The Wendat People: a self-designating community or a confederacy of nations?

Abstract

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the Wendat people, more commonly known as Huron, occupied a rather small territory along the eastern shores of Georgian Bay, in what is now Ontario. The Wendat society was organised in clans, villages, and nations, united in a confederacy. From 1649 onwards various forms of pressure caused the dispersal of the Wendats in new territories. Today, the descendants of the Wendats are divided in four nations dispersed in the USA and Canada. The Wendats who settled in the USA have become Wyandot/Wyandotte while those who remained in Canada have kept their original name. However, in 1999, the Wendat Confederacy was re-established on ancestral land in Ontario, as what can be seen as an affirmation of the persistence of a Huron community. After describing the cultural specificities of the Wendat at the moment of their dispersal, this paper will try to determine in what ways today's four Huron nations still form a community and why their leaders decided to re-establish the confederacy, thus raising questions concerning nationalism and territoriality in this particular context of a dispersed Amerindian people.