Nakawe

The Nakawe, or Nakawē, are known in European records as the Saulteaux, the westernmost branch of the Ojibwe and part of the Anishinaabe family. The French name means people of the rapids, from their early home at Sault Ste. Marie on the St. Marys River; their oldest country runs along the wooded north shore of Lake Superior.

Hunters, fishers and wild-rice harvesters, they built birchbark canoes and trade networks and became partners to French and then British fur traders. From the 1780s trade drew them northwest: as Cree allies and middlemen they moved around Lake Winnipeg and up the Assiniboine River, joining the Iron Confederacy alongside the Cree, Assiniboine and Métis.

On the plains they adopted tipis and bison hunting on horseback. Three divisions took shape: the Ontario, Manitoba and Western Saulteaux, the last calling themselves Nakawē.