Gathering reunites a once powerful nation

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When hundreds of descendants of the Huron Wendat confederacy gathered in Midland, Ont., it was for a homecoming that was three-and-a-half centuries in the making.

They reunited in their ancestral homeland on the southern shores of Georgian Bay on Aug. 28 after an absence of 350 years.

They came from far and wide, but from the moment they put their paddles in the river, confederacy members knew that, finally, they were travelling in the wake of their ancestors.

"My ancestors are here, I feel that," said Jim Bland, second chief of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma. His people were one of four groups of descendants of the Huron-Wendat people who were reunited.

They returned to the land known as Huronia from as far away as Alaska, Virginia, California, Michigan and Quebec. It was the first reunion of the Huron Wendat confederacy since their people were dispersed across the continent in 1649 by conflict, disease and famine.

The chiefs and clan mothers of the Wyandot from Kansas, the Huron Wendat of Wendake, Que., and the Wendats from Michigan, joined the Wyandottes of Oklahoma for a ceremonial canoe trip down the Wye River.

The canoes arrived at a landing place on the Wye River, below the hill-top Martyr's Shrine and a short walk from the reconstructed 17th century Sainte-Marie mission.

The shrine and the mission were built in memory of that fateful year, 1649, when the Jesuits died at the hands of the attacking Iroquois - and Wendat society disintegrated.

The exact number is not known, but it is estimated there are more than 10,000 descendants of the original confederacy living in the United States and Canada.

There are descendants among more than 50 different Indian nations, such as the Mohawk; the Seneca; the Shawnee; the Delaware; the Ottawa and the Navajo.

"Many years ago when our people left this beautiful land on the shores of Georgian Bay, our hearts were heavy, our people were very, very sad," said Janith English, chief of the Wyandot of Kansas. "Now we can give thanks to the Creator that this healing has taken place."

About 200 descendants wearing traditional dress paddled canoes along the river that was once their people's route to their hunting grounds.

On shore to welcome them was Chief Lorraine McRae of the Chippewas of Mnjikaning at the Rama Reserve near Orillia, Ont. Her people accepted from the fleeing Huron-Wendats the stewardship of the fish weir at Atherley Narrows near Orillia, she said.

"Our peoples met thousands of years ago and I feel so honored to be sharing in this homecoming," said McRae, as the Wendats symbolically reunited their nation by burning ashes from the ceremonial fires from their villages in Quebec, Michigan, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Spiritual leader Raymond Gros- Louis from the Wendat-Huron Nation of the Wendake reserve at Lorretville north of Quebec City, then led a prayer circle to celebrate the reunification of the confederacy.

Grand Chief Wellie Picard of the Wendat Huron Nation in Wendake told the crowd that the original Wendat confederacy was made up of four nations and had a population of 40,000 people spread out into about 20 villages.

In 1649, "a fateful year in our collective memory, this place witnessed the dispersal of our nations and the fall of one of the most powerful confederations of this continent," said Picard.

Cruelly stricken by epidemics, famines and conflict, they moved away from this country of origin, he said.

"I am happy to walk on our ancestors' soil, to be able, with my loved ones, to weave friendship ties with the proud descendants of those who were, in times past, the undisputed masters of these premises," he said.