HURON. This French epithet, meaning bristle-head or ruffian, was applied to a group of Indians calling themselves Wendat, whence Wyandot. They belonged to the Iroquoian family but were bitter enemies of the Iroquois, who between the visits of Cartier in and Champlain in 1603 drove part of the Hurons from St. Lawrence river westward into Ontario, where kindred tribes seem to have been already resident. About 1590 four of these tribes, the Bear, Cord, Rock and Deer people, established a confederacy which included also a number of smaller or dependent tribes. The confederacy numbered perhaps 20,000 souls. The Huron received the French as friends and the missionaries made many converts ; but the old warfare with the Iroquois went on. In 1648-50 Iroquois invasions completely broke up the confederacy, thousands of Hurons being killed, others taken captive or forced to settle among their conquerors, and the remnants driven west. These fragments drifted back and forth between Michigan, Wis consin, Ontario, Ohio and Quebec, in alliance or conflict with many tribes, some of them also victims of the Iroquois. There remain about Soo Huron at Lorette in Quebec and 50o Wyandot in Oklahoma ; but there is probably considerable Huron blood incorporated among the Iroquois and other tribes. The culture was similar to that of the Iroquois (q.v.).