Petun to Wyandot: The Ontario Petun from the Sixteenth Century

Chapter 2: Locating the Petun Country

55 Chapter 2 Locating the Petun Country 2.0 Introduction The area known as ‘the Petun Country’ is where the Petun (Wyandot) peoples lived for about 70 years between about A.D.1580 and 1650.It was the name used by the Rev.Arthur E.Jones (1909:221,235) for what might be more properly termed the‘Petun Archaeological Zone.’The term was adopted by Collingwood historian, postmaster, and Board of Trade President, the late Joseph N. Bourrie (1944, 1949) in two articles that he published to promote knowledge of the Petun Indians in the area of Collingwood,Ontario.The location of the Petun Country is known from contemporary and later maps,and distance,directional and descriptive information given in contemporary French sources. 2.1 Physical Geography The physical geography of the Petun Country incorporates a number of dramatic features. The highest point on the Niagara cuesta is at the north end and western margin of the Petun Country, an area known as the Blue Mountains, formerly the Blue Hills (Chapman and Putnam 1973:124,179) or Egg Hills (Williams 1914:20).In descending sequence from the highest elevations of the Escarpment, which reach an elevation of 1,790 feet above sea level, or some 1, 200 feet above Georgian Bay, the most prominent features are, in part, the Corn Hill Moraine,the inland post-glacial LakeAlgonquin beach ridges,the LakeAlgonquin floor and the Nipissing Beach shore ridge, the Nipissing Lake floor lowland, the present beach level, and Nottawasaga Bay of Lake Huron (Figure 2.1). The Escarpment, moraines, plains, and beaches are transected by numerous river and stream valleys which today often carry relatively insignificant streams, but in valleys and channels of depths and widths which are testimony to the power of the glacial melt-water run-off at the end of the Wisconsin Ice Sheet period. E.J. Chapman (1860) described the geology of the Blue Mountain Escarpment. Lyman J. Chapman and Donald F. Putnam (1949, 1973) have briefly described the Petun area between the Niagara Escarpment to the west and the Nottawasaga Basin to the east as “Simcoe Lowlands,” shaped by various recessions of the Wisconsin glacier and resulting moraines and deposits of sand and gravel. Andrew F.Hunter (1906) made a study of the recessional beach ridges or“raised shorelines” on the Blue Mountain Escarpment. Samuel de Champlain’s description of the southern part of the Petun Country has been variously translated into English as“The country is full of hill slopes and little level stretches which make it a pleasant country/land” (Champlain 1929: 96, 1932: 279), and “Theirs is a pretty country, with green fields and pleasant hills” (Champlain 1971: 64).These are good descriptions of the character of the southern part of the Petun Country once occupied by 56 LOCATING THE PETUN COUNTRY Figure 2.1 Petun Country geography. CHARLES GARRAD 57 the PetunWolf, in contrast to the steeper and more dramatic elevations to the north in the former area of the Petun Deer, now Ontario’s prime ski country. The relationship of the locations of Petun village sites to the physical geography of the Petun Country was studied in 1971 by Lynda Dianne Davidge of York University under the supervision of Dr. Conrad E. Heidenreich (Davidge 1971). Davidge concluded that: Since these people [the Petun] practiced slash and burn agriculture, the location of their villages reflects the selection of certain soils for the production of corn, beans, squash and tobacco.They appear to have recurrently selected loam soils. Other factors which exerted locational influences include slope and water.The criteria which the Petun utilized in the selection of a village site appears to be similar to those which were observed by the Jesuits…in Huronia… Generally,villages were frequently situated where the soils were lightly textured,on elevated ground and close to a supply of water. (Davidge 1971: iii, 4) In the Petun Country lightly textured soils,elevated ground,and slope sufficient for drainage usually occur together along the tops of former post-glacial beach ridges. The suitability of some of the soils in the Petun Country for the production of corn, beans, squash, and tobacco is confirmed or at least implied archaeologically. Corn, with a preference for Eastern Eight-Row cobs, has been identified on all 17 Petun village sites from which the recovered floral remains have been analysed. Beans and squash have also been identified on a number...