Swampy Cree


The Swampy Cree people, also known by their autonyms Néhinaw, Maskiki Wi Iniwak, Mushkekowuk, Maškékowak or Maskekon or by exonyms including West Main Cree, Lowland Cree, and Homeguard Cree, are a division of the Cree Nation occupying lands located in northern Manitoba, along the Saskatchewan River in northeastern Saskatchewan, along the shores of Hudson Bay and adjoining interior lands south and west as well territories along the shores of Hudson and James Bay in Ontario. They are geographically and to some extant culturally split into two main groupings, and therefore speak two dialects of the Swampy Cree language, which is a "n-dialect":
The Swampy Cree's first recorded contact was in 1682 at the mouth of the Nelson and Hayes rivers in northern Manitoba by an Hudson's Bay Company party travelling about inland.

First Nations

Historically, the Cree nations in the central part of the Cree continuum were classified by their relationship to Hudson Bay and James Bay: Lowland Cree who were found along the coast, Lowland Cree who seasonally transitioned between the coast and the interior, and the Upland Cree in the deep interior who often were intermixed with the Ojibwe. West of these Lowland and Upland Cree were the Woodland and Plains Cree. Linguistically, the Cree are divided by their general language features, where the Cree nations in the central part of the Cree continuum are classified as "th-Cree", "n-Cree" and "l-Cree", from west to east; Cree traditionally associated with the Woodland Cree make no distinction between "s" and "š", while the Lowland and Upland Cree do. Today, together with the "n-Cree" dialect-speaking Woodland Cree, those who live in the Lowlands and Uplands who speak the "n-Cree" dialect are called "Swampy Cree", but culturally Moose Cree and other peoples of the Upland including the Oji-Cree occasionally self-identify as being "Swampy Cree".