70 NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 



nok, and not Mackenok, is, however, the name for a tortoise. The 

 term, as pronounced by the Indians, is Michinemockinokong, 

 signifying place of the Great Michinamockinocks, or rock-spirits. 

 Of this word, Mich is from Michau (adjective-animate), great. The 

 term viachinok, in the Algonquin mythology, denotes in the singu- 

 lar, a species of spirits, called turtle spirits, or large fairies, who 

 are thought to frequent its mysterious cliffs and glens. The 

 plural of this word, which is an animate plural, is 07ig, which is 

 the ordinary form of all nouns ending in the vowel o. When 

 the French came to write this, they cast away the Indian local in 

 .cng, changed the sound of n to I, and gave the force mack 

 and nack, to mole and nok. The vowel e, after the first syllable, 

 is merely a connective in the Indian, and which is represented in 

 the French orthography in this word by i. The ordinary inter- 

 pretation of great turtle is, therefore, not widely amiss ; but in 

 its true meaning, the term enters more deeply into the Indian 

 mythology than is conjectured. The island was deemed, in a 

 peculiar sense, the residence of spirits during all its earlier ages. 

 Its cliffs, and dense and dark groves of maples, beech, and iron- 

 wood, cast fearful shadows; and it was landed on by them in 

 fearfulness, and regarded flxr and near as the Sacred Island. Its 

 apex is, indeed, the true Indian Olympiis of tlie tribes, whose 

 superstitions and mythology peopled it by gods, or monitos. 



Since our arrival here, there has been a great number of Indians 

 of the Chippewa and Ottowa tribes encamped near the town. The 

 beach of the lake has been constantly lined with Indian wigwams 

 and bark canoes. These tribes are generally well dressed in their 

 own costume, which is light and artistic, and exhibit physiogno- 

 mies with more regularity of features and mildness of expression 

 than it is common to find among them. This is probably attri- 

 butable to a greater intermixture of blood in this vicinity. They 

 resort to the island, at this season, for the purpose of exchanging 

 their furs, maple-sugar, mats, and small manufactures. Among 

 the latter are various articles of ornament, made by the females, 

 from the fine white deer skin, or yellow birch bark, embroidered 

 with colored porcupine quills. The floor mats, made from rushes, 

 are generally more or less figured. Mockasins, miniature sugar- 

 boxes, called mo-cocks, shot-pouches, and a kind of pin and needle- 

 holders, or housewives, are elaborately beaded. But nothing 



