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Petun
The Petun (from French: pétun), also known as the Tobacco people or Tionontati (Dionnontate, Etionontate, Etionnontateronnon, Tuinontatek, Dionondadie, or Khionotaterrhonon) ("People among the hills/mountains"), were an indigenous Iroquoian people of the woodlands of eastern North America. Their last known traditional homeland was south of Lake Huron's Georgian Bay, in what is today's Canadian province of Ontario.
The Petun were closely related to the Wendat, or Huron. Similarly to other Iroquoian peoples, they were structured as a confederacy. One of the less numerous Iroquoian peoples when they became known to Europeans, they had eight or nine villages in the early 17th century, and are estimated to have numbered around 8,000 before European contact.
A number of disease epidemics were documented in Huron–Petun societies between 1634 and 1640, which have been linked to the arrival of settlers from urban Europe; this decimated their population. Although they each spoke Iroquoian languages, they were independent of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee), based south of the Great Lakes in present-day New York State. The powerful Iroquois sent raiding parties against the smaller tribes in 1648–1649 as part of the Beaver Wars associated with the lucrative fur trade, and virtually destroyed them. Some remnant Petun joined with refugee Wendat to become the Hurons, who were later known as the Wyandot.
The term "Pétun" was derived from the early French-Brazilian trade and comes from the Tupi indigenous language. The word later became obsolete in the French language.
Numerous sources connect the name, Petun, to the cultivation and trade of tobacco by the historical Iroquoian society that existed at the time of the arrival of Europeans. For example, a 19th-century American translation by John Gilmary Shea of the History and General Description of New France, written by the late 17th and early 18th century French Jesuit historian Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, notes that they "raised and sold tobacco, whence the French called them Petuns or Peteneux." This widespread claim was later echoed by other sources such as the Smithsonian Institution's Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico in 1910, which referenced "large fields of tobacco." Later encyclopedias, such as the 1998 Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes and the 2001 Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Northeast also emphasize tobacco cultivation and trade as an explanation for the French nickname, "pétun".
Despite this, no contemporary French accounts mention tobacco cultivation at Petun settlements. The nickname was originally used by Samuel de Champlain for a particular village he visited during his 1616 expedition. Wider usage of the term can be traced to the Récollet brother Gabriel Sagard in 1623. One of the earliest traceable claims for notable tobacco production by the Petun is in the table of notes accompanying a 1632 map attributed to Champlain, but which was not wholly his creation. The table has significant differences from Champlain's earlier work; in his 1619 text, he notes that the Petun grew corn, but did not mention tobacco, whereas the 1632 table explicitly mentions cultivation and trade of tobacco.
In the Iroquoian Mohawk language, the name for tobacco is O-ye-aug-wa. French colonial traders in the Ohio Valley transliterated the Mohawk name as Guyandotte, their spelling of how it sounded in their language. Later European-American settlers in the valley adopted this name. They named the Guyandotte River in south-western West Virginia for the Wendat people, who had migrated to the area during the Beaver Wars of the late seventeenth century.
There are few historical primary sources which focus on the Petun before their dispersal. The main contemporary written source for the era, the Jesuit Relations, was written from the perspective of the predominantly French Jesuit missionaries in Huronia (located across Nottawasaga Bay from the Petun Country). The missionaries' information on the Petun was often second-hand. Additionally, English translations of French sources historically suffered from inconsistency due to translators' preference or bias.
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Petun
The Petun (from French: pétun), also known as the Tobacco people or Tionontati (Dionnontate, Etionontate, Etionnontateronnon, Tuinontatek, Dionondadie, or Khionotaterrhonon) ("People among the hills/mountains"), were an indigenous Iroquoian people of the woodlands of eastern North America. Their last known traditional homeland was south of Lake Huron's Georgian Bay, in what is today's Canadian province of Ontario.
The Petun were closely related to the Wendat, or Huron. Similarly to other Iroquoian peoples, they were structured as a confederacy. One of the less numerous Iroquoian peoples when they became known to Europeans, they had eight or nine villages in the early 17th century, and are estimated to have numbered around 8,000 before European contact.
A number of disease epidemics were documented in Huron–Petun societies between 1634 and 1640, which have been linked to the arrival of settlers from urban Europe; this decimated their population. Although they each spoke Iroquoian languages, they were independent of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee), based south of the Great Lakes in present-day New York State. The powerful Iroquois sent raiding parties against the smaller tribes in 1648–1649 as part of the Beaver Wars associated with the lucrative fur trade, and virtually destroyed them. Some remnant Petun joined with refugee Wendat to become the Hurons, who were later known as the Wyandot.
The term "Pétun" was derived from the early French-Brazilian trade and comes from the Tupi indigenous language. The word later became obsolete in the French language.
Numerous sources connect the name, Petun, to the cultivation and trade of tobacco by the historical Iroquoian society that existed at the time of the arrival of Europeans. For example, a 19th-century American translation by John Gilmary Shea of the History and General Description of New France, written by the late 17th and early 18th century French Jesuit historian Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, notes that they "raised and sold tobacco, whence the French called them Petuns or Peteneux." This widespread claim was later echoed by other sources such as the Smithsonian Institution's Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico in 1910, which referenced "large fields of tobacco." Later encyclopedias, such as the 1998 Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes and the 2001 Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Northeast also emphasize tobacco cultivation and trade as an explanation for the French nickname, "pétun".
Despite this, no contemporary French accounts mention tobacco cultivation at Petun settlements. The nickname was originally used by Samuel de Champlain for a particular village he visited during his 1616 expedition. Wider usage of the term can be traced to the Récollet brother Gabriel Sagard in 1623. One of the earliest traceable claims for notable tobacco production by the Petun is in the table of notes accompanying a 1632 map attributed to Champlain, but which was not wholly his creation. The table has significant differences from Champlain's earlier work; in his 1619 text, he notes that the Petun grew corn, but did not mention tobacco, whereas the 1632 table explicitly mentions cultivation and trade of tobacco.
In the Iroquoian Mohawk language, the name for tobacco is O-ye-aug-wa. French colonial traders in the Ohio Valley transliterated the Mohawk name as Guyandotte, their spelling of how it sounded in their language. Later European-American settlers in the valley adopted this name. They named the Guyandotte River in south-western West Virginia for the Wendat people, who had migrated to the area during the Beaver Wars of the late seventeenth century.
There are few historical primary sources which focus on the Petun before their dispersal. The main contemporary written source for the era, the Jesuit Relations, was written from the perspective of the predominantly French Jesuit missionaries in Huronia (located across Nottawasaga Bay from the Petun Country). The missionaries' information on the Petun was often second-hand. Additionally, English translations of French sources historically suffered from inconsistency due to translators' preference or bias.
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