the Isle (Allumette) and the Nipissings,
both Algonquin tribes, mentioned in a previous chapter. They were
chiefly hunters and fishermen, although the former cultivated some
patches of ground. On Georgian Bay we come to a nation speaking one of
the dialects of a language quite distinct from that {116} of the
Algonquins. These were Hurons, numbering in all some twenty thousand
souls, of whom ten thousand or more were adults, living in thirty-two
villages, comprising seven hundred dwellings of the same style as
Cartier saw at Hochelaga. These villages were protected by stockades
or palisades, and by some natural features of their situation--a river,
a lake, or a hill. Neither the long houses nor the fortifications were
as strongly or as cleverly constructed as those of the Iroquois.
Maize, pumpkins, and tobacco were the principal plants cultivated.
Sunflowers were also raised, chiefly for the oil with which they
greased their hair and bodies. Their very name meant "Shock-heads"--a
nickname originating from the exclamation of some Frenchmen, when they
first saw their grotesque way of wearing their hair, "_Quelles hures!_"
(What a head of hair!) Champlain speaks of a tribe whom he met after
leaving Lake Nipissing, in 1615, and called the _Cheveux Releves_, or
people with the stiff hair, but they were wandering Algonquins.
Champlain called the Hurons, Attigouantans, though their true name was
Ouendat, afterwards corrupted to Wyandot, which still clings to a
remnant of the race in America.

They were brave and warlike, with perhaps more amiable qualities than
the more ferocious, robust Iroquois. The nation appears to have been a
confederacy of tribes, each of which was divided into clans or _gentes_
on the Iroquois principle, which I shall shortly explain. Two chiefs,
one for peace and one for war, assisted by a council of tribal chiefs,
{117} constituted the general government. Each tribe had a system of
local or self-government--to use a phrase applicable to modern federal
conditions--consisting of chiefs and council. The federal organisation
was not, however, so carefully framed and adjusted as that of their
kin, the Iroquois. At council meetings all the principal men attended
and votes were taken with the aid of reeds or sticks, the majority
prevailing in all cases. The whole organisation was essentially a
democracy, as the chiefs, although an oligarchy in appearance, were
controlled by the voices and results