History
We the People Called Quinnipiac
Prehistory
We, the People called “Quinnipiac”, are related to the Algonquian Family of Nations and we share similar language dialects as well as cultural traditions. The Algonquian language has various dialects that stem from two main branches: Proto-Algonquian and Proto-Eastern-Algonquian (the mother and sibling tongues, respectively).
The Algonquian Family consists of 84 Nations and over 12 Confederacies (according to the Center for Algonquian Culture (CAC)) which began to take shape in the Canadian Shield Region between 12,000 to 7,500 years BP (Before Present). This area of Eastern Canada lies along the shores of the major waterways known as the Hudson Bay, St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes. It gets its name from thousands of ancient rock-art (petroglyph) sites where a distinctive form of shields appear as round circles with protruding appendages such as heads, arms and feet.
In this region, the Algonquian language and culture began to take shape after the Ice Ages. The Paleo-Indian and Archaic-Indian periods of nomadic life were replaced with a plush new terrain, new tools, and new foods.
One of the oldest Algonquian people are the Beothuk, who were whalers and spear-fishers and had a typical type of a large 3-humped canoe. They were descendent from what scholars call “The Red Paint Maritime Culture.” Early chronicles of the Beothuk (circa 1501) by Gaspar Corte Real (who kidnapped and enslaved 57 Beothuk Indians from Newfoundland) described them in this way: “They are somewhat taller than our average person… their faces marked with great signs… The color of their skin must be said to be more white than anything else.” They spoke a dialect similar to ancient MicMac. I have found traces of this Archaic R-dialect in the MicMac, Beothuk and Loup A & B of Northern New England.
Ancient Algonquian prophets handed down a legacy known as “Seven Prophets & Seven fires.” It depicts the Algonquian ethos in seven stages of creation. The Creator made the first human from the earth as a giant and he is known by various names, yet these names are actual euphemisms for aspects of the Algonquian way of life.
These Prophecies say that the Mighty Thunderer (Pinessi/Animiki/Piessy) gave life to this first born stone-giant with his lightning-serpent-spear and then he sent fire as well.
This first-born was instructed by the Creator to build a sacred Spirit Fire and from this original fire seven sparks flew out and created seven men, then seven sparks flew out again creating seven women. They were the original parents of all mankind (negonijek oushwawog renawawk) and formed the original seven bands (family lineages). All of them were to meet annually at this central fire or mawiomi, this first Nation is known as the Thunder Clan.
The prophecies say that these seven bands would disperse in seven directions and each would begin their own mawiomi until it too had seven bands and so on down the line. Each mawiomi of seven bands equals one nation.
The Algonquians began to migrate until they covered one-third of North America. From Southern Labrador and Newfoundland and Nova Scotia all the way down to North Carolina; and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains above the American Bottoms region of the Ohio-Illinois Valley, where the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri waterways flowed.
The Algonquians were responsible for a vast trade system which used the Indian trails and major waterways as their highways. They used wolves and deer long before the horse to carry burdens. In the winter, they hunted deer, caribou, moose, and bear and trapped beaver and waterfowl, rabbits, etc.; and, in the summer, they fished for eel, scale-fish and shell-fish. In fact, the name Algonquian derives from a MicMac word which alludes to the tradition of spear fishing for eel at stone weirs (stone, wood or brush traps). Group hunts, known as surrounds, was another trait developed from the Ice Age where hunters pushed game over cliffs, but the Algonquians altered this to use streams instead of cliffs and they used clever chutes to corral their game.
The Algonquian culture revolves around tales of Giants and Little People (covered in several ACQTC publications) who personify the duality of the Giant Winter and Elfen Summer. Algonquians were primarily a maritime culture who had many types of canoes, even with sails, who settled on the coasts, lakes, rivers and streams in the summer; then, during the winter, they moved inland to the forests where oak trees provided acorns. These acorns were pounded into a meal; the acorns were also the favorite food for the white tail deer, wild turkeys and other small game animals who made winter survival possible.
One of the groups of the migrating Algonquians followed the St. Lawrence to the confluence of the Connecticut River at Quebec (Kebec) and they followed this (they called it Quinnehtukqut, the “long water estuary,” from which our State of Connecticut gets its name) to Long Island Sound where they discovered a giant fresh water lake and a falls ten times bigger than Niagara Falls. This is where our ancestors settled.
Traces of the archaic Algonquian R-dialect can be found in the oldest of the Algonquian Nations. Only the Munsee (Lenni Lenape Bear Clan) and the Quinnipiac spoke this dialect in Long Island Sound. The Powhatan in Virginia, the MicMac, Cheyenne, and a few others have traces of it but the Quinnipiac language is the closest to the original dialect.
History
