The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1880-10-07
A Michigan Princess.

Near the church in a small house
facing the bay, we found the famous
Ottawa Chiefs daughter, Oyabegiji-
gokme, commonly called Margaret
Boyd. The floor was bare, except for
three curiously woven mats of rushes
swaying bed hung by ropes from the
rafters, and in it was the baby of her
adopted daughter fast asleep. There
were ornaments of birch bark and
wampum on the walls, a crucifix, and
beads, pictures of saints, and Holy
Father. At a table, braiding the sweet
scented PUSHES into baskets, sat Marga-
ret, surrounded by split porcupine
quilts, grass, birch bark and various
ornaments constructed from these ma
terials. In the medley or aboriginal
fancy work, books were piled-Com-
pendulum of the English Language,
French books and history, for Margaret
Boyd is famous scholar, linguist of
no mean rank, and leader among her
people. She is about sixty years old,
was dressed in a plain black gown
made with short black skirt and blouse
waist. She wore black turban of soft
cashmere on her head, and her gray
hair hung in plaits down her back.
Her feet are very small, and were
neatly dressed in plain undressed buck
skin moccasins. She speaks good En-
glish, slow and distinct. She and her
brother were taken by Rev. Father
Rese, afterward Bishop of Detroit, to
Cincinnati in 1926 to be educated. She
was then between eight and nine years
old. She was four years with the Sis
tiers OF Charity, in their house on Syca-
more street, She would not study or
speak word. She was afraid of every-
body and was very miserable. Her
brother besought her to improve her
opportunities, and learn for her peo-
pie, to whom she would return as a
teacher, and in their wigwams, by the
council-fires, perhaps give them aid as
became the chieftan's daughter. But
she wept constantly, and shrank from
human society. At length one day
question was asked and she unthink-
ingly said, 81 don't know" Those
were the first English words she ever
uttered, and they almost scared her to
death. The girls all clapped their
hands and shouted, 1.-THE little Indian
can talk, the little girl can speak plain"
That reused her pride, and she took
her primer, learned the letters in one
afternoon, and from that time forgot
her home sickness in the study that oc-
cupied her.
Her brother was taken to Rome to
study for the priesthood, leaving her at
the school at Cincinnati. The very night
before he was ordained, he died mys-
teriously in his monastic cell, at the
College. 1t afterward came to Mar
garet's ears that he was murdered by
an unfriendly, jealous hand. At any
rate, the poor Indian boy died in the
city OF Rome on the 25th of June, 1888,
after scholastic career of which any
white boy might be proud. At the
time OF his decease, Little Indian Mar
garet was a mere child. She was act
ing as Superior of the Detroit Orphan
Asylum when not sixteen years of age.
She was considered a prodigy by her
teachers, and that the Great Spirit had
her under His special care was certain.
She returned to her tribe soon after,
and has welded great influence over
them: Reading, studying, yet never
mingling in society, for which her &C
quirements fit her, but remaining in
company with ignorant, superstitious
Indians, she is interesting, self-pos-
sessed, and while retaining the primitive
life OF her people, the simple customs
and poetic fancies of the red men, she
adds the education of lady of rank.
Altogether, Margaret Boyd is one of the
most captivating medleys of humankind
to be found in America, and q visit to
her cottage in Little Traverse will repay
a student of human nature, and give q
new, pathetic and thrilling interest to
the history of the once powerful tribe
OF the famous Ottawas, of whom she is
greatest and last. The line of success
sion runs out in this Indian Princess.
for of large family of children not one
is left. One son lived to be thirty, and
died in Chicago, from the effect OF exer-
ton in the great fire. He was musician
from his youth, could interpret the
signing of the trees and the gurgling of
The water, in his rude way, and his |
parents by great exertion sent him
abroad to be thoroughly educated in
music. He was teaching his art in a
Catholic academy in Chicago at the
time of the great fire. All of her own
children having died, Margaret has
adopted and reared number of her
people-tried to teach them, but the
most OF them do not take to learning.
she says, and will not try to read OF |
Write.-COr. Cincinnati Commercial Z