The Wendat, or Wyandot, lived along the Saint Lawrence River Valley in Canada before the 1600s. They were organized into different clans with a common culture and language. They lived primarily by farming crops of corn, squash and beans. They supplemented their diet with fish, deer meat and other game, roots, nuts and berries.

When the French came to North America to explore in the late 16^th century, the Wendat engaged in an active fur trade with them. But there were many wars among the Native nations, and about 1650 the Wendat were broken up into several groups that relocated to different areas. Samuel’s family was in a group that moved south into what is now Ohio, and eventually came to present-day Kansas.

You can find out which clan Samuel Grayhawk was in, and learn what his life was like as a Wendat boy in ‘Orion O’Brien and the Ghost of Samuel Grayhawk.’

Learn more about the history of the Wendat at

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/huron.

These are some of the animals pictured at the entrance of the Wyandot National Burying Grounds. They are not actual Wyandot traditional art, but they represent some of the Wyandot clans.