60 THE MENOMINI INDIANS [eth.ann. 14 



23. Wa'eeno Mita'mu (Josette) "Wa'beno- woman." Was bom about 



1840, and is an active, well preserved, and quite good looking 

 woman. She is married to Nio'pet, the present chief of the 

 Menomini,' and is the. mother of fourteen children of whom 

 but two survive — 

 I. Reginald Osb'kosh, 

 II. Ernest Osb'kosh. 



24. O'kemawa'bon (Josette — daughter, married Ope'taq, has two 



children). 



25. Kose'V (Josette — a young man). 



As already stated, the Osh'kosh family at present, and evidently 

 legitimately, furnishes the executive chief of the tribe, which personage 

 is at the same time the presiding judge of the Indian court at Keshena. 

 The members of the Carron family have no further authority in the 

 affairs of the tribe than any other heads of families, though the recol- 

 lection of the deeds of their ancestors appears to add to their name a 

 glamor of romance, shared in even by their political opponents. 



LANGUAGE EMPLOYED IN CULT RITUALS 



I am informed by the Franciscan fathers at Keshena that they have 

 frequent need of words to express clearly the terminology of the cat- 

 echism and ritual and to present intelligently the exposition of the 

 scriptures, words which do not occur in Menomini, but for which they 

 seek convenient aud expressive terms in Ojibwa, a language noted at 

 once for its close linguistic relationship to the Menomini, as well as 

 for its rich vocabulary and the remarkable flexibility of its grammatic 

 structure. 



In his notes on the Indian tribes of Wisconsin, 2 John Gibnary Shea, 

 speaking of the Menomini, states that " their language is a very 

 corrupt form of the Algonquin." This may not be surprising when the 

 Menomini language is compared with the Algonkin proper, but still the 

 fact remains that the Menomini appeared to him defective in some 

 manner or other. 



Through long-continued practice of this character, the Indians have 

 become sufficiently familiar with some Ojibwa words to comprehend 

 the teachings of the fathers, but apart from this an Ojibwa conver- 

 sation is almost entirely unintelligible to the Menomini, unless the 

 language of the former had been specially acquired by intimate com- 

 munication. 



It has been observed at the ceremonials of the Menomini that both 

 Ojibwa and Potawatomi mita' T visitors participated, and although their 

 knowledge of Menomini was so slight as to deter them from enjoying 

 more than casual interchange of greetings, yet they were sufficiently 



1 See the Osh'kosh genealogy, ]). 48. 



»Col. Hist. Soc. of Wisconsin for 1856, rol. iii. 1857, p. 134. 



