The American Indians: Their History, Condition and Prospects, from Original Notes and ManuscriptsSchoolcraft, Henry Rowe
History
The American Indians: Their History, Condition and Prospects, from Original Notes and Manuscripts
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
Indians of North America
There lived a noted chief at Michilimackinac, in days past, called
Gitshe Naygow, or the Great-Sand-Dune, a name, or rather nick-name,
which he had, probably, derived from his birth and early residence at a
spot of very imposing appearance, so called, on the southern shore of
Lake Superior, which is east of the range of the Pictured Rocks. He was
a Chippewa, a warrior and a counsellor, of that tribe, and had mingled
freely in the stirring scenes of war and border foray, which marked the
closing years of French domination in the Canadas. He lived to be very
old, and became so feeble at last, that he could not travel by land,
when Spring came on and his people prepared to move their lodges, from
their sugar-camp in the forest, to the open lake shore. They were then
inland, on the waters of the Manistee river, a stream which enters the
northern shores of Lake Michigan. It was his last winter on earth; his
heart was gladdened by once more feeling the genial rays of Spring, and
he desired to go with them, to behold, for the last time, the expanded
lake and inhale its pure breezes. He must needs be conveyed by hand.
This act of piety was performed by his daughter, then a young woman. She
carried him on her back from their camp to the lake shore, where they
erected their lodge and passed their spring, and where he eventually
died and was buried.
This relation I had from her own lips, at the agency of Michilimackinac,
in 1833. I asked her how she had carried him. She replied, with the
Indian apekun, or head-strap. When tired she rested, and again pursued
her way, on-wa-be-win by on-wa-be-win, or rest by rest, in the manner
practised in carrying heavy packages over the portages. Her name was
Nadowakwa, or the female Iroquois. She was then, perhaps, about
fifty-five years of age, and the wife of a chief called Saganosh, whose
home and jurisdiction were in the group of the St. Martin's Islands,
north of Michilimackinac.
The incident was not voluntarily told, but came out, incidentally, in
some inquiries I was making respecting historical events, in the
vicinity. One such incident goes far to vindicate the affections of this
people, and should teach us, that they are of the same general lineage
with ourselves, and only require letters and Christianity, to exalt them
in the scale of being.
* * * * *
The first words of men, says Harris in his Hermes, like their first
ideas, had an immediate reference to sensible objects; in after days,
when they began to discern with their intellect, they took those words
which they found already made, and transferred them by metaphor, to
intellectual conceptions.
ANDAIG WEOS, OR CROWS-FLESH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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