Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

I had been a member of the first exploring expedition which the U.S. Government sent into that region in 1820. Troops landed here to occupy it in 1822, on which occasion I was entrusted by the President, with the management of Indian affairs. I had now lived almost eleven years at this ancient and remote point of settlement, which is at the foot of the geological basin of Lake Superior--a period which, aside from official duties, was, in truth, devoted to the study of the history, customs, and languages of the Indians. These years are consecrated in my memory as a period of intellectual enjoyment, and of profound and pleasing seclusion from the world. It was not without deep regret that I quitted long cherished scenes, abounding in the wild magnificence of nature, and went back one step into the area of the noisy world, for it was impressed on my mind, that I should never find a theatre of equal repose, and one so well adapted to my simple and domestic tastes and habits. For I left here in the precincts of Elmwood, a beautiful seat, which I had adorned with trees of my own planting, which abounded in every convenience and comfort, and commanded one of the most magnificent prospects in the world.

The change seemed, however, to flow naturally from the development of events. The decision once made, I only waited the entrance into the straits of a first class schooner, which could be chartered to take my collections in natural history, books, and furniture--all which were embarked, with my family, on board the schooner "Mariner" the last week in May. Captain Fowle (who met a melancholy fate many years afterwards, while a Lieutenant-Colonel on board the steamer "Moselle" on the Ohio) had been relieved, as commanding officer of the post, at the same time, and embarked on board the same vessel with his family. We had a pleasant passage out of the river and up the lake, until reaching the harbor of Mackinack, which we entered early on the morning of the 27th of May. Coming in with an easterly wind, which blows directly into it, the vessel pitched badly at anchor, causing sea-sickness, and the rain falling at the same time. As soon as it could be done, I took Mrs. S. and the children and servants in the ship's yawl, and we soon stood on terra firma, and found ourselves at ease in the rural and picturesque grounds and domicil of the U.S. Agency, overhung, as it is, by impending cliffs, and commanding one of the most pleasing and captivating views of lake scenery. Here the great whirl of lake commerce from Buffalo to Chicago, continually passed. The picturesque canoe of the Indian was constantly gliding, and the footsteps of visitors were frequently seen to tread in haste the "sacred island," rendering it a point of continual contact with the busy world. Emigrants of every class, agog for new El Dorados in the West, eager merchants prudently looking to their interests in the great area of migration, domestic and foreign visitors, with note-book in hand, and some valetudinarians, hoping in the benefits of a pure air and "white fish"--these constantly filled the harbor, and constituted the ever-moving panorama of our enlarged landscape.

The necessary repairs to the buildings were not yet completed, when I embarked about the 10th of June for New York, in order to fall in with the President's cortege to the East. About seven weeks were devoted to this excursion, during which I made an arrangement with the Harpers to publish my narrative of the expedition to Itasca Lake, the printing to be done at Detroit.

July 19th. The American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia informs me of my election as a member.

28th. I returned to Michilimackinack from my excursion to New York, and began to inquire of aged persons, white and red, as they visited the office, into the local traditions of the place.

There is a hiatus in the history of the island, extending from 1763, the date of the massacre of the British garrison on the mainland, to about 1780, the probable date of the removal of the post from the apex of the peninsula (Peekwutinong of the Indians) to the island.

The name of the place is pronounced Mish-i-nim-auk-in-ong, by the Indians, The term mishi, as heard in mishipishiu, panther, and mishigenabik, a gigantic serpent of fabled notoriety, signifies great; nim, appears to be derived from nimi, to dance, and auk from autig, tree or standing object; ong is the common termination for locality, the vowels i (second and fifth syllable) being brought into the compound word as connectives. In a language which separates all matter, the whole creation, in fact, into two classes of nouns--deemed animates and inanimates--the distinctions of gender are lost, so far as the laws of syntax are involved. It is necessary only to speak of objects as possessing and wanting vitality, to communicate to them the property named, whether it in reality possesses it in nature or not. For this purpose words which lack it in their penultimate syllables, take the consonant n to make their plurals for inanimates, and g for animates. By this simple method, the whole inanimate creation--woods, trees, rocks, clouds, waters, &c.--is clothed at will with life, or the opposite class of objects are shorn of it, which enables the speaker, whose mind is imbued with his peculiar mythology and necromancy, to create a spiritual world around him. In this creation it is known to all who have investigated the subject, that the Indian mind has exercised its ingenuity, by creating classes and species of spirits, of all imaginable kinds, which, to his fancied eye, fill all surrounding space. If he be skilled in the magic rites of the sacred meda, or jesukewin, it is but to call on these spirits, and his necromantic behest is at its highest point of energy.

In reference to this spiritual creation, the word mish signifies great, or rather big, but as adjectives are, like substantives, transitive, the term requires a transitive objective sign, to mark the thing or person that is big, hence the term michi signifies big spirit, or "fairy"--for it is a kind of pukwudjininne, and not of monetoes that are described. The terms nim and auk, dance and tree, and the local ong, are introduced to describe the particular locality and circumstances of the mythologic dances. The true meaning of the phrase, therefore, appears to be, Place of the Dancing Spirits. The popular etymology that derives the word from Big Turtle, is still farther back in the chain of etymology, and is founded on the fact that the michi are turtle spirits. This is the result of my inquiries with the best interpreters of the language. The French, to whom we owe the original orthography, used ch for sh, interchanged n for l in the third syllable, and modified the syllables auk and ong into the sounds of ack--which are, I believe, general rules founded on the organs of utterance, in their adoption by that nation of Indian words. Hence Michilimackinack. The word has, in Indian, a plural inflective in oag, which the French threw away. The Iroquois, who extended their incursions here, called it Ti-e-don-de-ro-ga.

Aug. 1st. While at Detroit (July 24th) Mr. Arthur Bronson, the money capitalist, and Mr. Charles Butler, from New York, came to that place with a large sum for investment in lands. This appeared to be the first unmistakeable sign in this quarter, of that rage for investment in western lands, which the country experienced for several years, and which, acting universally, produced in 1836 a surplus revenue to the U. S. treasury of fifty millions of dollars.

15th. Saganosh, an Ottawa chief of St. Martin's Island, visited the office with eleven followers. I asked him if any of the relatives of Gitche Naigow, of whom tradition spoke, yet lived. He pointed to his wife, and said she was a daughter of Gitche Naigow. I asked her her age. She did not know (probably fifty-five to sixty). She said her father died and was buried at the Manistee River (North), that he was very old, and died of old age--probably ninety. She said he was so old and feeble, that the last spring before his death, when they came out from their sugar camp to the open lake shore, she carried him on her back.