“Obs. They are as full of business, and as impatient of hinderance, (in their kind,) as any merchant in Europe. Many of them naturally princes, or else industrious persons, are rich; and the poor amongst them will say they want nothing.” Williams, ch. 7. “Obs. The women of the family will commonly raise two or three heaps (of corn) of twelve, fifteen, or twenty bushels a heap, which they dry in round broad heaps; and if she has help of her children or friends, much more.” Ch. 16. “I could never discern that excess of scandalous sins amongst them which Europe aboundeth with. Drunkenness and gluttony generally they know not what sins they be. And although they have not so much to restrain them (both in respect of knowledge of God and laws of men) as the English have, yet a man shall never hear of such crimes among them, of robberies, murders, adulteries.” Ch. 22. Quotations to the same effect might be adduced from nearly all the early writers. Yet we are told that in all that regards their moral condition, the Indians have been gainers by their intercourse with the whites!
It is probably within the recollection of many persons now living, when the very considerable quantities of corn required for the fur trade in the country about Lake Superior, were purchased from the Indians, by whom it was raised at a place called Ketekawwe Seebee, or Garden river, a small stream falling into the strait between Lakes Superior and Huron, about six miles below the Saut St. Marie. “The Indians at the first settlement of the English, performed many acts of kindness towards them: they instructed them in the manner of planting and dressing the Indian corn,” and “by selling them corn when pinched with famine, they relieved their distresses, and prevented them from perishing in a strange land, and uncultivated wilderness.” Trumbull’s History of Connecticut, Vol. I. Ch. 3. In another place, speaking of a famine among the colonists, he says, “In this distressful situation a committee was sent to an Indian settlement called Pocomtock, where they purchased such quantities, that the Indians came down to Windsor and Hartford with fifty canoes at one time laden with Indian corn.” Vol. I. Ch. 6. The Indians on Block Island, according to the same authority, “had about two hundred acres of corn.” This the English, after two days spent on the Island “burning wigwams,” and “staving canoes,” destroyed, and then sailed for the Pequot country. Ib. Ch. 5. Charlevoix, a less exceptionable authority than most of the early French writers, says, that in an incursion into the country of the Senecas, the French destroyed four hundred thousand minots (1,200,000 bushels) of corn. “They also killed a prodigious number of swine, which caused much sickness.” Hist. de la Nouvelle France, liv. XI. It is unnecessary to cite passages, hundreds of which might be adduced to prove, what few, except the reviewer above quoted ever considered doubtful.
[5] The name of this man Tanner pronounces Gish-gau-go. He has subsequently been well known in Michigan, and other portions of the north-western frontier, by his numerous murders and depredations. He died in prison at Detroit, as lately as the fall of 1825.
[6] Sa-gui-na. The word Sau-ge-nong, appears to mean, “the town of the Saukees.”
[7] Tanner has much of the Indian habit of concealing emotion; but when he related the above to me, the glimmering of his eye, and a convulsive movement of his upper lip, betrayed sufficiently, that he is not without the enduring thirst for revenge which belongs to the people among whom he has spent his life. “As soon,” said he, in connection with this anecdote, “as I landed in Detroit on my return from Red River, and found a man who could speak with me, I said ‘where is Kish-kau-ko?’ ‘He is in prison.’ ‘Where is Manito-o-geezhik, his father?’ ‘Dead two months since.’ ‘It is well he is dead.’” Intimating that though more than thirty years had elapsed, he intended now to have avenged himself for the injury done him when a boy not eleven years of age.—Ed.
[8] War-gun-uk-ke-zee means, as Tanner says, the bent tree; and the pine, which gave name to the place called by the French L’Arbre Croche, was standing when he first visited that village. He spoke with great indignation of the Indian who, through mere wantonness, cut down this remarkable tree.
[9] Pe-twaw-we-ninne.—This, however, is a Cree word; the name among the Ojibbeways, is Sug-guo-swaw-we-ninne. Muskegoe is from Mus-keek, a swamp, and is applied to a band of the Ojibbeways, enjoying in general no very good name.
[10] This word, Win-ne-peg, is derived from win-ne-be-a, “dirty water,” or ween-au-gum-ma, which has nearly the same meaning. The lake is called by the Indians Win-ne-be-a Sau-gie-gun, “Dirty Water Lake.”
[11] Puk-kwi, the cat-tail flag, (Typha Latifolia,) of which we made the coarse mats called by the Menomonies O-pah-keuk, by the Ojibbeways of the Upper Mississippi, O-pah-kwi-wuk. There is a lake on the route from Green Bay to the Wisconsan, called on the maps Puck-away, but the word is, in the country, pronounced Puk-kwi.
[12] Or Spit Roasters, so called from their roasting meats on wooden spits.