# History of the Ojibway Nation/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V.
THE OJIBWAY TOWN AT LA POINTE.
In the previous chapter we have gradually traced the Ojibways from the Atlantic coast, to their occupation of the surrounding shores of Lake Superior.
Computing their generations as consisting of forty years each, it is three hundred and sixty years since the main body of this tribe first reached Pt. Sha-ga-waum-ik-ong on the Great Lake, where for many years they concentrated their numbers in one village.
They were surrounded by fierce and inveterate enemies whom they denominate the O-dug-aum-eeg (opposite side people, best known at this day as Foxes), and the "A-boin-ug" or (roasters), by which significant name they have ever known the powerful tribe of Dakotas. These two tribes claimed the country bordering Lake Superior, towards the
​south and west, and of which, the migrating Ojibways now took possession as intruders. The opposition to their further advance westward commenced when the Ojibways first lighted their fires at Sault Ste. Marie, and it is from their first acquaintance with them, while located at this spot, that the Dakotas have given them the appellation of Ra-ra-to-oans (People of the Falls).
At every step of their westward advance along the southern shores of the Great Lake, the Ojibways battled with the Foxes and Dakotas; but they pressed onward, gaining foot by foot, till they finally lit their fires on the sand point of Sha-ga-waum-ik-ong. On this spot they remained not long, for they were harassed daily by their warlike foes, and for greater security they were obliged to move their camp to the adjacent island of Mon-ing-wun-a-kaun-ing (place of the golden-breasted woodpecker, but known as La Pointe). Here, they chose the site of their ancient town, and it covered a space about three miles long and two broad, comprising the western end of the island.
The vestiges or signs to prove this assertion are still visible, and are especially observable in the young growth of trees now covering the spot, compared to trees standing on other portions of the island where oaks and pines apparently centuries old, rear their branches aloft, or lie prostrate on the ground.
In the younger days of old traders and half breeds still living, they tell of deep beaten paths being plainly visible in different parts of the island and even the forms of their ancient gardens, now overgrown with trees, could still be traced out. When my maternal grandfather, Michel Cadotte, first located a trading post on this island, now upwards of sixty years ago, these different signs and vestiges were still discernible, and I have myself noticed the difference in the growth of trees and other marks, as I ​have a thousand times wandered through this, the island of my nativity.
While hemmed in on this island by their enemies, the Ojibways lived mainly by fishing. They also practised the arts of agriculture to an extent not since known amongst them. Their gardens are said to have been extensive, and they raised large quantities of Mun-dam-in (Indian corn), and pumpkins.
The more hardy and adventurous hunted on the lake shore opposite their village, which was overrun with moose, bear, elk, and deer. The buffalo, also, are said in those days to have ranged within half a day's march from the lake shore, on the barrens stretching towards the headwaters of the St. Croix River. Every stream which emptied into the lake, abounded in beaver, otter, and muskrat, and the fish which swam in its clear water could not be surpassed in quality or quantity in any other spot on earth. They manufactured their nets of the inner bark of the bass and cedar trees, and from the fibres of the nettle. They made thin knives from the rib bones of the moose and buffalo. And a stone tied to the end of a stick, with which they broke branches and sticks, answered them the purpose of an axe. From the thigh-bone of a muskrat they ground their awls, and fire was obtained by the friction of two dry sticks. Bows of hard wood, or bone, sharp stone-headed arrows, and spear points made also of bone, formed their implements of war and hunting. With ingeniously made traps and dead-falls, they caught the wily beaver, whose flesh was their most dainty food, and whose skins made them warm blankets. To catch the moose and larger animals, they built long and gradually narrowing inclosures of branches, wherein they would first drive and then kill them, one after another, with their barbed arrows. They also caught them in nooses made of tough hide and hung from a strong bent tree, over the road that these animals ​commonly travelled to feed, or find water. Bear they caught in dead-falls, which were so unfailing that they have retained their use to this day, in preference to the steel traps of the pale faces.
Their old men tell of using a kind of arrow in hunting for the larger animals in those primitive days, which I have never seen described in books. The arrow is made with a circular hole bored or burnt in the end, in which was loosely inserted a finely barbed bone. Being shot into an animal, the arrow would fall off leaving the barb in the body, and as the animal moved this would gradually work into its vitals and soon deprive it of life.
In those days their shirts and leggins were made of finely dressed deer and elk skins sewed together with the sinews of these animals. They made their wigwam covering of birch bark and rushes; their canoes of birch bark and thin strips of cedar wood, sewed together with the small roots of the pine tree, and gummed with the pitch of the pine, balsam, or tamarac. They made kettles from clay and pulverized stone, and judging from specimens found occasionally throughout the country, they give evidence of much proficiency and ingenuity in this line of manufacture. Copper, though abounding on the lake shore, they never used for common purposes; considering ​it sacred, they used it only for medicinal rites, and for ornament on the occasion of a grand Me-da-we.
They are not therefore, the people whose ancient tools and marks are now being discovered daily by the miners on Lake Superior; or, if they are those people, it must have been during a former period of their ancient history; but their preserving no traditional account of their ancestors ever having worked these copper mines, would most conclusively prove that they are not the race whose signs of a former partial civilized state, are being daily dug up about the shores of the Great Lake.
During this era in their history, some of their old men affirm that there was maintained in their central town, on the Island of La Pointe, a continual fire as a symbol of their nationality. They maintained also, a regular system of civil polity, which, however, was much mixed with their religious and medicinal practices. The Crane and Aw-ause Totem families were first in council, and the brave and unflinching warriors of the Bear family, defended them from the inroads of their numerous and powerful enemies.
​The rites of the Me-da-we-win (their mode of worshipping the Great Spirit, and securing life in this and a future world, and of conciliating the lesser spirits, who in their belief, people earth, sky, and waters) was practised in those days in its purest and most original form. Every person who had been initiated into the secrets of this mysterious society from the first to the eighth degree, were imperatively obliged to be present on every occasion when its grand ceremonies were solemnized. This created yearly a national gathering, and the bonds which united one member to another were stronger than exist at the present day, when each village has assumed, at unstated periods, to perform the ceremonies of initiation. Tradition says that a large wigwam was permanently erected in the midst of their great town, which they designated as the Me-da-we-gun, wherein the rites of their religion were performed. Though probably rude in its structure, and not lasting in its materials, yet was it the temple of a numerous tribe, and so sacredly was it considered, that even to this day, in their religious phraseology, the island on which it stood is known by the name of Me-da-we-gaun.
In those days their native and primitive manners and usages were rigidly conformed with. Man nor woman never passed the age of puberty without severe and protracted fasts, in which they sought communion with some particular guardian spirit whom they considered in the light of a medium spirit between them and the "One Great Master of Life," toward whom they felt too deep a veneration, than to dare to commune with directly. Sacrificial feasts were made with the first fruit of the field and the chase. When a person fell sick, a small lodge was made, apart from the village, purposely for his sole use, and a medicine man summoned to attend and cure, and only he, held intercourse with the sick. If a person died of some virulent disease, his clothing, the barks that ​covered his lodge, and even the poles that framed it, were destroyed by fire. Thus of old did they guard against pestilence; and disease of all kinds appears to have been less common among them than at the present day; and it is further stated that many more persons than now, lived out the full term of life allotted to mankind by the "Great Spirit." Many even lived with the "weight of over a hundred winters on their backs."
The council of the Me-da-we initiators, partook of the spirit of the ten commandments which were given to the children of Israel, amidst the thunders of Mount Sinai. There was consequently less theft and lying, more devotion to the Great Spirit, more obedience to their parents, and more chastity in man and women, than exist at the present day, since their baneful intercourse with the white race. Even in the twenty years' experience of the writer, he has vividly noticed these changes, spoken of by the old men, as rapidly taking place. In former times there was certainly more good-will, charity, and hospitality practised toward one another; and the widow and orphan never were allowed to live in want and poverty. The old traditionists of the Ojibways, tell of many customs which have become nearly or altogether extinct. They dwell with pleasure on this era of their past history, and consider it as the happy days of "Auld lang syne."
I have already stated that they located their town on the island of La Pointe, for greater security against the harassing inroads of their enemies, but though the island is located at its nighest point, about two miles from the main shore of the Great Lake, yet were the Ojibways not entirely secure from the attacks of their inveterate and indefatigable foes, who found means, not only of waylaying their stray hunters on the main shore, but even to secure scalps on the island of their refuge itself. On one occasion a war party of Dakotas found their way to a point ​of the main shore directly opposite the western end of the island, and during the night, two of their number crossed over, a distance of two miles and a half, each swimming by the side of a log, and attacked a family who were fishing by torchlight along the eastern shore of the island.
With four scalps, and the canoe of those they had killed, they returned to their friends, who immediately retreated, satisfied with their success. Early in the morning, the mangled bodies of the slain were discovered, and the Ojibways, collecting their warriors, made a long but unavailing pursuit.
Shortly after this occurrence, a party of one hundred and fifty Dakota warriors again found their way to the lake shore, and taking a position on the extreme point of Shag-a-waum-ik-ong, immediately opposite the Ojibway village, they laid in ambush for some stray enemy to come within their reach. Shag-a-waum-ik-ong is a narrow neck or point of land about four miles long, and lying nearly parallel to the island of La Pointe, toward the western end of which it converges, till the distance from point to point is not more than two miles. In former times the distance is said to have been much less, the action of the waves having since gradually washed away the sand of which it is composed.
It lays across the entry to a deep bay, and it has derived its name from the tradition that Man-ab-osho created it to bar the egress of a great beaver which he once hunted on the Great Lake, and which had taken refuge in this deep bay. The name signifies "The soft beaver dam," as the great beaver had easily broken through it, making the deep gap which now forms the entry of the bay. This point or peninsula does not average in width more than twenty rods, and in many places it is not more than six rods across. It is covered with a growth of scrubby oak and pine, and the extreme end where the Dakotas lay in ​ambush, is said in those days to have been covered with numerous sand hillocks, which the winds and waves have since nearly blown and washed away.
Early one morning, two Ojibway lads crossed over to the point to hunt ducks: on landing they were attacked by the ambushed war-party of the Dakotas with loud yells. For some time the two youths, protected by the numerous sand-hills, defended themselves, and evaded the attempts of their enemies, who wished to take them captives. In the mean time, the Ojibway town being aroused by the distant yelling, and seeing the point covered with the forms of numerous men, the startling cry of Aboin-ug! Aboin-ug! was shouted from wigwam to wigwam, and the men of war, grasping their bows and arrows, spears and war-clubs, jumped into their canoes and paddled with great speed to the scene of action. They crossed over in two divisions, one party proceeding straight to the point where the Dakotas were still to be seen hunting the two lads, while the other party living at the lower end of the great village, crossed over to that portion of the peninsula lying nearest to their wigwams. These landed about two miles below the extreme point, and taking their position where Shag-a-waum-ik-ong is but a few rods wide, and covered with scrubby oaks, they entirely cut off the retreat or egress of the Dakotas. Meanwhile the two unfortunate boys had been dispatched and scalped; but their friends who had crossed straight over from the village, landed on the point and proceeded to revenge their death, by bravely attacking the now retreating Dakotas. These being pressed by an enemy increasing in numbers every moment, turned their backs and fled down the point, merely keeping up a running fight, till they were met by the main body of the Ojibways who had collected in their rear, and cut them off effectually from escape. Discovering, too late, the fearful position which their rashness and want of foresight had ​brought them to, the Dakota warriors took shelter in a thick grove of scrubby oak, and fought to the last gasp. Overwhelmed by numbers, all were killed but two, who were seen to throw themselves into the lake and swim off towards the opposite shore of the deep bay. They were never heard of afterwards, but the probability is that by swimming two miles to the nearest point of the main shore, they saved their lives, and returned to their people with the sad tale of the almost total destruction of their war-party. Over the whole point of Shag-a-waum-ik-ong, are still strewn small particles of bones, which are said to be the remains of the warriors who fell in this bloody fight.
An anecdote is told of an old man, who was the father of one of the lads waylaid by the ambushed party on the point. He was not at home when the alarm was first sounded, and when he arrived, the warriors had all gone, and taken all the canoes belonging to the village. Burning to know the fate of his beloved child, he lashed his weapons of war to his back, and notwithstanding the entreaties of the women, he threw himself into the lake, and swam over to the scene of action. He arrived too late to join in the fight, but he was ever afterward noted for this almost superhuman feat, and his name is preserved amongst his people even to this day.
On another occasion a party of four hundred Fox warriors floated down the Ontonagun River in their small inland bark canoes, and coasting along the lake shore, they landed in the night time on the island of La Pointe, and at early dawn in the morning, they succeeded in waylaying and capturing four young women who had gone from the village to cut wood. The spot is pointed out to this day, where they were taken. The Foxes satisfied with their success, hastily retreated to their canoes, and under cover of a dense fog, they silently paddled homeward. Confident, however, in their numbers, and full of exultation at ​having bearded their enemies even on the island of their refuge, feeling also secure of escape in the fog, when still within hearing distance of the Ojibway village, they yelled back the whoop of derision and defiance, and commenced singing a stirring scalp song.
The town of the Ojibways became instantly a scene of commotion, and the eager warriors quickly arming themselves, hastily embarked in their large lake canoes, and silently but swiftly pursued their enemies under cover of the dense fog.
The lake was perfectly calm, and they could hear the loud talking and laughter of the Foxes from a long distance. Guided by the noise thus kept up by their careless and confident enemies, the Ojibways silently straining on their paddles, gradually neared them. By the wise advice of their leaders, they deferred the attack, till the Foxes had arrived opposite the rock-bound coast one mile below Montreal River, and twenty-two miles from La Pointe, where the steep and slippery banks would prevent them from making their escape by land. Here the Ojibways fell on them with great fury, and easily upsetting their small canoes, they dispatched the surprised and now fear stricken Foxes as they struggled in the water. They killed and drowned this large war-party, nearly to a man.
This is the only naval engagement in which the Ojibways tell of ever having been engaged; and their great success on this occasion, they attribute not only to superior numbers, but to the great advantage which they possessed in the size of their canoes, compared with those of the Foxes. Theirs were made large and strong, sitting firmly on the water, made to withstand the storms of Lake Superior, and capable of holding from five to twenty men each, while on the other hand, the canoes of their enemies, though made of the same material (birch bark), were constructed frail and crank, made to be taken across long portages on a ​man's head, and capable of containing but two or three persons. These, therefore, were easily upset, and their owners struggling in the deep water, were easily knocked on the head with war-clubs.
These two successful battles materially strengthened the foothold which the Ojibways had obtained in this portion of the Lake Superior country. The Dakotas and Foxes received thereby a check on their war propensities, and they learned to respect the prowess and bravery of the Ojibways. Their war-parties to the lake shore became less frequent than formerly, and they were more cautious in their attacks. On the island of La Pointe, they never again secured scalp nor prisoner, for never again did they dare to land on it.
The war carried on at this period between the Ojibways and Foxes, was fierce and bloody in the extreme, and it was marked with every cruelty attendant on savage warfare. The Foxes tortured their captives in various ways, but principally by burning them by fire. Of old, the Ojibways did not practise these cruelties, and they only learned them at this period from the Foxes. The hellish custom of torturing prisoners with fire, originated amongst them as follows:—
"A noted warrior of the Ojibways was once taken prisoner by his own nephew, who was a young warrior of the Foxes, son of his own sister, who had been captured when young, adopted and married in this tribe. This young man, to show to the Foxes his utter contempt of any ties of blood existing between him and his Ojibway uncle, planted two stakes strongly in the ground, and taking his uncle by the arm, he remarked to him that he 'wished to warm him before a good fire.' He then deliberately tied his arms and legs to the two stakes, as wide apart as they could be stretched, and the unnatural nephew built a huge fire in front of his uncle. When he had burnt his naked ​body to a blister on this side, he turned him with his back toward the fire, and when this had also been cruelly burned, he untied him, and turning him loose, he bade him to 'return home and tell the Ojibways how the Foxes treated their uncles.'"
The uncle recovered from his fire wounds, and in a subsequent war excursion, he succeeded in capturing his cruel nephew. He took him to the village of the Ojibways, where he tied him to a stake, and taking a fresh elk skin, on which a layer of fat had purposely been left, he placed it over a fire till it became ablaze; then throwing it over the naked shoulders of his nephew, he remarked. "Nephew, when you took me to visit the village of your people, you warmed me before a good fire. I now in return give you a warm mantle for your back."
The elk skin, covered with thick fat, burned furiously, and "puckering," it tightened around the naked body of his nephew—a dreadful "mantle" which soon consumed him. This act was again retaliated by the Foxes, and death by fire applied in various ways, soon became the fate of all unfortunate captives.
* ↑ The tribes of the lakes were workers in copper at an early period. Champlain in an account published in 1613, at Paris, writes: "Shortly after conferring with them about many matters concerning their wars, the Algonquin Savage, one of their chiefs, drew from a sack a piece of copper a foot long, which he gave me. This was very handsome and quite pure. He gave me to understand that there were large quantities where he had taken this, which was on the bank of a river, now a great lake. He said they gathered it in lumps, and having melted it, spread it in sheets, smoothing it with stones." Pierre Boucher, the grandfather of Sieur Verendrye, the explorer of the Lake Winnipeg region, in a book published in 1664, at Paris, writes that "in Lake Superior there is a great island fifty leagues in circumference, in which there is a very beautiful mine of copper. There are other places in those quarters where there are similar mines; so I learned from four or five Frenchmen, who lately returned. They were gone three years, without finding an opportunity to return; they told me they had seen an ingot of copper, all refined, which was on the coast, and weighed more than eight hundred pounds, according to their estimate. They said that the savages, in passing it made a fire on it, after which they cut off pieces with their axes." Isle Royale abounds in pits containing ashes, coals, stone hammers, and chips of copper, and in some places the scales of the fishes, which had been eaten by the ancient miners. The vein rock appears to have been heated by fire, and the water dashed thereon, by which the rock was fractured, and the exposed copper softened. Talon, Intendant of Justice in Canada, visited France, taking a voyageur with him, and while in Paris on the 26th of February, 1669, wrote to Colbert, Minister of the Colonial Department, "that this voyageur had penetrated among the Western natives farther than any other man, and had seen the copper mine on Lake Huron," and on the 2d of November, 1671, Talon writes from Quebec: "The copper which I sent from Lake Superior and the river Nantaouagan [Ontonagon], proves that there is a mine on the border of some stream. More than twenty Frenchmen have seen one lump at the lake which they estimate weighs more than eight hundred pounds." Alexander Henry also alludes to copper working on Lake Superior.—E. D. N.
* ↑ It is not unnatural to suppose that the tale of this occurrence being spread amongst the surrounding tribes, gave the name of Ojibway—"to roast till puckered up," to this tribe. Tribes have derived their names from circumstances of lesser note than this.—Author.