http://www.indigenouspeople.net/algonqui.htm
https://www.indigenouspeople.net/aurora.htm
Algonquin Literature
Algonquin people are an Indigenous people of Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, a divergent dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe (including Oji-Cree), and Nipissing, with whom they form the larger Anicinàpe (Anishinaabeg). The Algonquin people call themselves Omàmiwinini (plural: Omàmiwininiwak) or the more generalised name of Anicinàpe.
Though known by several names in the past, such as Algoumequin (at the time of Samuel de Champlain),the most common term “Algonquin” has been suggested to derive from the Maliseet word elakómkwik (IPA: [ɛlæˈɡomoɡwik]): “they are our relatives/allies”. 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.
Most Algonquins live in Quebec. The nine Algonquin bands in that province and one in Ontario have a combined population of about 11,000. The Algonquin are original natives of southern Quebec and eastern Ontario in Canada. Today they live in nine communities in Quebec and one in Ontario. The Algonquin were a small tribe that also lives in northern Michigan and southern Quebec and eastern Ontario. (Popular usage reflects some confusion on the point. The term “Algonquin” is sometimes used, such as in the Catholic Encyclopedia, to refer to all Algonquian-speaking societies, although this is not correct.)
Many Algonquins still speak the Algonquin language, called generally Anicinàpemowin or specifically Omàmiwininìmowin. The language is considered one of several divergent dialects of the Anishinaabe languages. Among younger speakers, the Algonquin language has experienced strong word borrowings from the Cree language. Traditionally, the Algonquins lived in either birch bark or wooden mìkiwàms. Today Algonquins live in housings like those of the general public.
Traditionally, the Algonquins were practitioners of Midewiwin (the right path). They believed they were surrounded by many manitòk or spirits in the natural world. French missionaries converted many Algonquins to Catholicism in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, many of the people practice traditional Midewiwin or a syncretic merging of Christianity and Midewiwin.
In the earliest oral history, the Algonquins say they migrated from the Atlantic coast. Together with other Anicinàpek, they arrived at the “First Stopping Place” near Montreal. While the other Anicinàpe peoples continued their journey up the St. Lawrence River, the Algonquins settled along the Kitcisìpi (Ottawa River), a long-important highway for commerce, cultural exchange and transportation. Algonquin identity, though, was not fully realized until after the dividing of the Anicinàpek at the “Third Stopping Place”. Scholars have used the oral histories, archeology, and linguistics to estimate this took place about 2000 years ago, near present-day Detroit.
After contact with the Europeans, especially the French and Dutch, the Algonquin nations became active in the fur trade. This led them to fight against the powerful Iroquois, whose confederacy was based in present-day New York. In 1570, the Algonquins formed an alliance with the Montagnais to the east, whose territory extended to the ocean.
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. Historically, the peoples were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.
Before Europeans came into contact, most Algonquian settlements lived by hunting and fishing, although quite a few supplemented their diet by cultivating corn, beans and squash (the “Three Sisters”). The Ojibwe cultivated wild rice.
Stories
Honeyed Words Can’t Sweeten Evil
Creator Reminder
An Algonquin myth tells of when Nanahbozho, creator of the Earth, had finished his task of the creation, he traveled to the north, where he remained. He built large fires, of which the northern lights are the reflections, to remind his people that he still thinks of them.
Honeyed Words Can’t Sweeten Evil
Big Blue Heron was standing in the marsh looking at his reflection in the water. He raised his black-crested head to listen.
Two little White Weasels had come along to the river. They were mother and son. When they saw Blue Heron, they stopped to look.
‘What a beautiful big bird-person!’ said the son.
‘He is called Blue Heron. He carries his head high!’
‘Yes, Mother, he is tall as a tree. Were I so tall, I could carry you across this swift river.’
Blue Heron was pleased to hear himself so praised. He liked to hear other say that he was big.
He bent down low and spoke to the two. ‘I will help you go across. Come down to where you see that old tree lying in the stream. I will lie down in the water at the end and put my bill deep into the bank on the other side. You two run across the tree. Then use my body as a bridge and you will get to the other side.’
They all went to the old tree lying in the water. Blue Heron lay down in the water at the end and stuck his bill deep into the bank on the other side. Mother and son White Weasel ran lightly and quickly across the log, over Blue Heron, and were safe and dry on the other side. They thanked Blue Heron and said they would tell all the persons in the woods how fine Blue Heron was. Then they went on their way.
Old Wolf had been standing on the riverbank watching how the weasels had gotten across.
‘What a fine way it would be for me to cross the river. I am old and my bones ache.’
When Blue Heron came back to the marsh, Wolf said to him, ‘Now I know why you Blue Herons are in the marsh – so you can be a bridge for persons to cross the rive. I want to go across, but I am old and my bones hurt. Lie down in the water for me so I can cross.’
Blue Heron was angry. He didn’t like being called a bridge. Old Wolf saw he had spoken foolish words and decided to use honeyed words.
‘You are big and strong, Blue Heron, and that is why you body is such a fine bridge. You could carry me across like a feather.’
Blue Heron smiled at Wolf and said, ‘Old Wolf, get on my back and I’ll carry you across.
Wolf grinned from ear to ear thinking how easily he had tricked Blue Heron.
He jumped on the bird’s back and Heron went into the rushing river. When he got to the middle, he stopped.
‘Friend Wolf,’ said Blue Heron, ‘you made a mistake. I am not strong enough to carry you across. For that you need two herons. I can carry you only halfway. Now you must get another heron to carry you the rest of the way.’
He gave his body a strong twist and Wolf fell into the water.
‘You wait here, Wolf, for another heron to come and carry you to the other side.’ Then he flew into the marsh.
The water ran swiftly. No heron came, so where did Wolf go ? To the bottom of the river…
Since that day, no wolf has ever trusted a heron.
The Weskarini Alonquin First Nation, also known as Wàwàckeciriniwak (“people of the deer[-clan]”), the Algonquian Proper, La Petite Nation, Little Nation, Ouaouechkairini, Ouassouarini, Ouescharini, Ouionontateronon (Wyandot language), or Petite Nation, are a group of indigenous peoples in Canada. They have been confused with the Petun in some writings, but are in fact a separate group. Their traditional homeland is located on the north side of the Ottawa River along the Lievre River and the Rouge River in Quebec. They also lived near Petite-Nation River which is so named in reference to the Weskarini.
List of historic Algonquian-speaking peoples
- Algonquin
- Abenaki
- Arapaho
- Beothuk
- Blackfoot
- Cheyenne
- Chowanoke
- Cree
- Gros Ventre
- Illinois
- Kickapoo
- Lenape
- Munsee
- Unami
- Wappinger
- Meskwaki
- Menominee
- Mahican
- Maliseet
- Mascouten
- Massachusett
- Mattabesic
- Miami
- Mi’kmaq
- Montaukett
- Mohegan
- Nanticoke
- Narragansett
- Nipissing
- Nipmuc
- Odawa
- Ojibwe
- Passamaquoddy
- Penobscot
- Pequot
- Piscataway
- Potawatomi
- Powhatan
- Roanoke people
- Sauk
- Shawnee
- Secotan
- Wampanoag
- Weapemeoc
Algonquin Legends of New England
Algonquin Legends and Customs
Based on the Manuscript of
Juliette Gauthier de la Verendrye
Language Groups
Algic Languages
Algonquin Family Tree
Algonquian Indians
Algonquin Nations
Algonquin Tribe and Nation
Legends and Folklore of the Northern Lights
The ends of the land and sea are bounded by an immense abyss,
over which a narrow and dangerous pathway leads to the
heavenly regions. The sky is a great dome of hard material
arched over the Earth. There is a hole in it through which the
spirits pass to the true heavens. Only the spirits of those who
have died a voluntary or violent death, and the Raven, have been
over this pathway. The spirits who live there light torches to
guide the feet of new arrivals. This is the light of the aurora.
They can be seen there feasting and playing football with a
walrus skull.
The whistling crackling noise which sometimes accompanies the
aurora is the voices of these spirits trying to communicate
with the people of the Earth. They should always be answered
in a whispering voice. Youths dance to the aurora. The
heavenly spirits are called selamiut, “sky-dwellers,” those who
live in the sky.
The aurora borealis has intrigued people from ancient times, and still does today. The Eskimos and Indians of North America have many stories to explain these northern lights.
One story is reported by the explorer Ernest W. Hawkes in his book, The Labrador Eskimo:
The Point Barrow Eskimos were the only Eskimo group who considered the aurora an evil thing. In the past they carried knives to keep it away from them.Evil Thing
Omen of War
The Fox Indians, who lived in Wisconsin, regarded the light as an omen of war and pestilence. To them the lights were the ghosts of their slain enemies who, restless for revenge, tried to rise up again.
Dancing Spirits
The Salteaus Indians of eastern Canada and the Kwakiutl and Tlingit of Southeastern Alaska interpreted the northern lights as the dancing of human spirits. The Eskimos who lived on the lower Yukon River believed that the aurora was the dance of animal spirits, especially those of deer, seals, salmon and beluga.
Game of Ball
Most Eskimo groups have a myth of the northern lights as the spirits of the dead playing ball with a walrus head or skull. The Eskimos of Nunivak Island had the opposite idea, of walrus spirits playing with a human skull.
Spirits of Children
The east Greenland Eskimos thought that the northern lights were the spirits of children who died at birth. The dancing of the children round and round caused the continually moving streamers and draperies of the aurora.
Fires in the North
The Makah Indians of Washington State thought the lights were fires in the Far North, over which a tribe of dwarfs, half the length of a canoe paddle and so strong they caught whales with their hands, boiled blubber.
Stew Pots
The Mandan of North Dakota explained the northern lights as fires over which the great medicine men and warriors of northern nations simmered their dead enemies in enormous pots. The Menominee Indians of Wisconsin regarded the lights as torches used by great, friendly giants in the north, to spear fish at night.
Folklore is from Legends of the Northern Lights, by Dorothy Jean Ray, The ALASKA SPORTSMAN, April 1958, reprinted in AURORA BOREALIS The Amazing Northern Lights, by S.I. Akasofu, Alaska Geographic, Volume 6, Number 2, 1979
All of the Aurora images on this page are copyrighted (2003 Jan Curtis) and are intended for non-commercial, educational uses. Larger versions of these photos and many others can be viewed from Jan Curtis homepage, Home of the Northern Lights.
Introducing the Aurora
– Earth’s Great Light Show –
from NASA
Indigenous Peoples Literature 