"Long before the pale faces profaned this island home of the Genii, a young Ojibwa girl, just maturing into womanhood, often wandered there, and gazed from its dizzy heights and witnessed the receding canoes of the large war parties of the combined bands of the Ojibwas and Ottawas speeding south, seeking for fame and scalps.
"It was there she often sat, mused and hummed the songs Ge-niw-e-gwon loved; this spot was endeared to her, for it was there that she and Ge-niw-e-gwon first met and exchanged words of love, and found an affinity of souls existing between them. It was there she often sat and sang the Ojibwa love song—
'Mong-e-do-gwain, in-de-nain-dum,
Mong-e-do-gwain, in-de-nain-dum,
Wain-shung-ish-ween, neen-e-mo-shane,
Wain-shung-ish-ween, neen-e-mo-shane,
A-nee-wau-wau-sau-bo-a-zode,
A-nee-wau-wau-sau-bo-a-zode.'
I give but one verse, which may be translated as follows:
A loon, I thought was looming,
A loon, I thought was looming:
Why! it is he, my lover,
Why! it is he, my lover;
His paddle, in the waters gleaming,
His paddle in the waters gleaming.
"From this bluff she often watched and listened for the return of the war parties, for amongst them she knew was Ge-niw-e-gwon; his head decorated with war-eagle plumes, which none but a brave could sport. The west wind often wafted far in advance the shouts of victory and death, as they shouted and sang upon leaving Pe-quod-e-nong (Old Mackinaw), to make the traverse to the Spirit, or Fairiy Island.
"One season, when the war party returned, she could not distinguish his familiar and loving war shout. Her spirit, told her that he had gone to the Spirit-Land of the west. It was so: an enemy's arrow had pierced his breast, and after his body was placed leaning against a tree, his face fronting his enemies, he died; but ere he died he wished the mourning warriors to remember him to the sweet maid of his heart. Thus he died far away from home and the friends he loved.
"Me-she-ne-mock-e-nung-o-qua's heart hushed its beatings, and all the warm emotions of that heart, were chilled and dead. The moving, living spirit of her beloved Ge-niw-e-gwon, she witnessed continually beckoning her to follow him to the happy hunting grounds of spirits in the west—he appeared to her in human shape, but was invisible to others of his tribe.
"One morning her body was found mangled at the foot of the bluff. The soul had thrown aside its covering of earth, and had gone to join the spirit of her beloved Ge-niw-e-gwon, to travel together to the land of spirits."
Another point of interest and curiosity is the Devil's Punch Bowl, situated south from the gateway, as you enter the farm of the late J. Dousman, Esq.