Tooker] 



ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE HURON 11 



League about 1590 and the Tohontaenrat about 1610.^ Families might 

 affiliate themselves with another nation by being adopted into it and 

 sometimes a group of families left a nation to become one in their 

 own right. The Attignawantan and Attigneenongnahac nations were 

 the largest as they, over a period of time, adopted more families. 

 These adopted families remained distinct little nations, retaining the 

 names and memories of their founders, a general name [for them- 

 selves], and a war chief and a council chief (JR 16: 227-229).^ 



Of the four nations of the League, the Arendahronon were the east- 

 ernmost ( JR 20 : 19 ; 33 : 81) and the group that the French first met 

 (JR 20: 19), but tlie Attignawantan were the most receptive to 

 Christianity (JR 10: 31). 



Champlain found 18 villages, 6 of which were palisaded, inhabited 

 by 2,000 warriors and perhaps 30,000 people (G 122). Sagard said 

 there were about 25 villages, 30,000 to 40,000 people and 2,000 to 3,000 

 warriors (S 91-92). When the Jesuits arrived, they found 30,000 

 Hurons ( JR 7 : 225 ; 8 : 115 ; 10 : 313) located in 20 villages ( JR 8 : 115 ; 

 10 : 313 ; 11 : 7) .^ By 1640, however, the population had been reduced 

 to 10,000 (JR 17: 221-223, 2'27; 19: 77, 127). The Attignawantan 

 were the most numerous; they accounted for half of the Hurons (JR 

 10: 77) and the most (14) villages (JR 15: 39). [Later, after the 

 Jesuit-introduced disease in the village of Ihonatiria so reduced the 

 population that it was abandoned, they had 13 villages ( JR 17 : 11, 

 59, 115).] The other nations had fewer villages: the Attignee- 

 nongnahac, 2 [this figure is based on a comparison of JR 19: 183- 

 185 and 17: 87-89; cf. also JR 19: 125, 167, 209; 20: 21, 43]; the 

 Arendahronon, 3 (JR 20: 21) ; the Tohontaenrat, 1 (the village of 

 Scanonaerat) (JR 17: 87).i° 



The country of the Huron was not large; at its greatest extent, it 

 could be traversed in 3 or 4 days (JR 8: 115). Its length, east and 

 ■west, was no longer than 20 or 25 leagues and its width, north and 

 south, was in many places very slight, nowhere exceeding 7 or 8 

 leagues (JR 7: 225; 16: 2'25). [The earlier estimate of an east- west 



'' See footnote 1, p. 3. 



B The Iroquois also adopted Individuals, families, and tribes into their confederacy. 



»The differences in number of Huron villages given by Champlain, Sagard, and the 

 Jesuits is quite understandable, and may not be due to error in counting. An Iroquoian 

 village may combine with another village to form a larger single village or one village may 

 split into two or three separate villages. Further, there were hamlets ; settlements that 

 were not villages proper, but small residential units that were politically attached to the 

 village proper. Thus, the difference between Champlain's figure of 18 Huron villages 

 and the Jesuits' figure of 20 may indicate the splitting of a single village unit and the 

 difference between Sagard's figure of 25 and those given by Champlain and the Jesuits 

 may only mean that Sagard included some hamlets in his total. 



"See Appendix 1. "Names and probable tribal afiiliations of Huron villages" (p. 149). 



