Chapter IV
WINTER WITH THE POTAWATOMIS
The Potawatomis rode hard for several days against a biting northwest wind. Finally they stopped on the banks of the Au Sable River, in a wide valley protected by rolling hills. It was an ideal camp site because the hills protected the Indians from bitter winter winds.
Several families had already arrived. Wahbunou told Jim that these people were members of another clan in his tribe. His clan, the Golden Carp, always tried to return to this camp to hear news of their relatives and to share in the tribe’s winter sports.
The women began immediately setting up wigwams. These they made with poles fastened to the ground in a circle, and the tops drawn together in a cone. They covered this framework with their aquapois, or reed mats made of cattail flags, to shut out snows and winter winds.
The men rested a few days, then decided to go on a short hunting trip to get fresh meat. Early in the morning of the hunt, the men painted their faces with the vermilion, which Jim had first seen on Wahbunou’s face.
“Wahbunou,” Jim said, “why are the men painting their faces?”
Wahbunou turned from watching his father prepare for the trip. “They always wear it, Jim, when they go hunting or riding for a war raid. The day you found me in your country, I was on a hunting trip with my father and the other men. But I became separated from the rest. I was trying to catch up with them when I was brushed off my horse and broke my shoulder.”
“Do you usually hunt near our farm?”
“Oh, no. That was the farthest south and east we had ever ridden. But hunting wasn’t good in the places we knew. If you had not found me I would have died, because my people did not miss me until they returned to camp.”