Innus

The Innus are autochtones territory which they name Nitassinan , which includes/understands Is Quebec and the Labrador, Canada. In 2003, their population rose with approximately 18 000, of which 15 000 with the Saguenay and on the Coast-North of Quebec. Innus lived as hunters-gatherers during several millenia in this area, inhabitant of the made tents of skins of animals. Their activities of subsistence were centered on the hunting of the caribou, of the moose, the Cerf of Virginia and game. Their Language, the Innu-aimun, is spoken in any Nitassinan, with some differences of Dialecte. The innu-aimun belongs to the same linguistic family as the spoken language by the Cris of the Baie James in Quebec and in Ontario.

Montagnais, Naskapi or Innu

The people innu are sometimes divided into two communities, Montagnais of Saguenay and Coast-North and fewer Naskapis ( people of the interior in innu-aimun) which live more in north. Since 1990, these people are generally known like Innus ( human being in their language).

History

Innus of Labrador, Saguenay and Coast-North never officially yielded their territory to Canada by way of an indigenous treaty, and until 2002, Innus of the villages of Natuashish and Sheshatshiu of Labrador were not fixed with the Loi on the Indians, depriving them of the privileges associated with the statute with registered Indian.

With the expansion of mining and forest since the beginning of the XXe century, an increasingly large proportion of Innus were established in villages with the length of the coasts and in the interior of the grounds. The sedentarisation of Innus was also actively encouraged by the governments of Canada, Quebec and Newfoundland and by the churches catholic and Anglican, which put definitively fine at their Nomadisme.

With the decline of the traditional activities (hunting, trapping and fishing), the life in these new villages was often disturbed by the Toxicomanie, the family Violence and the Suicide.

Kawawachikamach, Quebec

The nation naskapie of Kawawachikamach is the only community innue which signed a treaty on their territorial claims, the Convention of the North-East of Quebec of 1978. Since this date, Naskapis de Kawawachikamach are not fixed any more with the Law on the Indians, like are all the other communities innues of Quebec.

the commission Shouts-Naskapi 2004

History of Naskapis

The oldest reference to Naskapis appears around 1643 when the Jesuit André Richard refers to the Ounackkapiouek but there is very little thing of known on this group whose Richard refers except the fact that it is one of the small nations located some share at the north of Tadoussac.Le word Naskapi appears for the first time into 1733 which at that time is described as a group including/understanding approximately forty families which has an important camping with the Lake Achouanipi. About at the same time in 1740, the manager of the station of Eastmain of the company of Hudson Bay, Joseph Isbister, reports that there would be Indians whom it calls in|Annes-carp in the North-East of the Richmond Golf. In the years which followed these Indians were called in|Nascopy and in|Nascappe . A few years later the periodic accounts of the Moravienne mission describe a group of remaining Indian with Okak called in|Nascopies

in|Naskapis

Davis Inlet, Labrador

In 1999, the organization Survival International published a study on the living conditions in the two communities innues of the Labrador and on the government policies supporting their localization in villages distant from their traditional grounds of hunting. " Survival International" affirmed that these policies violated the International law and compared themselves with the treatment inflicted with the Tibetans by the authorities of the Popular republic of China. From 1990 to 1997, according to this report/ratio, the community innue of Davis Inlet, Labrador, posted a suicide rate twelve times higher than that of the Canadian population, therefore at least three times higher than the rate observed in several Scandinavian villages isolated from Canada.

Vis-a-vis a very high rate of Drug-addiction in the young people of Davis Inlet, the leaders of the community asked for the assistance of the Canadian government there to face and to finance the removal of the community at a better place, known under the name of Natuashish. The Canadian government then created officially the councils of band of Natuashish and Sheshatshiu.

Culture

One can mention the Festival Innu Nikamu de Maliotenam (Mani Utenam in innu-aimun: the village of Marie) whose vocation is to transmit to the children the memory Culture innue.

The most known musicians innus are Florent Flying and Claude Mackenzie, of the group Kashtin, popular lasting the years 1990. See also Innu Folk.

Population

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