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The 'Chipewyan' are an Aboriginal people in Canada. The Chipewyan live in the Arctic regions of Canada around Hudson Bay, including Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. The group also inhabits northern parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. There are roughly 6,000 Chipewyan.
Historically the Chipewyan were somewhat allied to the southerly Cree and warred against Inuit and Dene peoples to the north of their lands.
The Dene Suline language is part of the Athabaskan linguistic group - those First Nations whose name for themselves is a cognate of the word ''Dene'' ("people"): 'Denésoliné' (or 'Dënesųłiné'). The name ''Chipewyan'' is, like many people of the Canadian prairies, of Algonquian origin. It is derived from the Plains Cree name for them, ''Cīpwayān'' (''ᒌᐘᔮᐣ''), "pointed skin", from ''cīpwāw'' (''ᒌᐚᐤ''), "to be pointed"; and ''wayān'' (''ᐘᔮᐣ''), "skin" or "hide" - a reference to the cut and style of Chipewyan parkas.^[1] Many Chipewyan believe that the name is derogatory, a fairly common belief about names among Canadian First Nations, and not necessarily true historically (See ''Eskimo'' for an example.)
Despite the superficial similarity of the names, the Chipewyan are not related to the Chippewa (Ojibwa) people.
An important historic Chipewyan is Thanadelthur ("Marten Jumping"), a young woman who early in the 18th century helped her people to establish peace with the Cree, and to get involved with the fur trade (Steckley 1999).

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References

1. Campbell, Lyle (1997). ''American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pg. 395

External links

★ Official website

★ Chipewya