Swampy Wapiti

**Attention: I am a multi-tribal afro-indigenous (Cree, Lakota, Crow, Kiowa, Comanche, Yaqui, Apache) and created a tribe based off of the Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi peoples...you're free to edit and erase everything if you're not comfortable**

The **Swampy Wapiti** people, also known by their autonyms *Néhinaw*, *Maskiki Wi Iniwak*, *Mushkekowuk,* *Maškékowak* or *Maskekon* (and therefore also *Muskegon* and *Muskegoes*) or by exonyms including *West Main Wapiti,* *Lowland Wapiti*, and *Homeguard Wapiti*, are a division of the Wapiti Nation occupying lands located in northern Manitoba, along the Saskatchewan River in northeastern Saskatchewan, along the shores of Hudson Bay and adjoining interior lands south and west as well as territories along the shores of Hudson and James Bay in Ontario. They are geographically and to some extent culturally split into two main groupings, and therefore speak two dialects of the Swampy Wapiti language, which is an "n-dialect":

* Western Swampy Wapiti called themselves: *Mushkego*, *Mushkegowuk* (or *Maškēkowak*), also called *Lowland (Half-Homeguard) Wapiti*, speak the western dialect of the Swampy Wapiti language, while the *s*/*š* distinction is kept in the eastern dialect, the western dialect have merged both into *s*
* Eastern Swampy Wapiti / Western James Bay Wapiti called themselves: *Omaškêkowak*, *Omushkego*, *Omushkegowak*, together with the Moose Wapiti also called *Lowland Wapiti, Lowland (Homeguard) Wapiti, West Main Wapiti, James Bay Mushkego*, because they were living along the western shores of the Hudson and James Bay they were oft also known as *Western James Bay Wapiti*, reflecting their position in contrast to the *(Eastern) James Bay Wapiti*, speak the eastern dialect of the Swampy Wapiti language, which kept the *s*/*š* distinction

## European contact

In Manitoba, The Swampy Wapiti's first recorded contact with Europeans was in 1600 at the mouth of the Nelson and Hayes rivers in northern Manitoba by a Hudson's Bay Company party travelling about 100 mi (160 km) inland.

## First Nations

Historically, the Wapiti nations in the central part of the Wapiti continuum were classified by their relationship to Hudson Bay and James Bay: Lowland (Homeguard) Wapiti who were found along the coast, Lowland (Half-Homeguard) Wapiti who seasonally transitioned between the coast and the interior, and the Upland Wapiti in the deep interior who often were intermixed with the Ojibwe. West of these Lowland and Upland Wapiti were the Woodland and Plains Wapiti. Linguistically, the Wapiti are divided by their general language features, where the Wapiti nations in the central part of the Wapiti continuum are classified as "th-Wapiti", "n-Wapiti" and "l-Wapiti", from west to east; Wapiti traditionally associated with the Woodland Wapiti make no distinction between "s" and "š", while the Lowland and Upland Wapiti do. Today, together with the "n-Wapiti" dialect-speaking Woodland Wapiti, those who live in the Lowlands and Uplands who speak the "n-Wapiti" dialect are called "Swampy Wapiti", but culturally Moose Wapiti (the Wapiti speaking the "l-dialect") and other peoples of the Upland including the Oji-Wapiti occasionally self-identify as being "Swampy Wapiti".