The Cree are generally divided into eight groups based on dialect and region. These divisions do not necessarily represent ethnic subdivisions within the larger ethnic group:
Naskapi and Montagnais (together known as the Innu) are inhabitants of an area they refer to as Nitassinan. Their territories comprise most of the present-day political jurisdictions of eastern Quebec and Labrador. Their cultures are differentiated, as some of the Naskapi are still caribou hunters, and more nomadic than many of the Montagnais; the Montagnais have more permanent settlements. The total population of the two groups (in 2003) was about 18,000 people, of which approx. 15,000 were in Quebec. Their dialects and languages are the most distinct from the Cree spoken by the groups west of Lake Superior.
Swampy Cree – this group lives in northern Manitoba, along the Hudson Bay coast, and adjacent inland areas to the south and west, as well as in Ontario, along the coasts of Hudson Bay and James Bay. Some also live in eastern Saskatchewan, around Cumberland House. Their dialect has 4,500 speakers.
nēhiyaw (Plains Cree) camp near the future site of Vermilion, Alberta, in 1871
As hunter-gatherers, the basic units of organization for Cree peoples were the "lodge", a group of perhaps eight to a dozen people, usually the families of two separate, but related, married couples living together in the same wigwam (domed tent) or tipi (conical tent), and the band, a group of lodges who moved and hunted together. In the case of disagreement, lodges could leave bands, and bands could be formed and dissolved with relative ease. However, as there is safety in numbers, all families would want to be part of some band, and banishment or exile was considered a very serious punishment. Bands would usually have strong ties to their neighbours through intermarriage and would assemble together at different parts of the year to hunt and socialize together. Other than these regional gatherings, there was no higher-level formal structure, and decisions of war and peace were made by consensus, with allied bands meeting together in-council. People could be identified by their clan, which is a group of people claiming descent from the same common ancestor; each clan would have a representative and a vote in all important councils held by the band (compare: Anishinaabe clan system).[11]
Each band remained independent of each other. However, Cree-speaking bands tended to work together and with their neighbours against outside enemies. Those Cree who moved onto the Great Plains and adopted bison hunting, called the Plains Cree, were allied with the Assiniboine, the Metis Nation, and the Saulteaux in what was known as the "Iron Confederacy", which was a major force in the North American fur trade from the 1730s to the 1870s. The Cree and the Assiniboine were important intermediaries in the Indian trading networks on the northern plains.[2]
When a band went to war, they would nominate a temporary military commander, called a Template:Lang, loosely translated as "war chief". This office was different from that of the "peace chief", a leader who had a role more like that of diplomat. In the run-up to the 1885 North-West Rebellion, Big Bear was the leader of his band, but once the fighting started Wandering Spirit became war leader.
There have been several attempts to create a national political organization that would represent all Cree peoples, at least as far back as a 1994 gathering at the Opaskwayak Cree First Nation reserve.[12]
Name
The name "Cree" is derived from the Algonkian-language exonymTemplate:Lang, which the Ojibwa used for tribes around Hudson Bay. The French colonists and explorers, who spelled the term Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang,[13][14]Template:Lang, and Template:Lang, used the term for numerous tribes which they encountered north of Lake Superior, in Manitoba, and west of there.[15] The French used these terms to refer to various groups of peoples in Canada, some of which are now better distinguished as Severn Anishinaabe (Ojibwa), who speak dialects different from the Algonquin.[16]
Depending on the community, the Cree may call themselves by the following names: the Template:Lang, and Template:Lang; or Template:Lang, or Template:Lang. These names are derived from the historical autonymTemplate:Lang (of uncertain meaning) or from the historical autonym Template:Lang (meaning "person"). Cree using the latter autonym tend to be those living in the territories of Quebec and Labrador.[10] Alternative names include Inninu and Inninuwuk.
The Cree language (also known in the most broad classification as Cree-Montagnais, Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi, to show the groups included within it) is the name for a group of closely related Algonquian languages,[2] the mother tongue (i.e. language first learned and still understood) of approximately 96,000 people, and the language most often spoken at home of about 65,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories to Labrador. It is the most widely spoken aboriginal language in Canada.[17] The only region where Cree has official status is in the Northwest Territories, together with eight other aboriginal languages, French and English.[18][19]
The two major groups: nehiyaw and Innu, speak a mutually intelligible Cree dialect continuum, which can be divided by many criteria. In a dialect continuum, "It is not so much a language, as a chain of dialects, where speakers from one community can very easily understand their neighbours, but a Plains Cree speaker from Alberta would find a Quebec Cree speaker difficult to speak to without practice."[20]
One major division between the groups is that the Eastern group palatalizes the sound Template:IPA to either Template:IPA (c) or to Template:IPA (č) when it precedes front vowels. There is also a major difference in grammatical vocabulary (particles) between the groups. Within both groups, another set of variations has arisen around the pronunciation of the Proto-Algonquianphoneme*l, which can be realized as Template:IPA or Template:IPA (th) by different groups. Yet in other dialects, the distinction between Template:IPA (ē) and Template:IPA (ī) has been lost, merging to the latter. In more western dialects, the distinction between Template:IPA and Template:IPA (š) has been lost, both merging to the former. "Cree is a not a typologically harmonic language. Cree has both prefixes and suffixes, both prepositions and postpositions, and both prenominal and postnominal modifiers (e.g. demonstratives can appear in both positions)."[21]
Golla counts Cree dialects as eight of 55 North American languages that have more than 1,000 speakers and which are being actively acquired by children.[22]
Identity and ethnicity
In Canada
Cree Indian, taken by G. E. Fleming, 1903
The Cree are the largest group of First Nations in Canada, with 220,000 members and 135 registered bands.[23] Together, their reserve lands are the largest of any First Nations group in the country.[23] The largest Cree band and the second largest First Nations Band in Canada after the Six Nations Iroquois is the Lac La Ronge Band in northern Saskatchewan.
Given the traditional Cree acceptance of mixed marriages, it is acknowledged by academics that all bands are ultimately of mixed heritage and multilingualism and multiculturalism was the norm. In the West, mixed bands of Cree, Saulteaux, Métis, and Assiniboine, all partners in the Iron Confederacy, are the norm. However, in recent years, as indigenous languages have declined across western Canada where there were once three languages spoken on a given reserve, there may now only be one. This has led to a simplification of identity, and it has become "fashionable" for bands in many parts of Saskatchewan to identify as "Plains Cree" at the expense of a mixed Cree-Salteaux history. There is also a tendency for bands to recategorize themselves as "Plains Cree" instead of Woods Cree or Swampy Cree. Neal McLeod argues this is partly due to the dominant culture's fascination with Plains Indian culture as well as the greater degree of written standardization and prestige Plains Cree enjoys over other Cree dialects.[12]
The Métis[24] (from the French, Template:Lang – of mixed ancestry) are people of mixed ancestry, such as Cree and French, English, or Scottish heritage. According to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, the Métis were historically the children of French fur traders and Cree women or, from unions of English or Scottish traders and Cree, Northwestern Ojibwe, or northern Dene women (Anglo-Métis). The Métis National Council defines a Métis as "a person who self-identifies as Métis, is distinct from other Aboriginal peoples, is of historic Métis Nation Ancestry and who is accepted by the Métis Nation".[25]
Group of Cree people
Merasty women and girls, Cree, The Pas, Manitoba, 1942
In Manitoba, the Cree were first contacted by Europeans in 1682, at the mouth of the Nelson and Hayes rivers by a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) party traveling about Template:Convert inland. In the south, in 1732; in what is now northwestern Ontario, Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye, met with an assembled group of 200 Cree warriors near present-day Fort Frances, as well as with the Monsoni,[27] (a branch of the Ojibwe). Both groups had donned war paint in preparation to an attack on the Dakota and another group of Ojibwe.[28]
After acquiring firearms from the HBC, the Cree moved as traders into the plains, acting as middlemen with the HBC.Template:Citation needed
First Nation communities
Naskapi
Template:FurtherTemplate:Location map many
The Naskapi are the Innu First Nations inhabiting a region of northeastern Quebec and Labrador, Canada. The Naskapi are traditionally nomadic peoples, in contrast with the territorial Montagnais, the other segment of Innu. The Naskapi language and culture is quite different from the Montagnais, in which the dialect changes from y to n as in "Iiyuu" versus "Innu". Template:Lang is the Innu dialect spoken by the Naskapi.[29] Today, the Naskapi are settled into two communities: Kawawachikamach Quebec and Natuashish, Newfoundland and Labrador.
First Nation of Whapmagoostui located at Whapmagoostui VC, is the northernmost Cree village, located at the mouth of the Great Whale River on the coast of Hudson Bay in Kativik TE. The village is just south of the river while the Inuit village of Kuujjuarapik is on the north shore.[68]
Cree Nation of Washaw Sibi was recognized as the tenth Cree Nation Community at the 2003 Annual General Assembly of the Cree Nation.[69][70] The Nation does not yet have a community or reserve recognized by either the Canadian or Quebec governments but the Nation has chosen an area about 40 minutes' drive south of Matagami.[71]
Independent from a Tribal Council is the Weenusk First Nation located in Peawanuck in the Kenora District.[93] The community was located on their reserve of Winisk 90 on the mouth of the Winisk River on James Bay[94] but the community was destroyed in the 1986 Winisk flood and the community had to be relocated to Peawanuck.[95]
Interlake Reserves Tribal Council is a tribal council based in Fairford, Manitoba. The council has six Nations as members but the only Cree member is Peguis First Nation.[189]
Papaschase First Nation, removed from land that now makes up southeast Edmonton, were a party to Treaty 6 but are not recognized by the Canadian government.
Ethnobotany
The Cree use the pitch of Abies balsamea for menstrual irregularity, and take an infusion of the bark and sometimes the wood for coughs. They use the pitch and grease used as an ointment for scabies and boils. They apply a poultice of pitch applied to cuts. They also use a decoction of pitch and sturgeon oil used for tuberculosis, and take an infusion of bark for tuberculosis. They also use the boughs to make brush shelters and use the wood to make paddles.[206]
Hudson Bay Cree subgroup
The Hudson Bay Cree use a decoction of the leaves of Kalmia angustifolia for diarrhea, but they consider the plant to be poisonous.[207]
The Woods Cree make use of Ribes glandulosum using a decoction of the stem, either by itself or mixed with wild red raspberry, to prevent clotting after birth, eat the berries as food, and use the stem to make a bitter tea.[208] They make use of Vaccinium myrtilloides, using a decoction of leafy stems used to bring menstruation and prevent pregnancy, to make a person sweat, to slow excessive menstrual bleeding, to bring blood after childbirth, and to prevent miscarriage. They also use the berries to dye porcupine quills, eat the berries raw, make them into jam and eat it with fish and bannock, and boil or pound the sun-dried berries into pemmican.[209] They use the berries of the minus subspecies of Vaccinium myrtilloides to colour porcupine quills, and put the firm, ripe berries on a string to wear as a necklace.[210] They also incorporate the berries of the minus subspecies of Vaccinium myrtilloides into their cuisine. They store the berries by freezing them outside during the winter, mix the berries with boiled fish eggs, livers, air bladders and fat and eat them, eat the berries raw as a snack food, and stew them with fish or meat.[210]
Robert Falcon Ouellette, A Cree Member of Parliament, played a pivotal role in promoting Indigenous languages including C-91 within Canada.[212][213][214]
↑Leighton, Anna L., 1985, Wild Plant Use by the Woods Cree (Template:Lang) of East-Central Saskatchewan, Ottawa. National Museums of Canada. Mercury Series, page 21
↑Holmes, E.M. 1884 Medicinal Plants Used by Cree Indians, Hudson's Bay Territory. The Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions 15:302–304 (p. 303)
↑Leighton, Anna L. 1985 Wild Plant Use by the Woods Cree (Template:Lang) of East-Central Saskatchewan. Ottawa. National Museums of Canada. Mercury Series (p. 54)
↑Leighton, Anna L., 1985, Wild Plant Use by the Woods Cree (Template:Lang) of East-Central Saskatchewan, Ottawa. National Museums of Canada. Mercury Series, page 63
↑ 210.0210.1Leighton, Anna L., 1985, Wild Plant Use by the Woods Cree (Template:Lang) of East-Central Saskatchewan, Ottawa. National Museums of Canada. Mercury Series, page 64
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Group of Cree people
Merasty women and girls, Cree, The Pas, Manitoba, 1942
Chief King of the Wind
Chief Thundercloud
Chief Duckhunter
Cree girl (1928)
Illustration of a Snake woman (left) and a Cree woman (right), c. 1840–1843, Karl Bodmer.jpg)
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