279 
neither man, woman, nor child. Whoever slew an enemy carried 
liome the scalp for the victory dance, and thereafter enjoyed the 
privilege of wearing an eagle feather in his hair. Unlike the Mon- 
tagnais and the Micmac, however, the Ojibwa never tortured their 
prisoners, and regarded the Iroquois with special loathing because 
of their inhuman conduct toward enemies who fell into their hands. 
All the Ojibwa tribes subsisted to a considerable extent on vege- 
table foods. They gathered and stored away, in the late summer, 
vast quantities of the wild rice that grew in tlie shallow water around 
the edges of the lakes. In sj^ring they collected the syrup from the 
majile trees, and in summer large stores of berries, which they pre- 
served for the lean months of early winter. So, although they did 
not practise agriculture (except some of the Ottawa bands adjacent 
to the Ilurons), they were not so completely dependent on fish and 
game as other Canadian tribes that did not cultivate maize. Never- 
tlieless, they were as keen hunters, and as keen fishermen, as other 
Inrlians. Every winter the families scattered into the woods to pursue 
the moose; in spring and summer they killed beaver and smaller 
game, and caught suckers, pickerel, and pike; and in autumn, at the 
close of the rice harvest, they speared the larger fish — trout, whitefish, 
and sturgeon — that spawned at that season close to shore. These 
varied resources caused their lives to be no less migratory than those 
of their kindred to the east, whom they closely resembled in their 
extensive use of birch bark for canoes and wigwams.^ The more 
southern Ojibwa, in early historical times at least, made clay pots, 
but too few to supersede the birch-bark utensils which, after all, were 
more satisfactory for a peoi)le constantly in motion. 
Partly because the living conditions were a little easier, perhaps,- 
and partly because they were in contact with more advanced tribes 
in southeastern Ontario, in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minne.sota, the 
(bjibwa enjoyed a richer social life than the other Algonkian tribes 
of eastern Canada. The clans held annual feasts, and in the autumn 
of each year the people celebrated an All Souls’ Day or Festival of the 
Dead, wheji they burnt a little food for the shades*"^ of the departed 
1 The Ojilnva wijrwani was dome sliai'ed, however, and often rovered with rushes instead of bark. 
For a (rood description of one See Grant, l^eter: “The Saulteaux Indians”; in Masson, ii, p. 329. 
2 Yet tlie Ojibwa, like the Crec, often suffered from famine during tlie winter, and had the same 
dread of whutijios or supernatural cannifials. 
2 They distinguished the shade or image of a man from his soul, believing that the former remained 
near his grave, or liannted the habitations of his kindred, whereas the latter went to the land of souls 
in the south. 
S6M9— 19 
