90 The Winning of the West 



from their crowns all the hair except the long scalp- 

 lock, while the squaws were the drudges who did all 

 the work. 



Their relations with the Iroquois, who lay east of 

 them, were rarely very close, and in fact were gener- 

 ally hostile. They were also usually at odds with 

 the Southern Indians, but among themselves they 

 were frequently united in time of war into a sort 

 of lax league, and were collectively designated by 

 the Americans as the Northwestern Indians. All 

 the tribes belonged to the great Algonquin family, 

 with two exceptions, the Winnebagos and the Wy- 

 andots. The former, a branch of the Dakotahs, 

 dwelt west of Lake Michigan; they came but little 

 in contact with us, although many of their young 

 men and warriors joined their neighbors in all the 

 wars against us. The Wyandots or Hurons lived 

 near Detroit and along the south shore of Lake Erie, 

 and were in battle our most redoubtable foes. They 

 were close kin to the Iroquois, though bitter ene- 

 mies to them, and they shared the desperate valor 

 of these, their hostile kinsfolk, holding themselves 

 above the surrounding Algonquins, with whom, 

 nevertheless, they lived in peace and friendship. 



The Algonquins were divided into many tribes, 

 of ever shifting size. It would be impossible to 

 place them all, or indeed to enumerate them, with 

 any degree of accuracy ; for the tribes were continu- 

 ally splitting up, absorbing others, being absorbed 

 in turn, or changing their abode, and, in addition, 

 there were numerous small sub-tribes or bands of 



