176 NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 



on them the name of Eenouard, from which we derive their long- 

 standing popular name. Their traditions attribute their origin 

 to eastern portions of America. Mr. Gates, who acted as my 

 interpreter, and is well acquainted with their language and cus- 

 toms, informs me that their traditions refer to their residence on 

 the north banks of the St. Lawrence, near the ancient Cataraqui. 

 They appear to have been a very erratic, spirited, warlike, and 

 treacherous tribe ; dwelling but a short time at a spot, and push- 

 ing westward, as their affairs led them, till they finally reached 

 the Mississippi, which they must have crossed after 1766, for 

 Carver found them living in villages on the Wisconsin. At 

 Saginaw, they appear to have formed a fast alliance with the 

 Saucs, a tribe to whom they are closely allied by language and 

 history. They figure in the history of Indian events about old 

 Michilimackinac, where they played pranks under the not very 

 definite title of Muscodainsug, but are first conspicuously noted 

 while they dwelt on the river bearing their name, which falls into 

 Green Bay, Wisconsin.* The Chippewas, with whom they have 

 strong aflB.nity of language, call them Otagami, and ever deemed 

 them a sanguinary and unreliable tribe. The French defeated 

 them in a sanguinary battle at Butte de Mort, and by this defeat 

 drove them from Fox Eiver. 



Their present numbers cannot be accurately given. I was in- 

 formed 'that the village I visited contained two hundred and fifty 

 souls. They have a large village at Eock Island, where the 

 Foxes and Saucs live together, which consists of sixty lodges, 

 and numbers three hundred souls. One-half of these may be 

 Saucs. They have another village at the mouth of Turkey 

 Eiver ; altogether, they may muster from 460 to 500 souls. Yet, 

 they are at war with most of the tribes around them, except the 

 lowas, Sancs, and Kickapoos. They are engaged in a deadly, 

 and apparently successful war against the Sioux tribes. They 

 recently killed nine men of that nation, on the Terre Blue Eiver; 

 and a party of twenty men are now absent, in the same direction, 

 under a half-breed named Morgan. They are on bad terms with 

 the Osages and Pawnees of the Missouri, and not on the best 

 terms with their neighbors the Winnebagoes. 



* This name -was first applied to a territory in 1836. 



