colonization, competition for beaver furs led them to join forces with the Huron and Innu to fight the Iroquoian.
The fur trade gradually led them away from their traditional way of life. In 1850, logging and the creation of dams put an end to nomadism, forcing them to live on reserves.
Children were sent to boarding schools to be assimilated into the Western way of life. But even today, some families still follow their traditions and spend the winter on their hunting grounds.
Today, the nation has more than 12,600 Algonquians in nine communities. Many of them follow tradition and spend the winter on their hunting grounds. Preserving their cultural heritage, they are still fighting for recognition of their ancestral lands, as the Algonquin title to Aboriginal property, which includes Ottawa, the nation’s capital, remains unresolved after the Treaties of Swegatchy and Kahnawake (1760) and the Royal Proclamation of 1763.