Originally published in 1964 by the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology, this book is a compilation of the ethnographic data on the seventeenth-century Huron Indians contained in The Je suit Relations and in the writings of Samuel de Champlain and Gabriel Sagard. This study of the Hurons, who lived in the present province of Ontario, Canada, spans the period from 1615 to 1649, when they were defeated and dispersed by the Iroquois.
Topics covered include dress, modes of travel, trade, war, sociopolitical organization, subsistence activities, and religious beliefs and practices. The book is invaluable for indicating the cultural similarities and differences between the Hurons and the neighboring Northern Iroquoian cultures and for documenting evidence of cultural change. This first paperback edition also includes a new introduction by the author, in which she brings her work up to date by surveying developments in the study of the Huron ethnography between 1964 and the present.