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Algonquin

This article is about the Native American tribe. For other uses see: Algonquin (disambiguation)

The Algonquin Indians are the most populous and widespread North American Native groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds and speaking several related languages commonly known as Algonquian. Although theirs was largely a hunting and fishing culture, some practiced agriculture and cultivated corn, beans, and squash.

At the time of the early European settlements, Algonquin tribes occupied what is now New England, New Jersey, southeastern New York, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Lower Canada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and were occasionally present in Kentucky. They were most populous in the New England region. It should not be assumed that this was their original or traditional land, since during this time the hegemonic Iroquois tribes were warring against the Algonquin wherever they met, forcing the Algonquin to settle in regions unoccupied by Iroquois.

Algonquin tribes of the New England area include Mohican, Pequot, Narragansett, Wampanoag, Massachusett, and Penacock. The Abenaki tribe was located further north. These tribes practiced agriculture, unlike many other Algonquin tribes to the west and north.

The Etchemin, Souriquois (also called Micmac) tribes of Nova Scotia knew nothing of agriculture but were harvesters of the sea. Further north were the hunter gatherer tribes of Papinachois, Bersiamites, Atticamegues, Nipissing and Montagnais.

They fought the Iroquois due to their rivalry in the fur trade; and formed an alliance with the Montagnais to the east in 1570.

From 1603 they allied themselves with the French.

The Algonquian spiritual practices were derived from the Yematasi Medicine Culture. "The Sharing Circle" or "Medicine Wheel" has been taken from Medicine Givers known generally as Wanagi Cha (Spirit Speakers) and has been passed from generation to generation along familial lines. Each transmission involved the forgetting of much of the lore and the leaving behind of what the teller did not like. Consequently the "religious" aspects of the Algonquian people, as with other Native American nations within North America, have been lost to all but a few Wanagi Cha. There are perhaps seven or eight Wanagi Wakan K'cha or Medicine Teachers (Spirit Counsellors) on the whole continent.