Innu People

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### Enemies

Mi'kmaq, Haudenosaunee

tain Cree (*Asini Wachi Nīhithawī), Cree groups of the Asini Wachi Wi Iniwak* ("People of the rocky [land]') or *Asinīwaciwithiniwak* ('People who live along the Rocky Mountains'); including grou

The **Innu / Ilnu** ("man", "person") or **Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh** ("people"), for

merly called **Montagnais** from the French colonial period (French for "mountain people", English pronunciation: /ˌmɔːntənˈjeɪ/), are the Indigenous inhabitants of territory in the northeastern portion of the present-day province of Labrador and some portions of Quebec. They refer to their traditional homeland as *Nitassinan* ("Our Land", ᓂᑕᔅᓯᓇᓐ) or *Innu-assi* ("Innu Land").

The Innu are divided into several bands, with the Montagnais being the southernmost group and the Naskapi being the northernmost.

Their ancestors were known to have lived on these lands as hunter-gatherers for several thousand years. To support their seasonal hunting migrations, they created portable tents made of animal skins. Their subsistence activities were historically centred on hunting and trapping caribou, moose, deer, and small game.

Their language, Ilnu-Aimun or Innu-Aimun (popularly known since the French colonial era as *Montagnais*), is spoken throughout Nitassinan, with certain dialect differences. It is part of the Chippewan language group, and is unrelated to the Inuit languages of other nearby peoples.

The "Innu / Ilnu" consist of two regional tribal groups, which differ in dialect and partly also in their way of life and culture:

* the *Ilnu*, *Nehilaw* or "Western/Southern Montagnais" in the south, speak the *"l"*-dialect (Ilnu-Aimun or Nenueun/Neːhlweːuːn), and
* the *Innu* or "Eastern Montagnais" ("Central/Moisie Montagnais", "Eastern/Lower North Shore Montagnais", and "Labrador/North West River Montagnais") live further north; they speak the *"n"*-dialect (Innu-Aimun)

Both groups are still called "Montagnais" in the official language of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Development Canada. The Naskapi ("people beyond the horizon", ᓇᔅᑲᐱ), who live further north, also identify as Innu or *Iyiyiw*.

Today, about 18,000 Innu live in eleven settlements within reserves in Québec and Labrador. To avoid confusion with the Inuit, who belong to the Eskimo peoples, today only the singular form "Innu / Ilnu" is used for the Innu, members of the large Chippewan-language family. The plural form of "Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh" has been abandoned.

## Montagnais, Naskapi or Innu

The people are frequently classified by the geography of their primary locations:

* the *Neenoilno*, live along the north shore of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, in Quebec; they have historically been referred to by Europeans as *Montagnais* (French for "mountain people", English pronunciation: /ˌmɔːntənˈjeɪ/), or *Innu proper* (*Nehilaw* and *Ilniw* – "people")
* The *Naskapi* (also known as *Innu* and *Iyiyiw*), live farther north and are less numerous. The Innu recognize several distinctions among their people (e.g. Mushuau Innuat, Maskuanu, Uashau Innuat) based on different regional affiliations and speakers of various dialects of the Innu language.

The word *Naskapi* was first recorded by French colonists in the 17th century. They applied it to distant Innu groups who were beyond the reach of Catholic missionary influence. It was particularly applied to those people living in the lands that bordered Ungava Bay and the northern Labrador coast, near the Inuit communities of northern Quebec and northern Labrador. Gradually it came to refer to the people known today as the Naskapi First Nation.

The Naskapi are traditionally nomadic peoples, in contrast with the more sedentary *Montagnais*, who establish settled territories.

The *Mushuau Innuat* (plural), while related to the Naskapi, split off from the tribe in the 1900s. They were subject to a government relocation program at Davis Inlet. Some of the families of the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach have close relatives in the Chippewan village of Whapmagoostui, on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay.

Since 1990, the Montagnais people have generally chosen to be officially referred to as the *Innu*, which means *human being* in *Innu-aimun*. The Naskapi have continued to use the word *Naskapi*.

## History

The Norsemen referred to the Innu as the *Skræling* in Greenlandic Norse. They referred to Nitassinan as *Markland*.

The Innu were historically allied with neighbouring Atikamekw, Maliseet and Algonquin peoples against their enemies, the Algonquian-speaking Mi'kmaq and Iroquoian-speaking Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (known as *Haudenosaunee*. During the Beaver Wars (1609-1701), the Iroquois repeatedly invaded the Innu territories from their homelands south of the Great Lakes. They took women and young males as captive slaves, and plundered their hunting grounds in search of more furs. Since these raids were made by the Iroquois with unprecedented brutality, the Innu themselves adopted the torment, torture, and cruelty of their enemies.

The Naskapi, on the other hand, usually had to confront the southward advancing Inuit in the east of the peninsula.

Innu oral tradition describes the original encounters of the Innu and the French explorers led by Samuel de Champlain as fraught with distrust. Neither group understood the language of the other, and the Innu were concerned about the motives of the French explorers.

The French asked permission to settle on the Innu's coastal land, which the Innu called *Uepishtikueiau*. This eventually developed as Quebec City. According to oral tradition, the Innu at first declined their request. The French demonstrated their ability to farm wheat on the land and promised they would share their bounty with the Innu in the future, which the Innu accepted.

Two distinct versions of the oral history describe the outcome. In the first, the French used gifts of farmed food and manufactured goods to encourage the Innu to become dependent on them. Then, the French changed it to a mercantile relationship: trading these items to the Innu in exchange for furs. When the nomadic Innu went inland for the winter, the French increased the size and population of their settlement considerably, eventually completely displacing the Innu.

The second, and more widespread, version of the oral history describes a more immediate conflict. In this version, the Innu taught the French how to survive in their traditional lands. Once the French had learned enough to survive on their own, they began to resent the Innu. The French began to attack the Innu, who retaliated in an attempt to reclaim their ancestral territory. The Innu had a disadvantage in numbers and weaponry, and eventually began to avoid the area rather than risk further defeat. During this conflict, the French colonists took many Innu women as wives. French women did not immigrate to New France in the early period.

French explorer Samuel de Champlain eventually became involved in the Innu's conflict with the Iroquois, who were ranging north from their traditional territory around the Great Lakes in present-day New York and Pennsylvania. On July 29, 1609, at Ticonderoga or Crown Point, New York, (historians are not sure which of these two places), Champlain and his party encountered a group of Iroquois, likely Mohawk, who were the easternmost tribe of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. A battle began the next day. As two hundred Iroquois advanced on Champlain's position, a native guide pointed out the three enemy chiefs to the French. According to legend, Champlain fired his arquebus and killed two of the Mohawk chiefs with one shot; one of his men shot and killed the third. The Mohawk reportedly fled the scene. Although the French also traded extensively with the Mohawk and other Iroquois, and converted some to Catholicism, they also continued to have armed conflicts with them.

## Culture

### Ethnobotany

The Innu people grate the inner bark of Abies balsamea and eat it to benefit the diet.

### Traditional crafts

Traditional Innu craft is demonstrated in the Innu tea doll. These children's toys originally served a dual purpose for nomadic Innu tribes. When travelling vast distances over challenging terrain, the people left nothing behind. They believed that "Crow" would take it away. Everyone, including young children, helped to transport essential goods. Innu women made intricate dolls from caribou hides and scraps of cloth. They filled the dolls with tea and gave them to young girls to carry on long journeys. The girls could play with the dolls while also carrying important goods. Every able-bodied person carried something. Men generally carried the heavier bags and women would carry young children.

### Traditional clothing, style and accessories

Men wore caribou pants and boots with a buckskin long shirt, all made by women. With the introduction of trade cloth from the French and English, people began replacing the buckskin shirts with ones made of cloth. Most still wore boots and pants made from caribou hide. Women wore long dresses of buckskin. Contemporary Innu women have often replaced these with manufactured pants and jackets. Women traditionally wore their hair long or in two coils. Men wore theirs long.

Both genders wore necklaces made of bone and bead. Smoke pipes were used by both genders, marked for women as shorter. If a man killed a bear, it was a sign of joy and initiation into adulthood and the man would wear a necklace made from the bear's claws.

### Housing

The houses of the Montagnais were cone shaped. The Naskapi made long, domed houses covered in caribou hides. These days the hearth is a metal stove in the centre of the house.

### Traditional foods

Animals traditionally eaten included moose, caribou, porcupine, rabbits, marten, woodchuck, squirrel; Canada geese, snow geese, brants, ducks, teal, loons, spruce grouse, woodcock, snipe, passenger pigeons, ptarmigan; whitefish, lake trout, salmon, Arctic char, seal (*naskapi*) pike, walleye, suckerfish (*Catostomidae*), sturgeon, catfish, lamprey, and smelt. Fish were eaten roasted or smoke-dried. Moose meat and several types of fish were also smoked. Bannock made from oats, introduced by the French in the 16th century, became a staple. Meat was eaten frozen, raw or roasted, and caribou was sometimes boiled in a stew. Pemmican was made with moose or caribou.

Plants traditionally eaten included raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, cherries, wild grapes, hazelnuts, crab apples, red martagon bulbs, Indian potato, and maple-tree sap for sweetening. Cornmeal was traded with Iroquois, Algonquin, and Abenaki First Nations peoples, and made into apon (cornbread), which sometimes also included oat or wheat flour when it became available. Pine-needle tea kept away infections and colds resulting from the harsh weather.

### Buckskin

Traditionally, buckskin was a most important material used for clothing, boots, moccasins, house covers and storage. Women prepared the hides and many of the products made from it. They scraped the hides to remove all fur, then left them outside to freeze. The next step was to stretch the hide on a frame. They rubbed it with a mixture of animal brain and pine needle tea to soften it. The dampened hide was formed into a ball and left overnight. In the morning, it would be stretched again, then placed over a smoker to smoke and tan it. The hide was left overnight. The finished hide was called buckskin.

## Transportation

In traditional Innu communities, people walked or used snow shoes. While people still walk and use snow shoes where necessary for hunting or trapping, many Innu communities rely heavily on trucks, SUVs, and cars; in Northern Innu communities, people use snowmobiles for hunting and general transportation.