Innu

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Innu

Innu traders outside the Hudson's Bay Company trading post in Davis Inlet, Newfoundland and Labrador, 1903
Total population
27,755[1] (2016 census)
Regions with significant populations
Canada
Languages
Innu, Naskapi, English, French
Religion
Christianity, other
Related ethnic groups
Cree, Algonquin people, Naskapi, Atikamekw

The Innu / Ilnu ("man", "person") or Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh ("people"), formerly called Montagnais from the French colonial period (French for "mountain people", English pronunciation: /ˌmɔːntənˈjɛ/), are the Indigenous inhabitants of territory in the northeastern portion of the present-day province of Labrador and some portions of Quebec. They refer to their traditional homeland as Nitassinan ("Our Land", ᓂᑕᔅᓯᓇᓐ) or Innu-assi ("Innu Land").

Their ancestors were known to have lived on these lands as hunter-gatherers for several thousand years. To support their seasonal hunting migrations, they created portable tents made of animal skins. Their subsistence activities were historically centred on hunting and trapping caribou, moose, deer, and small game.

Their language, Ilnu-Aimun or Innu-Aimun (popularly known since the French colonial era as Montagnais),^[2] is spoken throughout Nitassinan, with certain dialect differences. It is part of the Cree language group, and is unrelated to the Inuit languages of other nearby peoples.

The "Innu / Ilnu" consist of two regional tribal groups with the Innus of Nutashkuan being the southernmost group and the Naskapi being the northernmost, which differ in dialect and partly also in their way of life and culture:

• the Ilnu, Nehilaw or "Western/Southern Montagnais" in the south, speak the "l"-dialect (Ilnu-Aimun or Nenueun/Neːhlweːuːn), and
• the Innu or "Eastern Montagnais" ("Central/Moisie Montagnais", "Eastern/Lower North Shore Montagnais", and "Labrador/North West River Montagnais") live further north; they speak the "n"-dialect (Innu-Aimun)

Both groups are still called "Montagnais" in the official language of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Development Canada. The Naskapi ("people beyond the horizon", ᓇᔅᑲᐱ), who live further north, also identify as Innu or Iyiyiw.

Today, about 18,000 Innu live in eleven settlements within reserves in Quebec and Labrador. To avoid confusion with the Inuit, who belong to the Eskimo peoples, today only the singular form "Innu / Ilnu" is used for the Innu, members of the large Cree-language family. The plural form of "Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh" has been abandoned.