Cree (culture or style)

Refers to the artwork produced by one of the major Algonquian-speaking North American Indian tribes, whose domain included a large area from east of the Hudson and James bays to as far west as Alberta and the Great Slave Lake in what is now Canada. Originally inhabiting a smaller area, they expanded rapidly in the 17th and 18th centuries acquiring firearms through the fur trade, although wars with the Dakota Sioux and Blackfoot, and a severe smallpox epidemic, greatly reduced their numbers. The name Cree is a truncated form of Kristineaux, a French adaptation of the self-name of the James Bay band.