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Abstract
This article places the seventeenth-century Wendat-Algonquian alliance with the context of North American systems of power. It explores this multi-dimensional relationship through military campaigns, political agreements and trade initiatives. We conclude with a discussion of the ways in which circular societies, such as the Wendat-Algonquian, can serve as a model for the modem Canadian community to re-connect with Mother Earth.
Résumé
Cet article examine l'alliance Wendat-Algonquine dans le contexte militaire Nord-Américain. On y explore différents aspects (militaires, politiques, commerciaux) de cette alliance complexe. Nous terminons en soutenant que de telles sociétés peuvent servir de modèle afin que la communauté canadienne d'aujourd'hui se rattache à la Mère Terre.
Introduction
Alliance making and maintaining became fundamental to the traditional system of North American networks. Examples such as the Georgian Bay Wendat (Huron) confederacy are often introduced as coalitions designed for defense or offense of two or more autonomous nations who engaged in a compact or "formal statement of principles to govern separate and collective action" (Hodge, 1959, pp.337-338). These political leagues acted under one supreme council that included representatives from the contracting nations who surrendered to the confederacy various powers and rights that they had previously exercised individually. Alternatively, so-called "looser" alliances also existed between more nomadic groups, or nations seeking temporary truces during times of uncertainty (Hodge, 1959, pp. 337-338).
Investigations into the nature of these alliances have furthered our understanding of how and why they were created, maintained or abandoned. George Hunt (1940) and Daniel Richter (1992) have explored the collective economic aspirations of the seventeenth-century Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, for instance. Alternatively, Gregory Dowd (2000) has looked into the eighteenth-century pan-Indian alliance of Pontiac in order to demonstrate the importance of spiritual affiliation in this process. In general, scholars tend to emphasize the similar aspects of these coalitions in order to make sense of the factors that connected them. Features such as cultural similarities, trade motivations and Amerindian belief systems are the most prominent among these. By highlighting the similarities, however, important aspects of these unions are often overlooked.
Take the case of the Haudenosaunee, a group that has often confused scholars in that they seemed to continuously be at odds with so many of their Nadouek (or Iroquoian) neighbors despite their cultural...