Algonquin people
[1] Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe (including Oji-Cree), Mississaugas, and Nipissing, with whom they form the larger Anicinàpe (Anishinaabeg) group.
Though known by several names in the past, such as Algoumequin, the most common term "Algonquin" has been suggested to derive from the Maliseet word elakómkwik (IPA: [ɛlæˈɡomoɡwik]): "they are our relatives/allies.
"[2][3] The much larger heterogeneous group of Algonquian-speaking peoples, who, according to Brian Conwell, stretch from Virginia to the Rocky Mountains and north to Hudson Bay, was named after the tribe.
Scholars have used the oral histories, archeology, and linguistics to estimate this took place about 2000 years ago, near present-day Detroit.
Culturally, Omàmìwininì (Algonquin) and the Mississaugas (Michi Saagiig) were not part of the Ojibwe–Odawa–Potawatomi alliance known as the Council of Three Fires, though they did maintain close ties.
Omàmìwininìwak (Algonquins) maintained stronger cultural ties with the Wendat, Abenaki, Atikamekw, and Cree, along with the Innu, as related above.
Algonquin first met Europeans when Samuel de Champlain came upon a party led by the Kitcisìpirini Chief Tessouat at Tadoussac, in eastern present-day Quebec, in the summer of 1603.
Champlain did not understand that Algonquins were socially united by a strong totem/clan system rather than the European-styled political concept of nationhood.
Because of keen interest by tribes to gain control of the lower Ottawa River, the Kitcisìpiriniwak and the Wàwàckeciriniwak came under fierce opposition.
These two large groups allied together, under the leadership of Sachem (Carolus) Charles Pachirini, to maintain the Omàmiwinini identity and territory.
The Haudenosaunee and the English defeated the French and Algonquins in the 1620s, and, led by Sir David Kirke, occupied New France.
But, in 1642, they made a surprise winter raid, attacking Algonquins while most of their warriors were absent, and causing severe casualties.
On March 6, 1647 (Ash Wednesday), a large Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) war party attacked the Kitcisìpiriniwak living near Trois-Rivières and almost exterminated them.
When the French retreated from Wendat (Huron) country that year, Tessouat was reported to have had the superior of the Jesuit mission suspended by his armpits because he refused to offer him the customary presents for being allowed to travel through Algonquin territory.
Sulpician Missionaries set up a trading post at the village in 1721 and attracted a large number of Haudenosaunee converts to Christianity to the area.
The settlement of Kanesatake was formally founded as a Catholic mission, a seigneury under the supervision of the Sulpician Order for 300 Christian Mohawk, about 100 Algonquins, and approximately 250 Nipissing peoples "in their care".
Subsequently, fighting on behalf of the British Crown, Algonquins took part in the Barry St Leger campaign during the American Revolutionary War.
These Algonquins were later called "stragglers" in the Ottawa and Pontiac counties with some eventually settling in small towns such as Renfrew, Whitney, and Eganville as the 19th Century progressed.
[9] In 2000, Algonquins from Timiskaming First Nation played a significant part in the local popular opposition to the plan to convert Adams Mine into a garbage dump.
Algonquian-speaking people also practiced agriculture, particularly south of the Great Lakes, where the climate allows for a longer growing season.
[10] Archaeological sites on Morrison Island near Pembroke, within the territory of the later Kitcisìpiriniwak, reveal a 1,000-year-old culture that manufactured copper tools and weapons.
Local pottery artifacts from this period show widespread similarities that indicate the continuing use of the river for cultural exchange throughout the Canadian Shield and beyond.
On Morrison Island, at the location where 5,000-year-old copper artifacts were discovered, the Kitcisìpiriniwak levied a toll on canoe flotillas descending the river.
[11][12][13] They take an infusion of Epigaea repens leaves for kidney disorders and apply a poultice of the gum or needles of Abies balsamea to open sores, insect bites, boils and infections.
