15 
custom prevailed in the old world during prehistoric times it may well 
have given birth to the regular cultivation of the first domesticated cereals, 
wheat and barley, and thus have introduced the era of agriculture and of 
settled civilizations. 
About the time that the non-agri cultural Ojibwa were harvesting their 
rice the Ottawa were storing away their corn, squashes, and beans. All 
these, like the rice, they deposited in the ground inside large, cylindrical 
boxes made of elm bark, with elm-bark or birch-bark bottoms and covers. 
Corn (and sometimes rice) they merely poured into the box, but beans 
and squashes they placed in basswood bags, and they sliced the squashes 
beforehand and dried them in the sun. To keep the food from freezing 
they then covered these caches with flags from a neighbouring swamp and 
piled earth over the top. Often they stored dried meat in the same way, 
and, after their introduction by Europeans, potatoes. 
Harvesting their garden produce kept some of the bands fully occu- 
pied until the winter, when they moved away to their hunting and trap- 
ping grounds; at least this was the case during the last century, for we 
have no information concerning conditions in pre-European times. Other 
bands repaired in October to the outer islands of Georgian bay in order 
to spear the trout and whitefish that were spawning close to shore. The 
men fished at night by torchlight, using in olden days a roll of birch bark 
attached to the end of a pole, but now splinters of dry wood mside a metal 
pot. The torch projected over the bow of the canoe, casting a circle of 
light that attracted the fish within reach of the Indian’s spear. Heavy 
storms often prevented the launching of the canoes, but on a favourable 
night a man frequently captured as many as twenty large fish. Formerly 
his wife dried most of them for the early winter, but today the Ojibwa 
sell their fish in the towns and villages. 
Those Indians who had left in the spring to trade with the Hurons 
returned home about this time, and all the women hastily prepared new 
clothing for the approaching winter. While the families were still living 
in close promixity they arranged their respective hunting-grounds; then, 
as soon as the ice was firm enough for travel and the ground not yet- 
encumbered with deep snow, they scattered to collect the maple sugar 
they had stored away in April and the rice they had cached in September. 
When this task was completed, they moved away to their hunting-grounds 
and established their winter camps. 
It may not be altogether out of place here to add a few stray notes 
about their methods of hunting and fishing. Like all people who live 
largely by the chase the Ojibwa were constantly on the alert for indications 
of game. They studied the topography of the country, noted the animals’ 
feeding-places, examined every spoor from a moose’s to a rabbit’s, and 
watched for changes in the air currents. They observed the slow straight- 
ening of grass bent over by the passage of an animal a few moments 
before, and the leaves of trees that had been brushed free of dew or rain- 
drops. They attracted the moose with birch-bark trumpets , 1 employed 
deadfalls for porcupine, bear, and mink, and set snares for rabbits and 
grouse. If they discovered a bear lurking in the brush they circled it to 
1 The P firry Island Indians seem not to have used a bone whistle for calling deer, like their Ojibwa, kinsmen in 
the United States, 
