Everything about Illiniwek totally explained
» For the former mascot/symbol of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, see Chief Illiniwek.
The
Illiniwek (also known as the
Illini,
Illinois Confederacy) were a group of six
Native American tribes in the upper
Mississippi River valley of
North America. The tribes were the
Kaskaskia, the
Cahokia, the
Peoria, the
Tamaroa,
Moingwena,
Michigamea, Albiui, Amonokoa, Chepoussa, Chinkoa, "Coiracoentanon," Espeminkia, Maroa, Matchinkoa, Michibousa, Negawichi and Tapouara.
History
When
French explorers first journeyed to the region from
Canada in the early
17th century, they found the area inhabited by a vigorous, populous
Algonquian nation. What we know today about the Illiniwek comes to us mainly from the
Jesuit Relations. The
Relations were the reports which these missionaries who lived among the various native nations sent back to their superiors in France.
The name "Iliniwek" is an old
Ojibwe word borrowed into
French as "Illinois." The modern Ojibwe word is
ininiweg, from /inin/ meaning "regular, ordinary, plain," /we/ meaning "to speak," joined with a connector vowel /i/, and an animate plural suffix /g/, which when combined means "those who speak in the ordinary way, regular way." In turn, this word was borrowed by Ojibwe from the
Illinois language, from an original verb
irenweewaki, which means "they speak in the regular way" or "they speak Illinois." However, due to a similar sounding word in old Ojibwe—
iliniwak (singular as
ilini; modern words
ininiwag and
inini respectively) meaning "men"—the name have been commonly mistranslated as "men," "proud men," "people," etc. The Illinois Tribes' name for themselves was 'Inoka', as documented in the French Jesuit dictionaries of Illinois. The Illinois themselves spoke various subdialects of the
Miami-Illinois language, a member of the
Algonquian language family.
In the seventeenth century, the Illiniwek suffered from a combination of European diseases and the expansion of the
Iroquois into the eastern
Great Lakes:(more near the Lake Michigan) region. The Iroquois had hunted out their traditional lands and sought more productive hunting and trapping areas. They needed these furs to purchase European trade goods, upon which they'd grown dependent.
According to a story recorded by historian
Francis Parkman in
The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851), a terrible war of retaliation against the Illiniwek resulted from the 1769 murders of the
Ottawa war chief
Pontiac by a Peoria warrior. According to the tale, the Peorias were practically wiped out as a result at what is now
Starved Rock State Park. This legend was debunked by historian
Howard Peckham in 1947, although it's still sometimes repeated in non-scholarly sources. There is no evidence that there were any reprisals for Pontiac's murder.
Present day
As a consequence of the
Indian Removal Act, the descendants of the Illiniwek are now found in
Ottawa County, Oklahoma, as the
Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Illiniwek'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://illiniwek.totallyexplained.com">Illiniwek Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
