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My first winter at the foot of Lake Superior--Copper mines--White
fish--A poetic name for a fish--Indian tale--Polygamy--A
reminiscence--Taking of Fort Niagara--Mythological and allegorical
tales among the aborigines--Chippewa language--Indian vowels--A
polite and a vulgar way of speaking the language--Public
worship--Seclusion from the world.
1822. Oct. 1st. Copper Mines of Lake Superior.--On the 8th
of May last, the Senate of the United States passed a resolution in
these words:--
"Resolved, that the President of the United States be
requested to communicate to the Senate, at the commencement of the
next session of Congress, any information which may be in the
possession of the government, derived from special agents or
otherwise, showing the number, value, and position of the copper
mines on the south shore of Lake Superior; the names of the Indian
tribes who claim them; the practicability of extinguishing their
title, and the probable advantage which may result to the Republic
from the acquisition and working these mines."
The resolution having been referred to me by the Secretary of War,
I, this day, completed and transmitted a report on the subject,
embracing the principal facts known respecting them, insisting on
their value and importance, and warmly recommending their further
exploration and working1.
4th. White Fish Fishery.--No place in America has been so
highly celebrated as a locality for taking this really fine and
delicious fish, as Saint Mary's Falls, or the Sault2,
as it is more generally and appropriately called. This fish resorts
here in vast numbers, and is in season after the autumnal equinox,
and continues so till the ice begins to run. It is worthy the
attention of ichthyologists. It is a remarkable, but not singular
fact in its natural history, that it is perpetually found in the
attitude of ascent at these falls. It is taken only in the swift
water at the foot of the last leap or descent. Into this swift water
the Indians push their canoes. It requires great skill and dexterity
for this. The fishing canoe is of small size. It is steered by a man
in the stern. The fisherman takes his stand in the bows, sometimes
bestriding the light and frail vessel from gunwale to gunwale,
having a scoop-net in his hands. This net has a long slender handle,
ten feet or more in length. The net is made of strong twine, open at
the top, like an entomologist's. When the canoe has been run into
the uppermost rapids, and a school of fish is seen below or
alongside, he dexterously puts down his net, and having swooped up a
number of the fish, instantly reverses it in water, whips it up, and
discharges its contents into the canoe. This he repeats till his
canoe is loaded, when he shoots out of the tail of the rapids, and
makes for shore. The fish will average three pounds, but individuals
are sometimes two and three times that weight. It is shad-shaped,
with well-developed scales, easily removed, but has the mouth of the
sucker, very small. The flesh is perfectly white and firm, with very
few bones. It is boiled by the Indians in pure water, in a peculiar
manner, the kettle hung high above a small blaze; and thus cooked,
it is eaten with the liquid for a gravy, and is delicate and
delicious. If boiled in the ordinary way, by a low hung pot and
quick fire, it is soft and comparatively flabby. It is also broiled
by the inhabitants, on a gridiron, after cutting it open on the
back, and brought on the table slightly browned. This must be done,
like a steak, quickly. It is the most delicious when immediately
taken from the water, and connoisseurs will tell you, by its taste
at the table, whether it is immediately from the water, or has lain
any time before cooking. It is sometimes made into small ovate
masses, dipped into batter, and fried in butter, and in this shape,
it is called petite pate. It is also chowdered or baked in a
pie. It is the great resource of the Indians and the French, and of
the poor generally at these falls, who eat it with potatoes, which
are abundantly raised here. It is also a standing dish with all.
A Poetic Name for a Fish.--The Chippewas, who are ready to
give every object in creation, whose existence they cannot otherwise
account for, an allegorical origin, call the white fish
attikumaig, a very curious or very fanciful name, for it appears
to be compounded of attik, a reindeer, and the general compound
gumee, or guma, before noticed, as meaning water, or a
liquid. To this the addition of the letter g makes a plural
in the animate form, so that the translation is deer of the water,
an evident acknowledgment of its importance as an item in their
means of subsistence. Who can say, after this, that the Chippewas
have not some imagination?
Indian Tale.--They have a legend about the origin of the
white fish, which is founded on the observation of a minute trait in
its habits. This fish, when opened, is found to have in its stomach
very small white particles which look like roe or particles of
brain, but are, perhaps, microscopic shells. They say the fish
itself sprang from the brain of a female, whose skull fell into
these rapids, and was dashed out among the rocks. A tale of domestic
infidelity is woven with this, and the denouement is made to turn on
the premonition of a venerable crane, the leading Totem of the band,
who, having consented to carry the ghost of a female across the
falls on his back, threw her into the boiling and foaming flood to
accomplish the poetic justice of the tale.
17th. Polygamy.--This practice appears to be less common
among the Chippewas than the more westerly tribes. An instance of it
came to my notice to-day, in a complaint made by an Indian named Me-ta-koos-se-ga,
i.e. Smoking-Weed, or Pure Tobacco, who was living with two wives, a
mother and her daughter. He complained that a young woman whom he
had brought up had left his lodge, and taken shelter with the family
of the widow of a Canadian. It appears that the old fellow had been
making advances to this girl to become his third wife, and
that she had fled from his lodge to avoid his importunities.
18th. Historical Reminiscences.--This day sixty-three years
ago, General Wolf took Quebec, an event upon which hinged the fall
of Canada. That was a great historical era, and it is from this
date, 1759, that we may begin to date a change in the Indian policy
of the country. Before that time, the French, who had discovered
this region of country and established trade and intercourse with
the Indian tribes, were acknowledged supreme by the natives. Since
this event, the English rule has been growing, and the allegiance of
the tribes has been gradually strengthened and fixed. It is not a
light task to change habits of political affiance, cemented by so
many years. The object which is only sought so far as the tribes
fall within the American lines, may, however, be attained by a mild,
consistent, and persevering course of policy. Time is a slow but
sure innovator. A few years will carry the more aged men, whose
prejudices are strongest, to their graves. The young are more
pliant, and will see their interests in strengthening their
intercourse with the Americans, who can do so much to advance them,
and probably long before half another period of sixty-three years is
repeated, the Indians of the region will be as firmly attached to us
as they ever were to the French or the English.
Never to
doubt, and never to despair,
Is to make
acts what once but wishes were. ALGON.
26th. Allegorical and Mythological Tales.--"I shall be
rejoiced," observed Governor C., in a letter of this day, in reply
to my announcement of having detected fanciful traditionary stories
among the Chippewas, "to receive any mythological stories to which
you allude, even if they are enough to rival old Tooke in his
Pantheon." He had put into my hands, at Detroit, a list of printed
queries respecting the Indians, and calls me to remember them,
during my winter seclusion here, with the knowledge of the
advantages I possess in the well-informed circle of the Johnston
family.
25th. Chippewa Language.--There is clearly a polite and a
vulgar way of speaking the language. Tradition says that great
changes have taken place, and that these changes keep pace with the
decline of the tribe from their ancient standard of forest morals
and their departure from their ancient customs. However this may be,
their actual vocabulary is pretty full. Difficulties exist in
writing it, from the want of an exact and uniform system of
notation. The vowels assume their short and slender as well as broad
sounds. The language appears to want entirely the consonant sounds
of f, l, r, v, and x. In conjugating their verbs, the three primary
tenses are well made out, but it is doubtful how much exactitude
exists in the forms given for the oblique and conditional tenses. If
it be true that the language is more corrupt now than at a former
age, it is important to inquire in what this corruption consists,
and how it came about. "To rescue it," I observe at the close of a
letter now on my table to his Excellency Governor C., transmitting
him a vocabulary of one hundred and fifty words, "To rescue it from
that oblivion to which the tribe itself is rapidly hastening, while
yet it may be attempted, with a prospect of success, will constitute
a novel and pleasing species of amusement during the long evenings
of that dreary cold winter of which we have already had a
foretaste."
31st. Public Worship.--As Colonel Brady is about to leave the
post for the season, some conversation has been had about
authorizing him to get a clergyman to come to the post. It is
thought that if such a person would devote a part of his time as an
instructor, a voluntary subscription could be got among the citizens
to supply the sum requisite for his support. I drew up a paper with
this view this morning, and after handing it round, found the sum of
ninety-seven dollars subscribed--seventy-five dollars of
which are by four persons. This is not half the stipend of "forty
pounds a year" that poor Goldsmith's brother thought himself rich
upon; and it is apprehended the colonel will hardly find the
inducement sufficient to elicit attention to so very remote a
quarter.
Nov. 1st. We have snow, cold, and chilly winds. On looking to
the north, there are huge piles of clouds hanging over Lake
Superior. We may say, with Burns,
"The wintry
wind is gathering fast."
This is a holiday with the Canadian French--"All Saints." They
appear as lively and thoughtless as if all the saints in the
calendar were to join them in a dance. Well may it be said of them,
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."
20th. Seclusion from the World realized.--We are now shut out
from the world. The season of navigation has closed, the last vessel
has departed. Philosophers may write, and poets may sing of the
charms of solitude, but when the experiment comes to be tried, on a
practical scale, such as we are now, one and all, about to realize,
theories and fancies sink wonderfully in the scale. For some weeks
past, everything with the power of motion or locomotion has been
exerting itself to quit the place and the region, and hie to more
kindly latitudes for the winter. Nature has also become
imperceptibly sour tempered, and shows her teeth in ice and snows.
Man-kind and bird-kind have concurred in the effort to
go. We have witnessed the long-drawn flight of swans, brant, and
cranes, towards the south. Singing birds have long since gone.
Ducks, all but a very few, have also silently disappeared, and have
probably gone to pick up spicy roots in the Susquehannah or Altamaha.
Prescient in the changes of the season, they have been the first to
go. Men, who can endure greater changes and vicissitudes than all
the animal creation put together, have lingered longer; but at last
one after another has left Pa-wa-teeg, till all who can go
have gone. Col. Brady did not leave his command till after the snow
fell, and he saw them tolerably "cantoned." The last vessel for the
season has departed--the last mail has been sent. Our population has
been thinned off by the departure of every temporary dweller, and
lingering trader, and belated visitor, till no one is left but the
doomed and fated number whose duty is here, who came here to abide
the winter in all its regions, and who cannot, on any fair principle
or excuse, get away. They, and they alone, are left to winter here.
Of this number I am a resigned and willing unit, and I have
endeavored to prepare for the intellectual exigencies of it, by a
systematic study and analysis of the Indian language, customs, and
history, and character. My teachers and appliances are the best. I
have furnished myself with vocabularies and hand-books, collected
and written down, during the season. I have the post library in my
room, in addition to my own, with a free access to that of "mine
host" of the Emerald Isle, Mr. Johnston, to while away the time. My
huge Montreal stove will take long billets of wood, which, to use
the phraseology of Burns, "would mend a mill." The society of the
officers and their families of the garrison is at hand. The
amusements of a winter, in this latitude, are said to be rather
novel, with their dog trains and creole sleighs. There are some
noble fellows of the old "North West" order in the vicinity. There
are thus the elements, at least, of study, society, and amusement.
Whatever else betide, I have good health, and good spirits, and
bright hopes, and I feel very much in the humor of enjoying the
wildest kind of tempests which Providence may send to howl around my
dwelling.
We have, as the means of exchanging sentiment, one English family of
refinement and education, on the American side of the river, and two
others, an English family and the Hudson Bay House in charge of a
Scotch gentleman, on the Canada shore. We have the officers attached
to a battalion of infantry, most of them married and having their
ladies and families with them, and about a dozen American citizens
besides, engaged in traffic and other affairs. These, with the
resident metif population of above 300 souls, and the
adjacent Indian tribes, constitute the world--the little isolated
world--in which we must move for six months to come. About fifty
miles off, S.E., is the British post of Drummond Island, and about
forty west of the latter, the ancient position and island settlement
of Michilimackinack, that bugbear to children in all our earlier
editions of Webster's Spelling Book.
All the rest of the United States is a far-off land to us. For one,
I draw around my fire, get my table and chair properly located, and
resort to my books, and my Indian ia-ne-kun-o-tau-gaid let
the storm whistle as it may.
25th. Zimmerman may write as much as he pleases about
solitude. It is all very well in one's study, by his stove, if it is
winter, with a good feather bed, and all comforts at hand; but he
who would test his theories should come here. It is a capital
place, in the dead of winter, for stripping poetic theories of their
covering.
1: See Public Doc. No. 365, 2d Sess., 17th
Congress.
2: This word is pronounced as if written so,
not soo. It is a derivative, through the French, from the
Latin saltus.
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Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the
Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers, 1851
Thirty
Years with the Indians
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