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St. Lawrence Iroquoians
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The St. Lawrence Iroquoians lived, until the late 16th century, along the shores of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec and Ontario, Canada, and in New York State, United States. What little is known of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians is found in the writings of the French explorer Jacques Cartier, in archeological and linguistic studies of the late 20th century, and in the studies of the surviving oral accounts of the historical past from the current Native people.
Historical issues
Up until recently, historians debated whether the Iroquoian cultural group that lived in the St.
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Encyclopedia
The St. Lawrence Iroquoians lived, until the late 16th century, along the shores of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec and Ontario, Canada, and in New York State, United States. What little is known of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians is found in the writings of the French explorer Jacques Cartier, in archeological and linguistic studies of the late 20th century, and in the studies of the surviving oral accounts of the historical past from the current Native people.
Historical issues
Up until recently, historians debated whether the Iroquoian cultural group that lived in the St. Lawrence valley with whom Jacques Cartier and his crew interacted in the sixteenth century were the ancestors of the other Iroquoian groups in the region; the seventeenth-century Hurons or Iroquois, whom the French later met. Later linguistic and archeological studies provided evidence for a newer hypothesis : the St. Lawrence Iroquoians were a distinct people from these Hurons or Iroquois, with whom they nevertheless shared many cultural, historical, and linguistic aspects. As we will see below, the St. Lawrence Iroquoians seem to have simply vacated the St. Lawrence valley sometime prior to 1580. This hypothesis of a distinct group of Iroquoian people residing in the St. Lawrence valley is sometimes not yet reported in the historical textbooks and encyclopediae, and can lead to serious historical errors. The word canada offers a good example of this.
By "canada", The St. Lawrence Iroquoians meant "village" in language spoken by the inhabitants of Stadacona. Jacques Cartier wrote that ilz (sic) appellent une ville 'canada (they call a village 'canada'). Jacques Cartier also used the word to describe both the region near Stadacona and the St. Lawrence River that flows nearby.
Yet, both the Canadian Encyclopedia of 1985 and various publications of the Government of Canada, such as "" published by the Department of Canadian Heritage, suggest that the word "Canada" stems instead from a "Huron-Iroquois" word, "kanata", meaning village or settlement. Although this would appear at first to be an astounding historical error, since neither the Hurons nor the Iroquois lived in the St. Lawrence valley in the 16th century, it should be remembered that this statement reflects theories first advanced in the 18th and 19th centuries that were later discredited by archeological evidence and linguistic comparative studies of the late 20th century. Several prominent authors, notably W. Kaye Lamb, the "former Dominion Archivist" who authored the article on in the Canadian Encyclopedia of 1985, were apparently unaware of the many archeological and linguistic studies published since 1950. This "Huron-Iroquois" theory was later integrated into the article on in the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1996.
The mystery around the "annedda" is another good example. When scurvy hit the crew of Cartier, during the first winter they experienced in Canada, the St-Lawrence Iroquoians provided them with a remedy, an herbal infusion made of the "annedda", purportedly the St. Lawrence Iroquoian name of the white cedar of the region. Cartier noted the word in his journal. Later, when Champlain asked for the same remedy, the natives he met could not help him, and did not know what "annedda" referred to. This fact confused many historians, but is easily understood with the newer hypothesis: the Iroquoian cultural group that Cartier met, although linguistically related, did not speak the same language as the Natives Champlain met, and "annedda" was not a meaningful word for the later Natives.
Emigration into the St. Lawrence valley
Near 1000 C.E., with the introduction the maize culture in the North East region, many Iroquoian communities begin to switch from a nomadic life to more permanent establishments in the regions of the Great Lakes. The richness of the soil in the St. Lawrence valley, along with the abundance of the fisheries nearby and of the forests rich of game animals, provided a good place for the north eastern Iroquoian settlements. By approximately 1300, the settlement pattern began to resemble the large fortified villages for which the St. Lawrence Iroquoians would be noticed in the historical record.
The visit of Jacques Cartier
The explorer Jacques Cartier observed in 1535 and 1536 several Iroquoian villages north of Île d'Orléans, including the village of Stadacona on the site of modern-day Quebec City, as well as the village of Hochelaga in the vicinity of modern-day Montreal. Archeologists have unearthed other similar villages further West, near the eastern end of Lake Ontario. St. Lawrence Iroquoians lived in villages which were usually located a few kilometres inland from the Saint-Lawrence River and were often enclosed by a wooden palisade. Up to 2000 persons lived in the larger villages. Although Jacques Cartier made mention of longhouses in Hochelaga, he left no description of Stadacona or the other villages nearby.
The demise of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians
By the time of the arrival of Samuel de Champlain and the founding of Quebec in 1608, however, there was no longer any trace of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians who were visited by Jacques Cartier some 75 years earlier. Their complete disappearance has spawned several theories, including devastating wars with the Iroquois tribes to the south or with the Hurons to the West, the impact of Old World diseases or their migration westward toward the shores of the Great Lakes.
Archeological evidence points most strongly to devastating wars with the neighbouring Iroquois and Huron tribes in an attempt to control the trade routes with Europeans. In the mid to late 16th century, the St. Lawrence Valley had probably become a very dangerous area and the St. Lawrence Iroquoians seemingly paid the price. It would also appear that some of the St. Lawrence Iroquoian survivors were probably taken in by the neighbouring Huron, Mohawk and Algonquin tribes, by force or by mutual agreement.
At the time of Samuel de Champlain's arrival, both Algonquins and Mohawks hunted in the Saint-Lawrence Valley and conducted raids, but neither had any permanent settlements. The exact location of Hochelaga remains unknown.
Language
Linguistic studies indicate that the St. Lawrence Iroquoians probably spoke several distinct dialects of their language, often referred to as Laurentian, one of several languages of the Iroquoian language family that includes Mohawk, Huron-Wyandot and Cherokee. Since only sparse records were made by Jacques Cartier during his voyage in 1535-1536, including two vocabulary lists totaling only about 200 words, the St. Lawrence Iroquoians may have spoken two or more distinct languages in an area stretching over 600 km, from Lake Ontario to East of Île d'Orléans.
Further reading
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