KADiN] HISTORY 55 



of possibly the year 1660. There is no record to say how many years before, though 

 it was doubtless several score, for 50 years before La Potherie published his history 

 Allouez had told the same story of the destruction of the Winnebago by the Illinois: 



"About 30 years ago all the people of this nation were killed or taken captive by the 

 lUniouek \nth the exception of a single man, who escaped, shot through the body 

 with an arrow." 



This would place the event in about the year 1640. 



He adds that when the captives were permitted to return to their homes this one 

 was made a "Captain of his Nation," as having never been a slave. Shea commenting 

 on this disastrous defeat of the Winnebago says, "If this strange event took place at 

 all, we must ascribe it to an earlier date than 1639 (1634), when visited by Nicolet, 

 who "found them prosperous, and we can hardly suppose a tribe almost annihilated 

 and then restored to its former numbers in 30 years." . . . Nicolet, it will be remem- 

 bered, was sent to this then unknown region for the purpose of "making peace" 

 between the Winnebago and the Hurons. As the Winnebago were strong enough 

 to command that attention from Governor Champlain, Doctor Shea is quite correct 

 in supposing the Winnebago to have been "a prosperous tribe" in 1634. The events 

 mentioned in the foregoing accounts are not historical, but traditional, for assuredly 

 they did not take place after the coming of Nicolet, as he was followed by other white 

 men in such short periods as to make it impossible for the occurrence of these stirring 

 events to go unrecorded by others. 



Charlevoix visited the tribe in 1720, and though a historian of note in old Canada, 

 records the occurrence as history, though we have shown it to have taken place, if at 

 all, more than a century before he went among them. He possibly got the story 

 from the records of Allouez, made a half century before, though it may have been a 

 riverside or cabin story heard by him at the time of his \'isit to this frontier of New 

 France. He says: 



"The Otchagras, who are commonly called Puans, formerly lived on the shores 

 of the bay . . . but they were attacked by the Illinois, who slew great numbers of 

 them; the rest took refuge on the river of the Outagamis (Fox River), which empties 

 into the end of the bay. They settled upon the shores of a sort of lake (Lake 

 Winnebago)." 



Charlevoix . . . adds another disaster not mentioned by the other old writers. 

 In this same narrative he records that "sometime after" the Winnebago had settled 

 on Lake Winnebago: 



"They undertook to revenge the defeat which they had suffered from the Illinois. 

 Six hundred of their best men embarked to seek their enemy; but while they 

 were crossing Lake Michigan they were surprised by a furious gale, which caused 

 them all to perish." >* 



The Winnebago still tell of these events and practically in the 

 same words as PeiTot obtained them, as can be learned from the 

 following versions obtained in 1910. 



a. When the Winnebago first originated, they were holy and 

 clever. They were equal to the spirits. In those days there lived a 

 Winnebago who could fly like a bird, one who could fly as far as four 

 days' journey from the village. There was another Winnebago who 

 could scent anything as far away as four days' journey from the 

 village. Then there was one man who could talk with the trees. 

 They told him many things. Finally there was one who could trans- 

 form himself into a buffalo. On account of these four men, it was 



' Op. cit., pp. 90-93. 



