Canada

Canada is home to many Indigenous peoples, including Cree, Anishinaabe, Wendat and Haudenosaunee communities. Their body arts and clothing vary across forests, waterways, grasslands and northern regions.

The seventeenth-century fur trade connected Indigenous nations with French, Dutch and English traders. Canoes carried furs along rivers, linking inland communities with distant ports. Trade, alliances and European rivalries reshaped local relationships.

The Wendat were important French allies, while Haudenosaunee nations developed strong ties with Dutch and later English traders. Epidemics and warfare brought terrible losses. Attacks in 1648–1649 shattered the Wendat homeland, but survivors established new lives and the people endured.

Tattooed portraits, ornaments and ceremonial gatherings show another side of those histories. Cree communities included bison hunters on the Plains and people living far beyond them. Their varied appearance reflected different ways of life, not one common Canadian Indigenous style.