Concerning their intertribal organization, the Algon-quians commonly formed confederacies, such as the Abenaki Confederacy, the Wappinger Confederacy, and the Powhatan Confederacy. These alliances were not as structured as the Iroquois League, which had an intricate system of laws governing tribal interaction, but rather loose networks of villages and bands; they traded together and helped one another in times of war. These confedera-cies typically had a grand sachem with greater authority than regular sachems. Among some peoples the lesser sachems in charge of a particular village or band were known as sagamores. In some instances, the grand sachem served as little more than a mediator between the sag-amores during intertribal councils. In other cases, as with
the Powhatan of Virginia, the grand sachem was more like a king, having absolute power.
But not all Algonquian tribes were part of a confeder-acy with a grand sachem. In the Great Lakes area, it was more common to have two chiefs for each tribe, the peace chief and the war chief. The first was usually a hereditary position, passed on from father to son. The second was chosen for his military prowess in times of war. Some tribes also had a third leader, the ceremonial leader. He was the tribe’s shaman, or medicine man, and was in charge of religious and healing rituals.
For the Algonquian tribes of northern Canada, the band was the most important political unit. These peoples moved around so much in small hunting groups that they had little social organization other than the extended fam-ily—parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, and in-laws.
Many of these bands met with one another once a year for a communal celebration, and then their various leaders met as equals.
The family played an important part in Algonquian society. Many tribes were organized into clans, clusters of related families traced back to a common ancestor. Tribes tracing descent through the female line are called matri-lineal; those tracing back through a male line are called patrilineal. Clans usually had favorite animals as names and symbols to distinguish them from one another; these are called totems. The animal totems were thought of as spiritual guardians or supernatural ancestors.
Tribes often organized their clans into two different groups, called moieties, meaning “halves.” These moieties would be responsible for different duties and chores. They would also oppose each other in sporting events. Clans, totems, and moieties were common to Indians all over North America, not just to Algonquians.
Food
Most of the year, in spring, summer, and fall, Algon-quians lived in villages, typically located along rivers, where they grew crops. Corn was the staple food for the farming tribes; beans and squash also provided nourish-ment. In the wintertime, Algonquians left the villages in small bands to track game. For some of the Algonquian peoples of Canada, the soil was too rocky to break up with wood, bone, or antler digging sticks. They had to depend on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants for all their food. These northern peoples covered greater distances than their kin to the south. The Algonquians did not raise domestic animals for meat or wool as mod-ern farmers do, but they did have trained dogs who helped them hunt.
Algonquians hunted whatever game they could, large or small. All the Algonquians hunted deer, rabbit, squir-rel, beaver, and various birds, such as turkey, partridge, duck, and goose. Algonquians in the northern woods also hunted moose, elk, and bear. Some lived far enough north to track caribou herds as well. And some Algon-quians living near the prairies of the Mississippi River valley hunted buffalo.
Before Europeans brought the horse to North America, Native Americans had to hunt on foot. In addition to spears, arrows, and clubs, they used traps, snares, and deadfalls, devices that drop heavy objects on the prey. And they sometimes used disguises, such as animal skins; ani-mal calls, such as a birch-bark instrument to lure moose;
and fire, to drive herds into an ambush.
Algonquians also fished the rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds in their territory. They used harpoons, hooks, nets, traps, and weirs (fencelike enclosures placed in the water).
Algonquians living along the Atlantic Coast depended on shellfish for part of their warm-weather diet. A common method of preserving both fish and meat was hanging it over a fire and letting smoke penetrate it for a long time.
Fish and meat smoked this way could be kept through the winter or taken on long journeys.
All Algonquian peoples ate wild plants: berries, nuts, roots, stalks, and leaves. Algonquians living in maple country collected the sap from the trees in early spring and boiled it down into maple syrup and sugar. Some tribes living along the Great Lakes gathered the grain of a tall grass plant known as wild rice.
Many of the foods of the Algonquians were unknown to Europeans before they came to North America. From the Algonquians, non-Indians first learned to eat corn, pumpkin, maple sugar, wild rice, cranberries, blueberries, lobster, clams, and oysters.
Houses
Algonquians lived in many different types of structures, but the dwelling most often associated with them is the wigwam. The typical wigwam frame consisted of small trees bent and tied together in a dome shape and covered with strips of birch bark that were sewn together. But some Algonquians did not round off the framework; rather, they propped the saplings together to form a cone resembling a small tipi. And where birch bark was not available, they might use another bark, such as elm, to make the cover-ings. Or they might weave some other plant matter, such as cattail reeds, into mats that also served to keep out rain, snow, and wind. Or they might use animal skins as the Plains Indians did on their tipis. Or they would use various
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combinations. The men usually built the framework, then the women added the coverings.
Swampgrass and animal furs made good insulation for the wigwams. Branches covered with hides served as floors and beds. All the different-shaped Algonquian dwellings had holes in their roofs to let smoke out.
Some Algonquians also constructed large rectangular buildings similar to the Iroquoian longhouses. These might serve as places where the tribal council met. Or a family might choose to use one of these roomy and airy structures as their home. On the trail, of course, the smaller, portable structures with removable coverings were more practical. Algonquian villages often had pal-isades of upright logs surrounding them for protection.
Like other Indian peoples, Algonquians constructed special buildings for sweating. These sweathouses were often dome-shaped like a wigwam. Water would be poured over hot rocks to make steam for the purpose of purifying the body and spirit. Afterward, the individual would typically take a dip in a stream, lake, or snow-bank.
Transportation
The Algonquians have a special place in the Native American legacy because of their birch-bark canoes (other peoples in western Canada also used birch-bark canoes). These remarkably light, swift, and graceful craft are probably, along with the Plains Indians tipi,
warbon-net, and peace pipe, the most well known of all Indian objects. Using the network of rivers and lakes, Algon-quians could travel throughout their territory to hunt, fish, trade, and make war. They could use more than one waterway by portaging their light canoes overland from one body of water to another. And on the trail, the canoes could be used as makeshift lean-tos to provide shelter from the elements.
These canoes were made in a variety of sizes, materi-als, and styles: with a low bow and stern, offering little wind resistance, for calm waters; or with high ends, which could slice through large waves, for rough waters (such as the Great Lakes). They differed in size: A small river canoe could be paddled by one or two persons, whereas large lake canoes could be handled by eight or 10 persons, four or five to a side. Cedar, which could be split easily and evenly and which held up well in water, was normally used for the framework. Then the bark of the paper birch would be peeled off the tree in large sheets. The paper birch had few imperfections on its sur-face. Moreover, birch bark did not shrink or stretch. The pieces of bark would be sewn together with spruce roots and shaped around the cedar frame. Then the resins of spruce trees would be spread on the seams to waterproof them. Maple was the wood of choice for the thwarts, the braces that extended from side to side and held the gun-wales, or sides, together. Maple was also used to make paddles.
When birch bark was not available, Algonquians sometimes used the heavier elm bark or spruce bark on their boats, or even moose hide. Or they hollowed out the trunk of a single tree to make a dugout canoe. Large dugouts proved more durable in the open sea for those Algonquians along the Atlantic Coast who went on whaling expeditions.
In wintertime, Subarctic Algonquians used toboggans.
Unlike Inuit sleds with runners, toboggans have platforms for people or possessions resting directly on the snow. The platform was made of smooth planks curved upward at the front end. Northern Algonquians also used snowshoes to travel in deep snow. Spruce, birch, or willow was usually used to make the snowshoes’ oval-shaped frame, with rawhide webbing strung in between.
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Algonquian wigwam
Algonquian (Chippewa) birch-bark canoe
Clothing
Algonquians made use of buckskin more than any other material for clothing, especially the hide of the whitetailed deer. Moose, elk, and caribou, also of the deer family, pro-vided some tribes with materials for their garments. The hides were cured to make soft leather. Men wore shirts, breechcloths, leggings, and moccasins. Women wore either skirts and blouses or dresses, plus moccasins. Algonquian clothing often had short fringes hanging from the seams and edges. Both men and women wore fur robes for extra warmth in the winter. They also wore belts and sashes of cured leather or woven plant material.
Both men and women decorated their clothing with quillwork. The quills of the porcupine would be soaked and softened in water and then dyed with vegetable color-ing. Paint, feathers, shells, and moosehair embroidery were also used to add color and designs to clothing. After Euro-peans came, the Algonquians began using glass beads in addition to quills and shells. Beadwork also replaced stone and shell in the making of some jewelry.
Women often wore their hair in braids and decorated it with a small cap or a band of shells. Men usually went bareheaded in order to show off their hair. They wore their hair in a variety of styles, depending on individual taste. Hair for Algonquians, as for other Native Ameri-cans, was a symbol of selfhood and strength.