Chief Moses Day Daybway-Waindung, 



Albert B. Reagan 



While Indian Agent at Nett Lake, Minnesota, I met Chief Moses 

 Day, known to the Indians by the name of Daybway-waindung, and found 

 him to be a man of marked character. He had his faults as we all have. 

 Also on account of his not being educated he was sometimes "worked" by 

 disgruntled persons. But whatever his mistakes, his aim was good. 



Mr. Day is not only the head chief of the Bois Fort Indians but is also 

 their chief medicine man. His will is law. He regulates and orders their 

 every business move. He tells them when to gather their rice and when 

 not to cut it. He tells them when to plant and when to gather their crops. 

 He orders their dances and medicine ceremonies. And it is also alleged that 

 he holds them under his influence by threats of sending them to the land of 

 fogs and storms in the hereafter, if they do not obey him. 



Mr Day came into prominence in the eighties of last century when he 

 usurped the chieftainship of the Bois Fort Indians from Misquahgeshig, 

 who was the direct line chief but was not suited for a chief. Later at the 

 signing of the Sucker Point (Tower, Minn.) Agreement of 1899, he was one 

 of the chief speakers. Here he showed his abihty and also showed that he 

 would leave nothing undone for the benefit of his people. His talk on that 

 occasion was as follows (taken from the minutes of the meeting) : 



"Mr. Commissioner, about Nett Lake, where I live — there is where I was 

 born — there is any amount of rice which never fails me and my people. We 

 wish the commissioners to use their influence so that no dam shall ever be 

 built below that will overflow what we depend on for subsistence. There 

 is a place where we can take all the timber to the Little Forks of 'the Rainy 

 Lake River. I wish to state that the whites have no respect for the reserva- 

 tion whatever. When the Indians were here three years ago, the last time 

 we received anything from the Government, we told them there was a road 

 going through the reservation, where the timber is piled up and going to 

 waste, and, although we made a complaint to the agent, nothing has ever 

 been done about it. 



"The agent was never at out reservation. No, never at any time. There 

 is a creek inside the reservation; that is where the lumbermen come without 

 permission and help themselves to all the hay there. You can not imagine 

 how the white men help themselves to anything on the reservation. Even 

 our canoes they take from us without asking. 



"The agent just hurries here (to Tower) and hurries right back, without 

 giving us any attention. It would take me all day to put in complaints 

 that can be substantiated. 



(519) 



