858 



MICHIPICOTEN — MICMAC 



[b. a. n. 



Borgia.— Sliea, Cath. Miss., 370, 185.5 (Ottawa mis- 

 sion on Mackinaw id. in 1677). Teijaondoraghi. — 

 Albany conf. (17'2t)) in N. Y. Doe. Col. Hist., v, 

 791, 1.S55 (Iroqnois iianu'). 



Michipicoten ( MlsltVt1givadu7%k, ' place 

 of bold proiiKintories,' or 'region of big 

 places.' — W. J.). The de.signation of 

 the Algonquian Indians living on Michi- 

 picoten r., Ontario, n. of L. Superior, 

 and extending into Ruperts Land. In 

 Canada they are officially classed as 

 "Michipicoten and Big Heads," consist- 

 ing of two bands belonging to different 

 tribes. The smaller band consists of Chip- 

 pewa and are settled on a reservation 

 known asGros Cap, on the w. side of the 

 river, near its mouth ; the other band be- 

 longs to the Maskegon and resides mainly 

 near the Hudson's Bay Co.'s post on 

 Brunswick lake, on the n. side of the 

 dividing ridge. Tlie two bands together 

 num))ered 28.'^. in 1884, and 358 in' 1906. 

 See Trtcs de Boule. (.i. m. ) 



Michirache. An Iowa phratry. Its 

 gentes are Shuntanthka, Shuntanthewe, 

 Shuntankhoche, and Manyikakhthi. 

 Me-je'-ra-ja. — Morgan, Anc. .Soc, 156, 1S77. Mi"tci- 

 ratce.— Dorsev, Tciwere MS. vocab., B.A.E.,1879. 

 Mi-tci'-ra-tce.— Dorsev in 15th Rep. B.A.E., 238, 

 1897. Wolf.— Morgan, op. cit. 



Michiyu {Mitc-lii-yu). A former Chu- 

 mashan village between Pt Conception 

 and Santa Barbara, Cal., at the place now 

 called San ( )nofre. — Henshaw, Buenaven- 

 tura MS. vocab., B. A. E., 1884. 



Michopdo. A former Maidu village near 

 Chico, at the edge of the foothills, about 

 5 m. s. of the junction of Little and Big 

 Butte crs., in Butte co.,Cal.; pop. 90 in 

 1850. (r. B. D.) 



Ma-chuck-nas.— .lohnston (18.50) in Sen. Ex. Doc. 

 4, 3'2d Cong., spec, sess., 45, 1853. Ma-chuc-na. — 

 Day (1850), ibid., 39. Michoapdos.— Powers in 

 Overland Mo., xii,420, 1874. Mich-op'-do.— Powers 

 in Cont. N. A. Ethnol., m, 282, 1877. Michopdo.— 

 Dixon in Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., xvii, pi. 

 xxxviii, 1905. Mitshopda.— Curtin, MS. vocab., 

 B. A. E., 1885. Wachuknas.— Schoolcraft, Ind. 

 Tribes, vi, 710, 18.57. 



Mickkesawbee. A former Potawatomi 

 village at the site of the present Cold- 

 water, Mich., on a reservation sold in 1827. 



Mickesawbe.— Treaty of 1827 in U. S. Ind. Treat., 

 675, 1873. Miek-ke-saw-be.— Chicago treaty (1821), 

 ibid., 1.52. 



Micksucksealton. Said by Lewis and 

 Clark to be a tribe of the Tushepaw (q.v. ) 

 living on Clarke r. above the falls, and 

 numbering 300, in 25 lodges, in 1805. 

 Micksicksealtom.— Clark and Voorhis (ISOb) in 

 Orig. Jour. Lewis and Clark, vi, 114, 1905. Mick- 

 suck-seal-tom.— Lewis and Clark, Exped., i, map, 

 1814. Micksucksealton,— Ibid., n, 475, 1814. Mik- 

 suksealton,— Drake, Bk. Inds., ix, 1848. 



Micmac(M//H(/(/,-, 'allies'; Nigmak; 'our 

 allies.' — Hewitt). The French called 

 them Souriquois. An important Algon- 

 quian tribe that occupied Nova Scotia, 

 Cape Breton and Prince Edward ids., the 

 N. part of New Brunswick, and probably 

 points in s. and w. Newfoundland. 

 While their neighl)ors the Abnaki have 

 close linguistic relations with the Algon- 



quian tribes of thegreat lakes, the Micmac 

 seem to have almost as distant a relation 

 to the group as the Algonquians of the 

 plains (W. Jones). If Schoolcraft's sup- 

 position be correct, the Micmac must 

 have been among the first Indians of the 

 N. E. coast encountered by Europeans, as 

 he thinks they were visited by Sebastian 

 Cabot in 1497, and that the 3 natives he 

 took to England were of this tril)e. 

 Kohl believes tliat those captured by 

 Cortereal in 1501 and taken to Europe 

 were Micmac. Most of the early voy- 

 agers to this region speak of the great 

 numbers of Indians on the n. coast of 

 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and 

 of their fierce and warlike character. 

 They early became friends of the French, 

 a friendship which was lastingand which 

 the English — after the treaty of Utrecht 

 in 1713, by which Acadia was ceded to 

 them — found impossible to have trans- 

 ferred to themselves for nearly half a 

 century. Their hostility to the English 

 prevented for a long time anj' serious 

 attempts at establishing Britisli settle- 

 ments on the N. coasts of Nova Scotia and 

 New Brunswick, for although a treaty of 

 peace was concluded with them in 1760, 

 it was not until 1779 that disputes and 

 difficulties with the Micmac ceased. In 

 the early wars on the New England fron- 

 tier the Cape Sable Micmac were especially 

 noted. 



The missionary Biard, who, in his Rela- 

 tion of 1616, gives a somewhat full account 

 of the habits and characteristics of the 

 Micmac and adjacent tribes, speaks in 

 perhaps rather too favorable terms of 

 them. He says: "You could not dis- 

 tinguish the young men from the girls, 

 excejit in their way of wearing their belts. 

 For the women are girdled both above 

 and below the stomach and are less nude 

 than the men. . . . Their clothes are 

 trimmed with leather lace, which the 

 women curry on the side that is not hairy. 

 They often curry both sides of elk skin, 

 like our buff skin, then variegate it very 

 prettily with paint put on in a lace pattern, 

 and make gowns of it; from the same 

 leather they make their shoes and strings. 

 The men do not wear trousers .. . . 

 they wear on 1 y a clot h to cover their naked- 

 ness." Their dwellings were usually the 

 ordinary conical wigwams covered with 

 bark, skins, or matting. Biard says that 

 "in summer the shape of their houses is 

 changed; for they are liroad and long 

 that they may have more air." There 

 is an evident attempt to show these 

 summer bowers in the map of Jacomo di 

 Gastaldi, made about 1550, given in 

 vol. Ill of some of the editions of Ramusio. 

 Their government was similar to that of 

 the New England Indians; polygamy was 

 not connnon, though practised to some 



