HURON

Iroquoian-speaking North American Indians who lived along the St. Lawrence River when it was discovered by French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534. The Huron lived in villages, sometimes palisaded, consisting of large, bark-covered dwellings that housed several families who were related through maternal descent. The Huron practiced agriculture; men cleared the fields, which were then planted, tended, and harvested by women. Crops included corn (maize), beans, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco. Hunting and fishing were of lesser importance. The Huron were divided into exogamous clans, each headed by a clan chief; all of the clan chiefs of a village formed a council, which, with the village chief, decided civil affairs. Villages were grouped into bands (each of which had a band chief and a band council, consisting of village chiefs, to deal with civil matters affecting the entire band), and all of the bands constituted the Huron nation. A tribal council of band chiefs and their councils dealt with matters concerning the whole tribe. Women were influential in Huron affairs, clan matrons having the responsibility of selecting the political leaders. The Huron were bitter enemies of tribes of the Iroquois League (q.v.; Iroquois Confederacy), with whom they competed in the fur trade. Before the 17th century the Iroquois drove some Hurons from the St. Lawrence River westward into Ontario, where related groups seem to have already been resident; four of these bands (the Rock, Cord, Bear, and Deer peoples) formed a confederacy called the Wendat (q.v.), but it was destroyed by Iroquois invasions in 164850. The survivors were either captured and forced to settle among their conquerors or driven west. The latter remnants drifted back and forth between Michigan, Wisconsin, Ontario, Ohio, and Quebec, in alliance or conflict with many tribes. They gradually reestablished some influence in Ohio and Michigan, but whites eventually forced them to sell their lands and migrate to Kansas and then to Oklahoma. city, seat of Beadle county, east central South Dakota, U.S., on the James River. Named for the Huron Indians, it was established in 1879 as a division headquarters of the Chicago and North Western Railway. Since 1898 it has been the seat of Huron University, which opened at Pierre in 1883 and later moved to Huron. The city's economy depends on diversified agriculture (based on the Missouri Basin Development Plan, enacted 1944) and allied activities. Its income is augmented by tourism in the pheasant-hunting season and by the South Dakota State Fair, held there annually in September. Huron is the hometown of the U.S. political leader and vice president Hubert H. Humphrey (191178), and the location of his family's pharmacy. Inc. 1883. Pop. (1990) 12,448; (1994 est.) 12,494.