BULL. 30] 



OTTAWA 



169 



land. The Ottawa were at Chagaouami- 

 gong or La Pointe de Sainte Esprit in 

 1670 (Jes. Kel. 1670, 83, 1858). 



Father Le Mercier (Jes. Rel. 1654), 

 speaking of a flotilla of canoes from 

 the "upper nations," says that they 

 were "partly Ondataouaouat, of the Al- 

 gonquine language, whom we call 'les 

 Cheueux releuez. ' ' ' And in the Relation 

 for 1665 the same Father says of the 

 Ottawa that they were better merchants 

 than warriors. 



In a letter of 1723, Father Sebastien 

 Rasles says that he learned while among 

 the Ottawa that they attributed to them- 

 selves an origin as senseless as it was 

 ridiculous. They informed him that they 

 were derived from three families, each 

 composed of 500 persons. The first was 

 that of Michabou (see Navahozho) , or the 

 Great Hare, reijresenting him to be a 

 gigantic man who laid nets in 18 fathoms 

 of water which reached only to his arm- 

 pits and who was born in the island of 

 Michilimackinac, and formed the earth 

 and invented tish-nets after carefully 

 watching a spider weaving its web for 

 taking liies; among other things he 

 decreed that his descendants should burn 

 their dead and scatter their ashes in the 

 air, for if they failed to do this, the snow 

 would cover the ground continuously and 

 the lakes would remain frozen. The 

 second family was that of the Namepich, 

 or Carp, which, having spawned its eggs 

 on the shore of a river and the sun cast- 

 ing its rays on them, a woman was thus 

 formed from whom they claimed descent. 

 The third family was that of the Bear's 

 paw, but no explanation was given of the 

 manner in which its genesis took place. 

 But when a bear was killed a feast of its 

 own flesh was given in its honor and an 

 address was made to it in these terras: 

 "Have thou no thoughts against us, be- 

 cause we have killed thee; thou hast 

 sense and courage; thou seest that our 

 children are suffering from hunger; they 

 love thee, and so wish to cause thee to 

 enter their bodies; and is it not a glorious 

 thing to be eaten l)y the children of 

 captains?" The first two families bury 

 their dead (Lettres Edif., iv, 106, 

 1819). 



It has been stated by Charlevoix and 

 others that when they first became known 

 to the French they lived on Ottawa r. 

 This, however, is an error, due to the 

 twofold use of the name, the one generic 

 and the other specific, as is evident from 

 the statements by Chami)Iain and the 

 Jesuit Relations (see Shea in Charlevoix, 

 New France, ii, 270, 1866); this early 

 home was n. and w. of the Huron territory. 

 No doubt Ottawa r., which they fre- 

 quently visited and were among the first 

 western tribes to navigate in trailing ex- 

 peditions to the French settlements, 



was named from the Ottawa generically 

 so called, not from the specific people 

 named Ottawa. There is unijuestioned 

 documentary evidence tliat as early as 

 1635 a portion of the Ottawa lived on 

 Manitoulin id. Father Vimont, in the 

 Jesuit Relation for 1640, 34, 1858, says that 

 "south of the Amikwa [Beaver Nation] 

 there is an island [Manitoulin] in that 

 fresh water sea [L. Huron], about 30 

 leagues in length, inhabited by the Outa- 

 ouan [Ottawa], who are a people come 

 from the nation of the Standing Hair 

 [Cheueux Releuez]." This information 

 he received from Nicolet, who visited the 

 Ottawa there in 1635. On the DuCreux 

 maj) of 1660, on a large island approxi- 

 mating the location of Manitoulin id., the 

 " natio surrectorumcapillorum," i. e. the 

 Cheveux Releves, or Ottawa, is placed. 

 They were allies and firm friends of the 

 French and the Hurons, and conducted an 

 active trade between the western tribes 

 and the French. After the destruction 

 of the Hurons, in 1648-49, the Iroquois 

 turned their arms againstthe Ottawa, who 

 fled with a remnant of the Hurons to the 

 islands at the entrance of Green l)ay, 

 where the Potawatomi, who had preceded 

 the Ottawa antl settled on these islands, 

 received the fugitives with open arms and 

 granted them a home. However, their 

 residence here was but temporary, as they 

 moved westward a few years afterward, a 

 part going to Keweenaw bay, where they 

 were found in 1660 by Father INIenard, 

 while another j^art fled with a band of 

 Hurons to the Mississippi, and settled on 

 an island near the entrance of L. Pei>in. 

 Driven away by the Sioux, whom they 

 had unwisely attacked, they moved n. to 

 Black r., Wis., at the head of which the 

 Hurons built a fort, while the Ottawa 

 pushed eastward and settled on the 

 shore of Chaquamegon bay. They were 

 soon followed by the missionaries, who 

 established among them the mission of 

 St Esprit. Harassed by the Sioux, and 

 a promise of protection by the French 

 having been obtained, they returned in 

 1670-71 to Manitoulin id. in L. Huron. 

 According to the records, Father Allouez, 

 in 1668-69, succeeded in converting the 

 Kiskakon band at Chaquamegon, but the 

 Sinago and Keinouche remained deaf to 

 his appeals. On their return to Mani- 

 toulin the French fathers estal)lished 

 among them the mission of St Simon. 

 There is a tradition that Lac Court 

 Oreilles was formerly called Ottawa lake 

 })ecause a ))and of the Ottawa dwelt on its 

 shores, until they were forced to move by 

 the attacks of the Sioux (Brunson in Wis. 

 Hist. Coll., iv). Their stay on Manitou- 

 lin id. was brief; by 1680 most of them 

 had joined the Hurons at Mackinaw, 

 about the station established by Mar- 

 quette in 1671. 



