Abenaki

The Abenaki (Abenaki: W8banaki) are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was predominantly spoken in Maine, while the Western Abenaki language was spoken in Quebec, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

While Abenaki peoples share cultural traits, they historically did not have a centralized government. They came together as a post-contact community after their original tribes were decimated by colonization, disease, and warfare.

The word Abenaki and its syncope, Abnaki, are both derived from Wabanaki, or Wôbanakiak, meaning "People of the Dawn Land" in the Abenaki language. While the two terms are often confused, the Abenaki are one of several tribes in the Wabanaki Confederacy.

Alternate spellings include: Abnaki, Abinaki, Alnôbak, Abanakee, Abanaki, Abanaqui, Abanaquois, Abenaka, Abenake, Abenaki, Abenakias, Abenakiss, Abenakkis, Abenaque, Abenaqui, Abenaquioict, Abenaquiois, Abenaquioue, Abenati, Abeneaguis, Abenequa, Abenkai, Abenquois, Abernaqui, Abnaqui, Abnaquies, Abnaquois, Abnaquotii, Abasque, Abnekais, Abneki, Abonakies, Abonnekee.

Wôbanakiak is derived from wôban ("dawn" or "east") and aki ("land") (compare Proto-Algonquian *wa·pan and *axkyi) — the aboriginal name of the area broadly corresponding to New England and the Maritimes. It is sometimes used to refer to all the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the area—Western Abenaki, Eastern Abenaki, Wolastoqiyik-Passamaquoddy, and Mi'kmaq—as a single group.

The Abenaki people also call themselves Alnôbak, meaning "Real People" (cf., Lenape language: Lenapek) and by the autonym Alnanbal, meaning "men".

Historically, ethnologists have classified the Abenaki by geographic groups: Western Abenaki and Eastern Abenaki. Within these groups are the Abenaki bands:

Smaller tribes: