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Tionontati Indian Tribe
History
Tionontati ('there the mountain
stands.'-Hewitt). A tribe formerly living in the mountains south of
Nottawasaga bay, in Grey and Simcoe Counties, Ont.
They were first visited in 1616 by the French, who
called them the Nation du
Petun, or Tobacco Nation, from their having large fields of tobacco. In
1640 the
Jesuits established a mission among them.
The tribe then had 2 clans, the Deer and the Wolf, and
9 villages. On the destruction of the
Huron tribes by the Iroquois,
in 1648-49, many of the fugitives took refuge with the Tionontati. This
drew down upon the latter the anger of the Iroquois, who sent a strong
force against them in Dec. 1649. Etarlta, one of their principal villages,
was surprised during the absence of the warriors, the houses burned, and
many of the inhabitants, together with the missionary, massacred. The
Tionontati, with the Hurons, who had joined them, now abandoned their
country and fled to the region south west of Lake Superior. In 1658 there
were about 500 of the tribe at the Potawatomi mission of St Michel, near
Green bay, Wis. Soon afterward they were with the Hurons at
Shaugawaumikong (La Pointe), and about 1670 the two tribes were together
at Mackinaw, at the entrance to Lake Michigan. The Tionontati soon became
blended with the Hurons, and the united tribes were henceforth known under
the modernized name of Wyandot. As late, however, as 1721 the Tionontati,
then living with the Hurons near Detroit, preserved their name and
hereditary chieftaincies.
They were frequently designated as Tionontati Hurons
and have also been confounded with the Amikwa.
Their villages, so far as their names are known, were
Ehouae (St Pierre et St Paul)
Ekarenniondi (St Matthieu)
Etarlta (St Jean)
St Andre
St Barthelemy
St Jacques
St Jacques et St Philippe
St Simon et St Jude
St Thomas
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