90 



RED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



and fifty years ago, so runs the tradition, a large party of 

 Sioux had penetrated from the south-west into the hunting 

 grounds of the Ojibways, to make war upon them in the 

 heart of their country and at their best fishing station. 

 The Sioux were driven back, but with terrible loss to the 

 Ojibways. A grand council was held after the defeat of 

 the enemy, and it was resolved to erect a number of 

 mounds or underground houses, wherein a store of pro- 

 visions might be laid up and the women and children 

 retreat in case of a sudden invasion. These mounds were 

 the result of that determination, and are regarded by the 

 Lac la Pluie Indians, according to my guide, as the for- 

 tifications which their ancestors erected to protect their 

 families from the invading Sioux, to enable the warriors, 

 freed from the embarrassment occasioned by the presence 

 of their wives and children, to harass the enemy in all 

 directions, and possibly cut off his retreat. 



The Eainy Eiver mounds are far larger than the burying- 

 places or ossuaries which are scattered over Canada, and 

 especially on the south-eastern shores of Georgian Bay, 

 Lake Huron. It might be supposed by many familiar 

 with those curious mounds containing the bones and 

 relics of the barbarous people who occupied Canada some 

 centuries since, that, like the smaller ossuaries distributed 

 in the forests of the Lake Eegion, the gigantic mounds of 

 Eainy Eiver were places of sepulture. The custom of 

 burying the remains of many individuals in one spot and 

 heaping over them a mound of earth was common in 

 remote times among the wandering tribes who hunted 

 over the rocky and barren plateau north of Lakes Huron 

 and Superior. The dead were laid upon the bare rock 

 and covered with stones to protect the body from wild 

 animals. After a certain number of years the tribe made 

 a gathering of their dead, and bore the bones to a suit- 

 able resting-place where earth existed in sufficient 



