All the above-enumerated tribes, except the Beothik indigenes of Newfoundland, belong to the great and widespread ALGONKIN group.  (Algonkin is a word derived from the “Algommequin” of Champlain.) In the valley of the St. Lawrence the French first encountered those Indians whom they called Huron.  This was a French word meaning “crested”, because these people wore their hair in a great crest over the top and back of the head, which reminded the French of the appearance of a wild boar (Hure).  The real name of the Hurons, who dwelt at a later date between Lakes Huron, Erie, Ontario, and the neighbourhood of Montreal, was Waiandot (Wyandot); but they went under a variety of other names, according to the clans, such as the Eries and the Atiwandoran or Neutral Nation.  They were also called the “Good” Iroquois, to distinguish them from the six other nations, the IROQUOIS proper of the French Canadians, who signalized themselves by fiendish and frightful warfare against the French and the various tribes of Algonkin Indians.  The Hurons and the rest of the six tribes grouped under the name of IROQUOIS[6] were of the same stock originally, forming a separate group like that of the Algonkins, though they are supposed to be related distantly to the Dakota or Siou.  Amongst the “Six Nations” or tribes banded together in warfare and policy were the celebrated “Mohawks” who dwelt on the southern borders of the St. Lawrence basin and near Lake Champlain.  As the others of the six nations (including the Senekas and Onondagas) inhabited the eastern United States, well outside the limits of Canada, they need not be referred to here.

[Footnote 6:  “Iroquois” was a name invented by Champlain (see p. 69).  Apparently this confederation called themselves Hodenosauni.  The termination “ois” in all French-American names is pronounced “wa”—­Irokwa.]

Between the South Saskatchewan, the Rocky Mountains, and Lake Superior, nearly outside the limits of the Canadian Dominion, was the great DAKOTA, or Siou group,[7] divided into the distinct tribe of Assiniboin or “Stone” Indians (because they used hot stones in cooking), the “Crows” or Absaroka, the Hidatsa or Minitari (also called Big Bellies, like the quite distinct Atsina of the Algonkin family), the Menomini (the most north-eastern amongst the Siouan tribes, and the first met with by the British and French Canadians south-west of Lake Superior), the Winnebagos on the southern borders of Manitoba, the Yanktons or Yanktonnais, the “Santi Siou” proper—­generally calling themselves Dakota or Mdewakanton—­and the “Tetons” along the northern Dakota frontier and into the Rocky Mountains—­also known as Blackfeet, Sans Arcs ("without bows"), “Two-kettles”, “Brules” or “Burnt” Indians, &c.

[Footnote 7:  The far-famed term Siou is said to have been an abbreviation of one of the original French names for this type of Amerindian, Nadouessiou.  In early books they are often called the Nadouessies.]