The Indians, to whom the rising of the sap in its capillary vessels in the rock-maple is the sign of a sort of carnival, are now in the midst of their season of sugar-making. It is one of their old customs to move, men, women, children, and dogs, to their accustomed sugar-forests about the 20th of March. Besides the quantity of maple-sugar that all eat, which bears no small proportion to all that is made, some of them sell a quantity to the merchants. Their name for this species of tree is In-in-au-tig, which means man-tree.
April 5th. PEACE POLICY.--The agent from La Pointe, in Lake Superior, writes: "My expressman from the Fond du Lac arrived on the 31st of last month, by whom I learned that the Leech Lake Indians were unsuccessful in their war excursion last fall, not having met with their enemies, the Sioux, and I trust my communication with Mr. Aitkin will be in time to check parties that may be forming in the spring.
"The state of the Indians throughout the country is generally in a critical way of starvation, the wild-rice crops and bear-hunts having completely failed last fall."
21st. REVIVAL OF RELIGION AT MACKINAC.--My brother James, who crossed the country on snow-shoes, writes: "Mr. Stuart, Satterlee, Mitchell, Miss N. Dousman, Aitken, and some twenty others, have joined Ferry's church." This may be considered as the crowning point of the Reverend Mr. Ferry's labors at that point. This gentleman, if I mistake not, came up in the same steamer with me seven years ago. It is seed--seed literally sown in the wilderness, and reaped in the wilderness.
29th. MONEY CRISIS.--"The fact is," says a person high in power, "the fiscal concerns of the department have come to a dead stand, and nothing remains but to ascertain the arrearages, and pay them up. You well know how all this has happened (by diversions and misappropriations of the funds at Washington). Such management you can form no conception of. There will be, during the year, a thorough change.
"I was glad to see your article. It is an able, and temperate, and practical view of the subject (N.A.R., Ap. 1829), grossly exaggerated, and grossly misunderstood."
May 19th. IDEA OF LAKE TIDES.--Maj. W. writes: "If you see Silliman's Journal, you will observe an article on the subject of the Lake Tides, as Gen. Dearborn calls them, in which he has inserted some hasty letters I wrote to him on this subject, without, however, ever expecting to see them in such a respectable guise. The Governor made some more extended observations at Green Bay. If you can give anything more definite in relation to the changes of Lake Superior, pray let me have a letter, and we will try to spread before Mr. Silliman a better view of the case. I have no idea that anything in the shape, of a tide exists, The Governor is of the same opinion."
To these opinions I can merely add, Amen. It requires more exactitude of observation than falls to the lot of casual observers, to upset the conclusions of known laws and phenomena.
26th. NEW INDIAN CODE.--Mr. Wing, the delegate in Congress, forwards to me a printed copy of the report of laws proposed for the Indian department. It denotes much labor on the part of the two gentlemen who have had it in hand, and will be productive of improvement. I should have liked a bolder course, and not so careful a respect all along, for what has previously been done. Congress requires, sometimes, to be instructed, or informed, and not to be copied in its attempts to manage Indian, affairs.
Every paper brings accounts of removals and appointments under the new administration; but nothing, so far as I can judge, that promises much, in this way, of material benefit to Indian affairs. The department at head-quarters has been, so far as respects fiscal questions, wretchedly managed, and is over head and ears in debt, and the result of all this mal-administration is visited on the frontiers, in the bitter want of means for the agents, sub-agents, and mechanics, and interpreters, who are obliged to be either suspended, or put on short allowance. Doubtless, Gen. Jackson, who is a man of high purpose, would remedy this thing, if the facts were laid before him.