History of the Ojibway Nation/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
THE COUNTRY ABOUT THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
The region of country from which the Mississippi derives its source, is covered with innumerable fresh and clear water lakes, connected with one another, and flowing into the "Father of Rivers" through rapid and meandering streams. All these lakes and streams abound with fish of the finest species and flavor. In Leech, Winnepeg, Cass, and other of the larger lakes, the whitefish are found equal in size to the celebrated whitefish in Lake Superior. And so are also the salmon trout which (curious enough) are to be found only in Puk-a-gum-ah and trout lakes. Mus-cal-longe have been found to grow to the great size of from four to six feet in length. Brook trout, sturgeon and catfish are not found in the waters of the Mississippi above the Falls of St. Anthony.
The shores of these beautiful lakes are lined with groves of the tall pine, and the useful maple from which the Indian manufactures sugar. The birch tree also abounds, from which the Ojibway has long been accustomed to procure the covering to his wigwam, and material for the formation of his ingeniously wrought canoe. In many of these lakes which lie clustered together within an area of several hundred miles, the wild rice grows in large quantities and most luxuriantly, affording the Indian an important staple of subsistence.
In former times this region of country abounded in buffalo, moose, deer, and bear, and till within thirty years past, in every one of its many water courses, the lodges of the valuable and industrious beaver were to be found.
Possessing these manifold advantages, this country has always been a favorite home and resort for the wild Indian, and over its whole extent, battle fields are pointed out where different tribes have battled for its possession.
The attention of the Ojibways was early directed to it. They found it in possession of the powerful and wide-spread Dakotas, whom after many years of severe fighting, they eventually forced to seek for new homes farther westward, and they in turn, took possession and have kept to this day the large and beautiful lakes which form the sources of the "Great River."
It is related by their old traditionists, that the boy whose father had died in his stead on the burning fagots of the cruel O-dug-am-ees (as has been related in a former chapter), grew up to be a man. The remembrance of his deep wrong made him a warrior. He never let pass an opportunity of taking revenge and letting his prowess be known among the enemies of his tribe. To him, war not only became a chief business in life, but a pastime, and having adopted the name of his murdered father, Bi-aus-wah, eventually became a noted war-leader and chief, and the first Ojibway pioneer to the country of the Upper Mississippi.
After the death of his father, he proceeded with his relatives to Fond du Lac, where he remained till middle age, and from which place he joined the war parties which marched against the Dakotas at Sandy Lake, on the St. Croix River and in the vicinity of Mille Lac. When he had earned in many a hard-fought battle, the admiration and confidence of his people, he sent his war-club, tobacco, and wampum belt of war, to the far-scattered bands of his tribe, inviting the warriors to collect at Fond du Lac by a certain day, and march with him, to put out the fire of the Dakotas at Sandy Lake.
Men from all the villages of the Ojibway responded to his call, and canoes laden with warriors arrived on the appointed day from Sault Ste. Marie, Grand Portage, La Pointe, and all the camps of the tribe within the area of the Great Lake. It is said that the train of warriors which followed Bi-aus-wah on this occasion, was so long, as they marched in their usual single file, that a person standing on a hill could not see from one extremity to the other. They marched against the Dakotas of Sandy Lake. They found the enemy collected in force, notwithstanding which, they made the attack, and after a severe fight, they (being armed with the murderous weapons of the pale face), ultimately forced them to retreat and evacuate their village.
Some years after, having struck repeated blows on this band of the Dakota tribe, Bi-aus-wah with many wigwams of his people, lit their fires and permanently located their village, first on the islands of the lake, but afterwards at the point which lies nearly opposite the mouth of East Savannah River.
From this central location, they gradually increased their conquests in western, northern, and southern directions, and drawn by the richness of the hunting grounds in this region of country, many families from Lake Superior, of both the northern and southern divisions of the tribe, who had separated two centuries before at Sault Ste. Marie, moved over, and joined this band of hardy pioneers, increasing their strength and causing them to be better able to withstand the powerful Dakotas, and gradually to increase their new possessions. Sandy Lake or Kah-me-tah-wung-a-guma, signifying "lake of the sandy waters," is the site of the first Ojibway village about the head-waters of the Mississippi.
It is from this point that the war parties proceeded, who eventually caused the Dakotas to evacuate their favorite seats at Leech, Winnepeg, Cass, and Red Lakes, and also from Gull Lake, Crow Wing, and the vicinity of Mille Lacs, as will be hereafter related in the regular course of our narrative.
It will not be amiss in this chapter to say a few words respecting the mounds which are everywhere to be met with throughout the entire region of country covered by sources of the Mississippi.
Having read the conflicting opinions of men who have casually passed through the country, and seen these apparent remains of the works of a former race, my attention was early drawn to this subject, and my inquiries among the more aged and intelligent men of the Ojibways have been most minute, and to my mind, satisfactorily answered.
Esh-ke-bug-e-coshe, whom I have already mentioned as the truth-telling and respected chief of the Pillagers, still living, and now in his seventy-eighth year, informs me that in the course of his lifetime he has made numerous war parties and peace visits to different tribes who live on the banks of the Upper Missouri River. He states, that a tribe who are known to the Ojibways by the name of Gi-aucth-in-in-e-wug, signify "men of the olden time," and named by the French, Gros Ventres, claim to have been formerly possessors of the country from which the Mississippi takes its rise. Their old men relate they were forced or driven from this country by the powerful Dakotas, who have in turn given way to the Ojibways, now its present possessors.
The Gros Ventres further stated to the Pillager chief, that their fathers lived in earthen wigwams, and the small remnant who have escaped the scourge of the scalping knife and smallpox, still live on the banks of the Missouri in these primitively constructed dwellings. This is an important fact in the early Indian history of Minnesota, and the writer has taken every pains to procure every account and circumstance which might conduce to prove its truth.
It will account at once for the numerous earthen mounds which are to be found at different points on the Upper Mississippi, as they may then be safely considered as the remains of the earthen lodges of these former occupants of this fair region.
Till of late years the Kniste-no and Assineboins were accustomed to send their war parties against the Gros Ventres and Arickarees, and the Ojibways were often induced to join them. They forced them to evacuate their earthen villages which were located on the east banks of the Missouri, and to select new homes further west, placing thereby this great river between them and their more powerful enemies.
But since the smallpox has swept them nearly all away, these allied tribes have taken pity on them, and they occasionally pay them peace visits, and even fight in their defence. In this manner a direct communication has arisen between the Ojibways and these remnants of far western tribes, which has been the means of saving from total oblivion many of their ancient traditions, and amongst the number, the fact of their former occupation of the great basin from which the Mississippi derives its sources.
Esh-ke-bug-e-coshe, who has often visited them in his younger days, terms them "relatives;" he describes their earthen wigwams, and says that they are more neat and cleanly than other Indians, from the fact of daily washing their bodies and using a certain kind of clay to whiten their skins. He says also, that formerly they used to raise small quantities of tobacco, the leaf of which, as obtained from them, was considered of great value, and for which their fellow Indians paid large prices. Peace parties of the Knistenos and Ojibways often proceeded hundreds of miles to visit their villages, chiefly for the purpose of procuring their much coveted tobacco leaf.
Wa-won-je-quon, the chief of the Red Lake Ojibways, relates that several years since, while on a visit to the earthen wigwams of the Gi-aucth-in-in-e-wug or Gros Ventres, he was informed by their old men, that the smoke of their village once arose in the vicinity of Sandy Lake. They showed him a piece of bark on which was very correctly marked the principal streams and lakes on the Upper Mississippi, and pointed him out, as the site of their former village, the entry of East Savannah River into the St. Louis, where the remains of their earthen lodges, now covered by a forest of trees, are still discernible.
Groups of these mounds are to be seen on all the principal lakes in the Upper Mississippi country. At Pukwah Rice Lake, near Sandy Lake, is a group numbering seventy of these mounds, now covered by a thick grove of maple trees. At the mouth of Pine River, which empties into the Mississippi above Crow Wing, there is a group of nineteen, in which bones have been discovered by the Ojibways.
At Gull Lake many of these mounds have also been seen by the writer. At one place there are two standing side by side, each over one hundred feet long and four feet high, and on the top of one stands a high pine tree which looks to be centuries old.
The numerous mounds on the shore of Mille Lacs are accounted for in Ojibway tradition, as the remains of the former earthen lodges of the Dakotas, whom their ancestors drove from this lake.
The mounds which are thickly scattered throughout the St Croix and Chippeway River region, are said by the Ojibways to be the remains of the former wigwams of their old enemies, the Odugamees.
In the vicinity of some of these mounds on Chippeway River, the writer has distinguished gardens and fields regularly laid out, in which even the rows of corn hills were still plainly discernible, clearly proving that the mounds scattered over this portion of country are not of such ancient origin as some speculative writers would have us believe.
The old men of the Ojibways affirm that nearly all the tribes of the red man who lived in an open prairie country, before the introduction of firearms among them, were accustomed to live in earthen wigwams as a protection and defence against the attacks of their enemies.[1]
Truly may it be said of all these Indians tribes, that their hand has been against every one, and every one's hand against them. They have lived in "fear and trembling" of one another, and oft has the sudden midnight attack extinguished for ever the fires of their wigwams. And for greater security against these sudden attacks, and continual state of warfare, first originated the earthen remains, over which now the white man's plow peacefully furrows.
From human bones being occasionally discovered in these mounds, most writers have been led to suppose them as the graves or burial places of distinguished chiefs.
The Indians account for them by saying that these former earthen wigwams were seldom evacuated without a struggle, which generally ended in the massacre of the inmates, and the bones now discovered buried within them are the remains of these former occupants.
The few mounds in which have been discovered human bones regularly deposited, in a position facing the west, may probably be considered as burial mounds; though this, too, may be accounted for, from the fact that of later years the Indians have occasionally buried their dead within these mounds, though this may not be considered as a prevalent custom, as they treat all remains of this nature with great respect, as objects consecrated to the memory of by-gone people and by-gone times.
The Ojibways assert in behalf of their tribe, that they have never been forced to live in earthen wigwams as a defence against their enemies, and none of the mounds which are thickly scattered over the country which they at present occupy west of Lake Superior, originate from or are the work of their ancestors. The country in which they have lived for the past five centuries is covered with dense forests, and plentifully supplied with large lakes, on the bosom of which lay islands, where in times of danger they could always pitch their light wigwams in comparative safety.
- ↑ Alexander Henry, a partner of the Northwest Company of Montreal, in 1806, visited the Gros Ventres at the junction of the Knife and Missouri Rivers. From a copy of his MS. Journal, owned by the writer of this note, the following is extracted. "These people, like their neighbors [Mandans], have the custom of washing morning and evening, and wallowing in the mud and clay which here answers the purpose of soap. . . . . . The huts are constructed as those of their neighbors, with this difference, the ground is dug out about four feet below the surface of the earth, which is much deeper than the others. . . . . . The inside of the huts are commonly kept clean, and day and night the young men are watching and sleeping upon the roofs. The tops of their huts are particularly level, large, and spacious, about fifty feet in circumference, and so supported by firm, stout, and principal posts which support square pieces of timber, as to sustain the weight of fifty men."—E.D.N.