The Abénaquis are Amerindian people of New England belonging to the Peuples algonquiens. There are two major tribes of Abénaquis: Abénaqui of the west and Abénaqui of the east.

The name of Abénaqui comes from the terms wabun (the light) and a' Ki (ground), one can thus indicate them like " populate matin" , " populate sun levant" or " populate of Est." As the original name of their territory corresponds to what is the New England today, the term of Abénaqui is sometimes used to designate all the people in the area speaking about the Langues algonquiennes: two tribes of Abénaquis, the Intrigues, the Malécites and the Passamaquoddy.

History

Several alternatives of the name Abénaquis exist: Wabanaki, Abenaquiois, Abakivis, Quabenakionek, Wabenakies, etc

They are described in the Journaux Jesuits as a " not cannibales" and flexible, clever, not profane, and moderate when it is about consumption of alcohol.

They were traditional allies of the French against the British. One among them, Assacumbuit, was annobli under Louis XIV. From 1670 to 1760, they were regarded by the Jesuits as the " angels gardiens" of the French.

Vis-a-vis annihilation by the English and the diseases, they started to emigrate with the Quebec towards 1669, where two seigniories had been given to them. The first was on the Saint-François river and is called nowadays the Indian Reserve Odanak; the second was founded close to Bécancour and is called the Indian Reserve Wôlinak. The latter took again the weapons in 1812 to protect the colony from the Americans and they will fight at the sides of the Patriots in the Rébellion of 1837.

When their principal city, Norridgewock, were taken by the English and their Rasle missionary killed in 1724, others still emigrated in Odanak, where other refugees of the tribes of New England had also settled. With the beginning of the year 1900, they were represented by Malécites on the Fleuve Midsummer's Day, in the New Brunswick and in Quebec (820); Passamoquoddy in bay of the same name to the Maine (400); Pentagouets ( Penobscots in English) with Old Town, also with Maine (400), and Abénaquis with Odanak and Bécancour (430).

After the test missed of Saussaye to establish a colony with the Deserted Mount in 1613 - where the fathers Jesuits Biard, Mass and Quentin proposed to convert the Amerindians - the Capucins, the Récollets, the Augustins, and some secular brothers of the Québécois seminar carried out the test, with a negligible result. The Druillettes Jesuit was sent there in 1646, but did not remain there a long time. Later, other missionaries such as Religious bigot, Thury and Of Hunting worked there, but in 1727, three years after the murder of the Rasle Father, there was no priest in Maine after the departure of the two last, Syvesme and Lauverjat. However, the Amerindians were occasionally visited by brothers. With the beginning of the year 1900, there were missions for what there remained tribes in Calais, Eastport, and Old Town.

A tribal council was organized in 1976 with Swanton with the Vermont. The state recognized the tribe the same year, but withdrew to him this recognition later for unknown reasons.

Abénaquis are not a tribe officially recognized by the US government, unlike the majority of the other tribes of the east. However, that could change soon because the state of the Vermont cancelled their preceding decision in 2006. If they are not recognized yet by the federal government, it is because they were almost destroyed and then dispersed, each small group insulating in Indian reserves different, before the government does not start to recognize Amerindian tribes at the end of the 20th century.

Culture

They had manners similar to those of Algonquiens of the south of New England. They were sedentary and depended especially on agriculture for their food, which explains why their villages were always close to a river. They practiced also hunting, fishing and the gathering, but these activities were less important than the culture of vivres. They were thus culturally halfway between the Iroquois and the Algonquins.

They lived in dispersed groups big families for most of the year. The groups concentrated during spring and the summer in temporary villages located close to rivers, or some share on the coast to plant and fish. These villages last of the strengthened, depend on alliances and enemy times being close to their site. The Abénaquis villages very small were compared with those of the Iroquois, containing only 100 people approximately. During the winter, they dispersed far from the coast.

Each man had a different territory of hunting inherited his father, Abénaquis being Patrilinéaire S, contrary to Iroquois.

The majority of Abénaquis lived in Wigwam S made in bark of tree, but some preferred oval small houses.

Government

They had kinds of chief called sagamores which were used for life but which could not be put in charge. They held in fact little to be able, but the European colonists treated them monarchs, sursimplification which resulted in many misunderstandings…

Mythology

See Mythology abénaquise.

Language

See Language abénaquise.

The Langue abénaquise belongs to the family algonquienne.

Population and epidemics

From forty thousand at the 17th century the population passed to less than 2.000 today where it starts again to increase, favoured in that by the Québécois policy in favor of the autochtones. In fact the inter-ethnic colonial wars or but especially the Variole and the imported Rougeole Old world explain this decimation.

From the 40.000 Abénaquis before the arrival of Europeans, approximately 20.000 were tribe of the east, 10.000 of the west, and the remainder of the maritime ones. The first contacts with European fishermen started two great epidemics at the 16th century. First originated in an unknown disease between 1564 and 1570, and the second the Typhus in 1586. Multiple epidemics arrived one decades before the English colonization of the Massachusetts in 1620; three different diseases devastated New England and the Canadian coast. The Maine was struck particularly extremely in 1617 with a death rate of 75%, reducing the population of Abénaquis of the east to approximately 5.000 people. Abénaquis of the west were insulated and thus suffered less, losing half of their population of 10.000 people.

The new diseases continued to decimate the populations, beginning with the Variole in 1631, 1633 and 1639. Seven years after, a not identified disease struck the Amerindians, and the Grippe will make in the same way the following year. Variola reappeared in 1649, and the Diphteria 10 years afterwards. Variola again struck in 1670, and the influenza in 1675. Fatal variola struck again all the Amerindians of the area in 1677, 1679, 1687 (accompanied by the Rougeole), then still in 1691, 1729, 1733, 1755 and finally in 1758.

The population of Abénaquis continued to decrease, but in 1676, having collected among them refugees of much of other tribes of the south of New England fleeing the war with the English colonists, their population will be scoured gradually, mixing with the tribes refugees. However, there remained only approximately thousand Abénaquis one century later, after the Guerre of independence of the United States of America.

Their population went back slowly to 12.000 with the the United States and the Canada.

Geographical location

Ndakinna , which wants to say " our terre" in language abénaquise, extended on the majority from north from New England and until the south from the Seaboard provinces from current Canada. Abénaquis of the east were concentrated in parts of Maine in the east of White Mountains of the New Hampshire, while the other large tribe, Abénaquis of the west, lived in the west of the mountains in the Vermont and the New Hampshire, to Eastern banks of the Lac Champlain. The southern limits of Ndakinna were close of what is nowadays the northern border of the Massachusetts, but excluding the country Pennacook on the river Merrimack in the south to the New Hampshire. The small tribe of Abénaquis maritime lived around the river Midsummer's Day and Rivière Holy-Cross, which forms today the border between Maine and New Brunswick.

Pentagouets have a reserve cash 2000 inhabitants with Indian Island in the town of Old Town in Maine. Passamoquoddy count approximately 2500 in three reserves of Maine, Pleasant Point, Peter Dana Point, and Indian Township. The Houlton band of the Malécites has approximately 600 members, and there are seven bands of Malécites in Canada (470 people in Quebec and 2000 in New Brunswick).

Two reserves are located in the area Center-of-Quebec. The reserve Odanak, in the south-west of Three-Rivers close to Nicolet, counts 1500 hearts, and Wôlinak holds it, close to Bécancour, counts 400 of them. There are approximately 2500 Abénaquis of the west in Vermont and with New Hampshire, mainly around the Lac Champlain. The remainder of the Abénaquis people is dispersed in Quebec, New Brunswick, and the north of New England.

Abénaquis known

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