The Huron

The Huron, also known as the Wyandot, are a tribe of Native Americans who originally inhabited an area of central Ontario. The Huron were the bitter enemies of the Iroquois, and – after being driven from their lands in 1650 – split into two factions. The first group travelled to Quebec, while the other, larger band moved into the Ohio Valley region. During the 1840’s these people were moved on to Kansas. Many of these people still live in the Kansas area.

Prior to the arrival of the white man the Huron may have numbered as many as 40,000 people. When the French arrived in the early 1600s, there was a confederacy of four main Huron bands, comprised of about twenty villages. Each Huron village was relatively autonomous, The people lived in sometimes cramped and always well fortified settlements of up to 1,000 members. As with most of their neighboring native tribes, the Huron were to lose vast numbers to the guns and the diseases of the Europeans. By 1640, they were down to just 10,000 people. Some Huron were to amalgamate with other tribes, leaving only a few thousand to move to Kansas. Today those Huron living in the United States are known as Wyandot and are to be found primarily in Kansas and Oklahoma. Like most of the other Eastern woodland tribes the Huron were farmers during the Summer and hunters during the winter. Corn, squash, beans and tobacco were all cultivated. Hunting in the winter period was mainly of bison, deer, bear and small game.

The Huron Confederacy was the first great eastern Indian confederacy. Around 1560 they were joined by the Arendahronin and the Tahonaenrat. The council members met regularly to work out disputes among the member tribes. Huron society was divided along Clan lines, in accordance with the descent from the mother. The original clan names are not known today, but the Clan names Bear, Cord and Rock have survived. Government of the Huron was by way of a governing council, chosen by the clan mothers.

The Huron first encountered French traders in 1535. These Europeans found a proud and powerful people who generally had good relations with their neighboring tribes. Their life long enemies, the Iroquois were, however, the exception. Around 1609 the Huron entered into an alliance with the French against the Iroquois. Following this victory, the Huron signed a trade agreement with the French. They soon became the preferred trading partners of the French because of the superior quality of their furs. The Huron soon became the intermediaries between the French and the other trading tribes. When their own beaver supplies became exhausted, the Huron traded with tribes further west for furs.

The Huron were a spiritual people who believed in a supreme deity. A religious ceremony that was unique to these people was the ‘Feast of the Dead.’ This occurred once every decade. At the time the body’s of all people who had died over the last ten years were dug up and reburied in a communal burial plot. The Huron believed that this ceremony was necessary to allow the souls of the departed to enter into the spirit realm.