University of Ottawa Petun to Wyandot: The Ontario Petun from the Sixteenth Century

The book reflects the accumulated experience, knowledge and conclusions not only of visiting scholars but of several generations of researchers who actually lived in the former Petun homeland of the Blue Mountains and area, and who knew it with reasonable intimacy in all seasons and conditions. Formal ground surveys were undertaken over a number of years to relocate, confirm, and if necessary re-interpret archaeological sites recorded in the literature, during which several new sites were found. The evidence of pre-Iroquoian (Palaeo-Indian, Archaic) and pre-Petun Iroquoian (Pickering, Middleport, Lalonde) peoples in the historic Petun area were noted, together with evidence of the abundant intrusion of the Petun peoples ca. 1580-1600. Unexpectedly, several villages were found contemporary with the Petun but which were not part of the two evident south-to-north sequences of Petun villages within the Petun Country. The two sequences correspond well to the observation made in 1648 that the Petun then comprised two "Nations", the Wolf and the Deer Tribes. All accessible existing archaeological collections were restudied and limited excavations undertaken to supply deficiencies. The observations made by Samuel de Champlain, the Recollects and succeeding Jesuits among the Petun, as well as other creditable sources, were found to correspond well with the archaeological evidence. The work included following much of the post-1650 Dispersal route from the Blue Mountains to the present locations of descendants in south-west Ontario, southern Michigan, Kansas and Oklahoma, with the recognition of the dispersed Petun-Wyandot occupations at Rock Island, Wisconsin, and St. Ignace, northern Michigan.