very good agriculturists, raising large quantities of pumpkins 

 and corn. Fish and game, such as moose, deer, beaver and 

 otter, were their articles of food, their hunters venturing on 

 the mainland as far as the St. Croix barrens. 



In their religion, the rites were observed with the strictest 

 care and performed with gravity and ceremony, which later 

 generations have forgotten. A national council was formed 

 and tribal traditions were kept alive, the natives all being 

 accredited with the reputation of being fairly consistent in 

 truth and honesty. This was before the advent of the white 

 men. Parents were respected and the Great Spirit was held 

 in reverence. Among themselves, they were charitable and 

 open-handed and got along very nicely. With the outside 

 tribes, they were continually at war. They overcame the 

 Foxes in Wisconsin, driving them back south of the Fox and 

 Wisconsin rivers, keeping up a continual border warfare with 

 all their enemies. 



About the time the first settlement was being made by the 

 English in Virginia, the great village on the island was aban- 

 doned. A terrible pestilence and famine harassed the peo- 

 ple, who moved to the mainland, considering the island ac- 

 cursed. It was at this time an old man went below the Saulte 

 to see the first white man. From this time on, the Chippewas 

 went to Montreal to trade, obtaining firearms and ammuni- 

 tion. With these they soon swept clean the game in their old 

 haunts and worked gradually west, pressing harder and harder 

 OM the lands of the Sioux, making a village at Wi-ah-quah-ke- 

 gume-eng (later Fond du Lac), driving the occupying Indians 

 out forever. From 1620, the Chippewas completely surrounded 

 Lake Superior and still continue to do so, though in sadly de- 

 pleted numbers. To the west and northwest, relations with 

 other tribes were very good, the Crees of Rainy lake and the 

 Assiniboines to the west of them being very friendly, but to 

 the west and southwest lay the Promised Land. A fine Sioux 

 village on Sandy lake lay on the edge of an Indian paradise. 

 Here were deep forests filled with moose and deer, large lakes 

 and rapid streams teeming with fish, ducks, geese and other 

 wild fowl, birch bark, berries, wild rice, maple sugar, every- 

 thing to make a savage heart beat with rapture, a veritable 



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