Algonquin people

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The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family.^[1] Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe (including Oji-Cree), Mississaugas, and Nipissing, with whom they form the larger Anicinàpe (Anishinaabeg). Algonquins are known by many names, including Omàmiwinini (plural: Omàmiwininiwak, "downstream man/men") and Abitibiwinni (pl.: Abitibiwinnik "men [living] halfway across the water") or the more generalised name of Anicinàpe.

Though known by several names in the past, such as Algoumequin, the most common term "Algonquin" has been suggested to derive from the Maliseet word elakómkwik (IPA: [ɛlæˈɡomoɡwik]): "they are our relatives/allies."^[2][3] 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 recognized status Algonquin bands in that province and one in Ontario have a combined population of about 17,002. In addition, there are additional non-status communities, some of which are controversial. Algonquins are original Indigenous People of southern Quebec and eastern Ontario in Canada.

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.^[4] Traditionally, the Algonquins lived in either birch bark or wooden mìkiwàms.^[5]

Traditionally, the Algonquins were practitioners of Midewiwin (the Path of the Heart). 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 Algonquin practice traditional Midewiwin or a syncretic merging of Christianity and Midewiwin.

In the oral history of the Great Anishinaabeg Migration, 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 Kitcisìpi (the 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.^[6]

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 Haudenosaunee, whose confederacy was based in present-day New York. In 1570, the Algonquins formed an alliance with the Innu (Montagnais) to the east, whose territory extended to the ocean. Culturally, Omàmìwininì (Algonquin) and the Mississaugas (Michi Saagiig) were not part of the Ojibwe–Odawa–Potawatomi alliance known as the Council of Three Fires, though they did maintain close ties. Omàmìwininìwak (Algonquins) maintained stronger cultural ties with the Wendat, Abenaki, Atikamekw, and Cree, along with the Innu, as related above.