The American Indians / Their History, Condition and Prospects, from Original Notes and Manuscripts

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

As we approached the island, two women in the canoe in which I was, began to utter melancholy and hideous cries. Precarious as my condition still remained, I experienced some sensations of alarm from these dismal sounds, of which I could not then discover the occasion. Subsequently, I learned that it is customary for the women, on passing near the burial places of relations, never to omit the practice of which I was now a witness, and by which they intend to denote their grief.

By the approach of evening we reached the island in safety, and the women were not long in erecting our cabins. In the morning, there was a muster of the Indians, at which there were found three hundred and fifty fighting men.

In the course of the day, there arrived a canoe from Detroit, with ambassadors, who endeavored to prevail on the Indians to repair thither to the assistance of Pontiac; but fear was now the prevailing passion. A guard was kept during the day, and a watch by night, and alarms were very frequently spread. Had an enemy appeared, all the prisoners would have been put to death; and I suspected that, as an Englishman, I should share their fate.

Several days had now passed, when one morning a continued alarm prevailed, and I saw the Indians running in a confused manner toward the beach. In a short time I learned that two large canoes from Montreal were in sight.

All the Indian canoes were immediately manned, and those from Montreal were surrounded and seized, as they turned a point behind which the flotilla had been concealed. The goods were consigned to a Mr. Levy, and would have been saved if the canoe men had called them French property; but they were terrified and disguised nothing.

In the canoes was a large proportion of liquor, a dangerous acquisition, and which threatened disturbance among the Indians, even to the loss of their dearest friends. Wawatam, always watchful of my safety, no sooner heard the noise of drunkenness, which in the evening did not fail to begin, than he represented to me the danger of remaining in the village, and owned that he could not himself resist the temptation of joining his comrades in the debauch. That I might escape all mischief he therefore requested that I would accompany him to the mountain, where I was to remain hidden till the liquor should be drank.

We ascended the mountain accordingly. It is this mountain which constitutes that high land in the middle of the island, of which I have spoken before, as a figure considered as resembling a turtle, and therefore called Michilimackinac. It is thickly covered with wood, and very rocky toward the top. After walking more than half a mile, we came to a large rock, at the base of which was an opening, dark within, and appearing to be the entrance of a cave.

Here, Wawatam recommended that I should take up my lodging, and by all means remain till he returned.

On going into the cave, of which the entrance was nearly ten feet wide, I found the further end to be rounded in its shape, like that of an oven, but with a further aperture, too small, however, to be explored.

After thus looking around me, I broke small branches from the trees, and spread them for a bed; then wrapped myself in my blanket and slept till daybreak.