JENKS] THE MENOMINI 1049 
to support several thousand Indians, for one vear.”* He continued: 
‘**In the spring they subsist on sugar and fish; in the summer on fish 
and game; in the fall, on wild rice, and corn, and in the winter on fish 
and game. ‘Those who are provident, have some rice during the win- 
ter.”” In 1829 wild rice furnished them abundant subsistence.* Goy- 
ernor Dodge said of them in 1837-38, they ‘‘ raise corn on the Oconte, 
Menominee, and Fox rivers,in small quantities, but depend on the 
chase, fishing, fowling, and gathering of wild rice for subsistence.” * 
Exactly similar reports were made for the years 1844 and 1845.° 
These Indians are of the Algonquian linguistic stock, and for over 
two hundred and sixty years have been known to live in Wisconsin near 
Green bay. It is not known that they came westward with their kins- 
men, the Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi, but it seems probable that 
they preceded these others into the wild-rice district. Their habitat 
has shifted from the Menominee river on the north, between the upper 
peninsula of Michigan and Wisconsin, where their traditions fix the 
origin of the tribe, back and forth over the territory west of Green 
bay as far south as Fox river and Lake Winnebago. In 1852 they 
moved to their present reservation of ten townships, some 360 square 
mniles, or about 230,000 acres, located in east-central Wisconsin. In 
August of the following year Oshkosh, their head chief, asked the 
agency superintendent to permit the tribe to go back to their old rice 
fields to gather rice.’ Most of their rice is gathered at present in 
Lake Shawano, which lies about 8 miles south of the reservation. 
The following statistics of Menomini population have been gathered: 








Year Warriors Women Children Total | Authority 
= lames a = 
Iya. BST nee emcee Boemodunosos | Sobaesaoee: Doc. Coll. Hist. New York, vol. 1x, Albany, 
| | 1855, p. 889. 
iy hesas 150 | Mires RRO PR COR (Sm } Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. 1, 1854, p. 32. 
S20 eres 600 900 2, 400 | Morse, Report, New Haven, 1822, app., p. 51. 
1842.... Indian Affairs Report, 1843. 
1850... . 
1856... - 
1857... . 
1863... . Indian Affairs Report, 1863, p. 502. 
1872... - Indian Affairs Report, 1872, p. 384. 
1882. ... Indian Affairs Report, 1882, p. 344. 
1884. ... Indian Affairs Report, 1884, p. 300. 
1890.... Indian Affairs Report, 1890, p. 462. 
1892. ... Indian Affairs Report, 1892, p. 798. 
1898 ES ea | Indian Affairs Report, 1898, p. 612. 






1Morse, Report, app., p. 47. Dr Morse (ibid.. app., pp. 51, 52) also reports communications from 
Messrs. John Lawe, Jas. Porlier, Peter, Augustin, and Louis Grignon, and Laurent Fily to the same 
effect. These gentlemen were traders at Green bay and vicinity for half a century. 
2Tbid., app., p. 48. 
3House of Reps., War Dept., 20th Cong., 2d sess., House of Reps. Doc. No. 117, Indian Affairs; see 
also Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, vol. 111, pp. 591, 607, for the years 1829 and 1832. 
4Indian Affairs Report, 1837-38, p. 16. 
5 Op. cit., 1844-45, p. 131, and op. cit., 1845, p. 494. 
6Op. cit., 1853, p. 52. 
