[6] They are related to other Iroquoian peoples in the region, such as their powerful competitors, the Five Nations of the Iroquois who occupied territory mostly on the south side of Lake Ontario but also had hunting grounds along the St. Lawrence River.

[citation needed] In the early 17th century, this Iroquoian people called themselves the Wendat, an autonym which means "Dwellers of the Peninsula" or "Islanders".

In 2003 a larger village was discovered five kilometres (3.1 mi) away in Whitchurch-Stouffville; it is known as the Mantle Site and was occupied from the late 16th to early 17th century.

[21] Closely related to the people of the Huron Confederacay were the Tionontate,[22] an Iroquoian-speaking group whom the French called the Petun (Tobacco), for their cultivation of that crop.

News of the Europeans reached the Huron, particularly when Samuel de Champlain explored the Saint Lawrence River in the early 17th century.

Their only covering is a beaver skin, which they wear upon their shoulders in the form of a mantle; shoes and leggings in winter, a tobacco pouch behind the back, a pipe in the hand; around their necks and arms bead necklaces and bracelets of porcelain; they also suspend these from their ears, and around their locks of hair.

Epidemiological studies have shown that beginning in 1634, more European children emigrated with their families to the New World from cities in France, Britain, and the Netherlands, which had endemic smallpox.

Therefore, they were unprepared, on March 16, 1649, when a Haudenosaunee war party of about 1,000 entered Wendake and burned the Huron mission villages of St. Ignace and St. Louis in present-day Simcoe County, Ontario, killing about 300 people.

The weakened Wendat were dispersed by the war in 1649 waged by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, then based largely south of the Great Lakes in New York and Pennsylvania.

Some Huron, along with the surviving Petun, whose villages the Iroquois attacked in the fall of 1649, fled to the upper Lake Michigan region, settling first at Green Bay, then at Michilimackinac.

In the late 17th century, the Huron (Wendat) Confederacy merged with the Iroquoian-speaking Tionontati nation (known as the Petun in French, also known as the Tobacco people for their chief commodity crop).

The Huron Range spanned the region from downriver of the source of the St. Lawrence River, along with three-quarters of the northern shore of Lake Ontario, to the territory of the related Neutral people, extending north from both ends to wrap around Georgian Bay.

On September 5, 1760, just prior to the capitulation of Montreal to British forces, Brigadier-General James Murray signed a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship" with a Wendat chief then residing in the settlement of Lorette.

[37] The text of the treaty reads as follows: THESE are to certify that the CHIEF of the HURON tribe of Indians, having come to me in the name of His Nation, to submit to His BRITANNICK MAJESTY, and make Peace, has been received under my Protection, with his whole Tribe; and henceforth no English Officer or party is to molest, or interrupt them in returning to their Settlement at LORETTE; and they are received upon the same terms with the Canadians, being allowed the free Exercise of their Religion, their Customs, and Liberty of trading with the English: – recommending it to the Officers commanding the Posts, to treat them kindly.

Accordingly, the exercise of Wendat religion, customs, and trade benefit from continuing Canadian constitutional protection throughout the territory frequented by the tribe during the period the treaty was concluded.

)[17] The western Wyandot re-formed in the area of southern Michigan but migrated to Ohio after their alliance with the "Flathead" Catawba got them in trouble with their former ally the Odawa.

Also in late 1782, the Wyandot joined forces with Shawnee, Seneca, and Lenape in an unsuccessful siege of Fort Henry on the Ohio River.

[41] In 1807, the Wyandot joined three other tribes – the Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe people – in signing the Treaty of Detroit, which resulted in a major land cession to the United States.

[44] In the 1840s, most of the surviving Wyandot people were displaced to Kansas Indigenous territory through the US federal policy of forced Indian removal.

In June 1853, Big Turtle, a Wyandot chief, wrote to the Ohio State Journal regarding the current condition of his tribe.

The mission has since been reconstructed as Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, a living museum to interpret Wyandot and Jesuit history; it is adjacent to the Martyrs' Shrine.

The US federal government set up the Indian Claims Court in the 1940s to address grievances filed by various Native American tribes.

On August 27, 1999, representatives of the far-flung Wyandot bands from Quebec, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Michigan gathered at their historic homeland in Midland, Ontario.

[17] The women historically cultivated several varieties of maize, squash, and beans (the "Three Sisters") as the mainstay of their diet, saving seeds of various types, and working to produce the best crops for different purposes.

They have also collected nuts, fruit, and wild root vegetables, with their preparation of this produce supplemented primarily by fish caught by the men.

[58] Women have traditionally done most of the crop planting, cultivation, and processing, although men help with the heaviest work of clearing fields or, historically, fortifying villages with wooden palisades.

[63] Like other Iroquoian peoples, the Wyandot have traditionally followed a matrilineal kinship system, with children considered born to the mother's lineage, their status inherited from hers.

The Hurons believed that those who were dying had a special connection to the world of the supernatural and took their dreams and visions very seriously, considering them especially trustworthy sources of information.

Several accounts of seventeenth-century Christianized Hurons on their deathbed include visions of Heaven and Jesus Christ, which influenced believers' lives on earth.

[66] According to Wyandot mythology, Iosheka created the first man and woman and taught them many skills, including all their religious ceremonies and rituals, the ability to fight evil spirits, healing, and the use of the sacrament of tobacco.