1(58 



OTTAWA 



les cheneux releuez." Of these he said 

 that their arms consisted only of the bow 

 and arrow, a buckler of boiled leather, 

 and the club; that they wore no breech- 

 clout, and that their bodies were much 

 tattooed in many fashions and designs; 

 that their faces were painted in diverse 

 colors, their noses pierced, and their ears 

 bordered with trinkets. The chief of 

 this band gave Champlain to understand 

 that they had come to that place to dry 

 huckleberries to be used in winter when 

 nothing else was available. In the fol- 

 lowing year Champlain left the Huron 

 villages and visited the "Cheueux re- 

 leuez" (Ottawa), living westward from 

 the Hurons, and he said that they were 

 very joyous at "seeing us again." This 

 last expression seemingly shows that 

 those whom he had met on French r. in 

 the preceding year lived where he now 



OTTAWA MAN 



visited them. He said that the Cheueux 

 releuez waged war against the ISIascou- 

 tens ( here erroneously called by the 

 Huron name Asistagueronon), dwelling 

 10 days' journey from them; he found 

 this tribe populous; the majority of the 

 men were great warriors, hunters, and 

 tishermen, and were governed by many 

 chiefs who ruled each in his own coun- 

 try or district; they planted corn and 

 other things; they went into many re- 

 gions 400 or 500 leagues away to trade; 

 they made a kind of mat which served 

 them for Turkish rugs; the women had 

 their bodies covered, while those of the 

 men were uncovered, saving a robe of 

 fur like a mantle, which was worn in 

 winter but usually discarded in summer; 

 the women livecl very well with their 

 husbands; at the catamenial period the 



women retired into small lodges, where 

 they had no company of men and where 

 food and drink were lirought to them. 

 This peojile asked Champlain to aid them 

 against their enemies on the shore of 

 the fresh-water sea, distant 200 leaa-ues 

 from them. 



In the Jesuit Relation for 1667, Father 

 Le IMercier, reporting Father Allauez, 

 treated the Ottawa, Kiskakon, and 

 Ottawa 8inago as a single tribe, be- 

 cause they had the same language and 

 together formed a common town. He 

 adds that the Ottawa (Outaoiiacs) claimed 

 that the great river (Ottawa?) belonged 

 to them, and that no other nation might 

 navigate it without their consent. It 

 was, for this reason, he continues, that 

 although very different in nationality all 

 those who went to the French to trade 

 bore the name Ottawa, under whose aus- 

 pices the journey was undertaken. He 

 adds that the ancient habitat of the Ot- 

 tawa had been a quarter of L. Huron, 

 whence the fear of the Iroquois drove 

 them, and whither were borne all their 

 longings, as it were, to their native coun- 

 try. Of the Ottawa the Father says: 

 "They were little disposed toward the 

 faith, for they were too much given to 

 idolatry, superstitions, fables, polygamy, 

 looseness of the marriage tie, ancl to all 

 manner of license, which caused them to 

 drop all native decency." 



According to tradition (see Chippewa) 

 the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi 

 tribes of the Algonquian family were 

 formerly one people who came from some 

 point N. of the great lakes and sepa- 

 rated at Mackinaw, Mich. The Ottawa 

 were located by the earliest writers and 

 also by tradition on Manitoulin id. and 

 along the n. and s. shore of Georgian bay. 



Father Dablon, superior of the mis- 

 sions of the Upper Algonkin in 1670, 

 said: "We call these people Upper Algon- 

 kin to distinguish them from the Lower 

 Algonkin who are lower down, in the 

 vicinity of Tadousac and Quebec. People 

 commonly give them the name Ottawa, 

 because, of more than 30 different tribes 

 which are found in these countries, the 

 first that descended to the French settle- 

 ments were the Ottawa, whose name 

 remained afterward attached to all the 

 others. ' ' The Father adds that the Sault- 

 eurs, or PahoiiitingSach Irini, whose 

 native country was at the Sault Saiiite 

 Marie, numbering 500 souls, had adopted 

 three other tribes, making to them a ces- 

 sion of the rights of their own native 

 country, and also that the people who 

 were called Noquet ranged, for the pur- 

 pose of hunting, along the s. side of L. 

 Superior, whence the.v originally came; 

 and the Chippewa (Outcibous) and the 

 Marameg from the n. side of the saijie 

 lake, which they regarded as their native 



