Wabanaki

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Wabanaki, Wabenaki, Wobanaki, etc. may refer to:

In geography

• area referred as the "Dawn land" by many Algonquian-speaking peoples to describe the oriental region of the North American continent, generally described as being New England in the United States, plus Quebec and the Maritimes in Canada

In ethnology

• people located in the Wabanaki region, used to mean either "dawn land people" or "easterner."
• people speaking one of the Eastern Algonquian languages
• synonym for the Wabanaki Confederacy, a Native American alliance located in the northern Wabanaki region
• members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, consisting of:
  • Abenaki
  • Penobscot
  • Maliseet
  • Passamaquoddy
  • Mi'kmaq

In history

• The Wabanaki ancestral homeland stretches from Newfoundland, Canada, to the Merrimac River valley in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Following the European invasion in the early 1600s, this became a hotly contested borderland between colonial New England and French Acadia. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Wabanaki defended their homeland in many bloody wars. During this period, their population was not only radically decimated due to many decades of warfare, but also because of famines and devastating epidemics.^[1]

In culture

• the term "Abenaki" is often misused to mean "Wabanaki." Abenakis are just one member of the Wabanakis.
• Camp Wabanaki, a YMCA camp
• Wabanaki Campground in New Hampshire
• Wabanaki Area Scouting, New Brunswick

"Wabanaki" in various indigenous languages

This section requires expansion.

Depending on the literature and the reference language the author/speaker uses, the term "Wabanaki" may be presented in many different ways. In addition, often "Easterner" (literally: "Dawn person") and "Wabanaki" (literally: "Dawn-land person") are used synonymously by some Algonquian language-speaking groups.

References