BULL. 30] 



SAUK 



473 



Puants [i. e., the Winnebago], who have 

 always Uved here, as it were, in their own 

 country, and who, having been defeated 

 by the Illinois, their enemies, have been 

 reduced from a very flourishing and pop- 

 ulous people to nothing; the Potawatomi, 

 the Sauk, and the Nation of the Fork {de 

 la Fourche) also live here, but as stran- 

 gers, the fear of the Iroijuios having driven 

 them from their lands, which are between 

 the Lake of the Hurons and that of the 

 Illinois." There can be little if any 

 doubt that in these citations the names 

 "Iroquois" and "Mohawk" should be re- 

 placed by "Neuters," who to these fugitive 

 tribes were known also as 'Nado'weg' 

 (see Nadowa) ; otherwise established facts 

 are contravened by these statements, and 

 it has already been shown that the " Neu- 

 tre Nation" aided the Ottawa against 

 the tribes on the shores of L. Huron. 

 The foregoing quotations make it evident 

 that the Potawatomi, the Sauk, and the 

 'Nation of the Fork' were included in 

 the Asistagueronon of Champlain and 

 Sagard, represented by them as dwelling 

 in 1616 on the western shore lands of 

 L. Huron and farther westward. Thus 

 far no evidence has been adduced to show 

 that Mascoutens and Asistagueronon were 

 at first convertible or synonymous ap- 

 pellatives. 



Further, Father Dablon, in the Jesuit 

 Relation for 1670 (79, ed. 1858), said with 

 reference to the Sault Sainte Marie: "The 

 first and native inhabitants of this place 

 are those who call themselves Pahouit- 

 ing8ach Irini, wiiom the French name 

 Saulteurs, because these are they who 

 dwell at the Sault, as in their own coun- 

 try, the others being there only by adop- 

 tion; they number only 150 souls, but 

 they have united with three other tribes, 

 who number more than 550 persons, to 

 whom they have made a cession of the 

 rights of their native country; they also 

 reside there fixedly, except during the 

 time in which they go to hunt. Those 

 whom one calls the Nouquet range for that 

 purpose southward of L. Superior, whence 

 they came originally, and the Outchibous 

 [Chippewa] with the INIarameg, north- 

 ward of the same lake, which they regard 

 as their own proper country." 



From the Jesuit Relation for 1644 it is 

 learned that the long struggle between 

 the so-called "Neutral Nation" and the 

 "Nation du Feu" at that time was still 

 maintained with unabated fury. Father 

 Jerome Lallemant (Jes. Rel. 1644, 98, 

 ed. 1858) states that in the summer of 

 1642 the Neuters with a force of 2,000 

 warriors advanced into the country of the 

 "Nation du Feu" and attacked a town 

 of this tribe which was strongly defended 

 by palisades and manned by 900 resolute 

 warriors; that these patriots withstood 



the assaults of the besiegers for 10 days, 

 but that at the end of this time the de- 

 voted place was carried. Many of its 

 defenders were killed on the spot, and 800 

 captives — men, women, and children^ 

 were taken; and 70 of the best warriors 

 among the prisoners were burned at the 

 stake, the merciless victors putting out 

 the eyes and cutting away the lips of all 

 the old men and leaving them thus to die 

 miserably. The Father adds the inter- 

 esting statement that "this Nation of 

 the Fire is more populous than all the 

 Neutral Nation, all the Hurons, and all 

 the Iroquois, enemies of the Hurons, put 

 together; it consists of a large number 

 of villages wherein the Algonquin lan- 

 guage is spoken." This last citation is 

 further proof that the term "Fire Na- 

 tion," or "Nation of the Place of Fire," 

 at that period was applied in a broad 

 general sense rather than in a specific 

 one. Apparently it embraced all the 

 tribes formerly dwelling in the eastern 

 peninsula of the present state of INIich- 

 igan, and later removed to the n. and w. 

 shores of the present L. Michigan, and 

 still later it embraced some of the Illinois 

 tribes. From the Jesuit Relation for 1642, 

 (97, ed. 1858) itis learned that the Saulteurs 

 informed the Jesuit fathers that "a certain 

 tribe more distant [than the Sault Sainte 

 Marie from the Huron mission], which 

 they call Pouteatami, had aljandoned its 

 country and had come to take refuge 

 with the inhabitants of the Sault to escape 

 from some other hostile tribe that vexes 

 them with ceaseless wars." This shows 

 that the Potawatomi were then westward 

 from the home of the Saulteurs, and 

 that their emigration from the Michigan 

 peninsula was not then of many years' 

 standing. 



It has been shown from historical data 

 that for a long period before 1651 the 

 Neuters and the Ottawa together waged 

 bitter warfare against a group of tribes 

 which became known to the French 

 writers as Gens de Feu, or 'People of the 

 Fire,' and as Asistagueronon, or 'People 

 of the Place of Fire,' and later as the Mas- 

 coutens, by an error, the last name mean- 

 ing, as an appellative, ' People Dwelling 

 on Small Prairies.' There is no known 

 historical data showing that, during the 

 time that the Ottaw-a and the Neuters 

 occupied the peninsula n. of L. Erie, 

 the Iroquois, specifically so called, car- 

 ried on any warlike operations against 

 tribes dwelling westward of the two just 

 mentioned. The fact is that the name 

 Nadoweg, or Nado'weg, was a general 

 name of hateful significance which was 

 applied l)y Algonquian tribes generally 

 to any people of Iroquoian stock, as the 

 Neuters, the Tionontati, and the Hurons. 

 Now, inasmuch as the Neuters with 



