


AuG. 17, 1907.] 
Ojibwa Indian Ways. 
Frew people have been more important or left 
a greater impression on the country of the 
Northern Middle West than the Ojibwas, also 
called Chippewas, and by the French, from the 
location of one of the bands, Saulteaux. They 
were a large and important tribe, situated 
chiefly north and northwest of the Great Lakes, 
thus bordering to some extent on the allied 
Crees to the northwest and Sioux to the-south- 
west, but for the most part in touch with other 
tribes of fellow Algonkins. Recently Dr. 
William Jones, the first authority in the world 
on the Algonkin language, and extremely 
familiar with many tribes of Algonkins, has 
written a paper on the central Algonkin, which, 
while only a general sketch is full of informa- 
tion, much of which will be new to our readers. 
We quote the following paragraphs: 
Food. 
“The Ojibwas have always been a _ typical 
people of the woods. Those of the north shore 
of Lake Superior had few settlements, for they 
led a hunting life. One or more families dis- 
appeared in the bush, and did not emerge ex- 
cept to dispose of furs or to attend a general 
gathering. Many of these wandering fragments 
penetrated the district of Hudson’s Bay and 
came into lively contact with the Crees. Some 
got round to the, further shores of the lake and 
strayed off toward the Lake-of-the-Woods, and 
the country west and north. The voyageurs fol- 
lowed in their wake and the trading posts they 
established often formed the nucleus of a com- 
munity of these wandering hunters. The Fort 
William band was one of the largest of the 
off-shoots from the Ojibwas of the Sault. 
“The Ojibwas south of the Straits of 
Mackinac, round about the Sault, and off the 
south shore of Lake Superior led part of the 
time a sort of sedentary life. They had villages, 
and cultivated the ground for maize, pumpkins, 
and beans. Most of them were probably ac- 
quainted with wild rice. 
“At the same time much of the food and the 
greater part of the clothing of all were ob- 
tained by hunting and fishing. Among the ani- 
mals that made up the source of most of their 
clothing, and a good deal of their food were the 
moose, elk, deer, beaver, muskrat and rabbit. 
Some of the Ojibwas hunted the buffalo and 
caribou. The principal fish for food were white- 
fish, trout, pike, pickerel, and sturgeon; and of 
birds preference was given the goose, raven- 
duck, mallard, wood-duck, and fall-duck. The 
fall-duck was especially desired because in the 
late fall a great deal of grease was obtained from 
it. Great quantities of sugar were obtained 
from maple and birch in the season when the 
sap was running and stored away in birch 
bark boxes. Strawberries, raspberries, and 
blackberies were a food only so long as the sea- 
son lasted, but huckleberries and blueberries 
could be dried in the sun and preserved for 
future use. 
Modes of Killing Game. 
“Game was obtained in a variety of ways. 
Bear, beaver, otter, ak, muskrat and the like 
were caught by a wooden trap sprung by trigger 
and catch in combination with a weight. Moose, 
caribou, elk and deer were slain with the bow 
and arrow; they could be overtaken by canoe 
when swimming, and killed by cutting the 
throat; a woman could kill a moose or a deer 
by punching an opening between the ribs with 
a paddle; the hole let in the water which caused 
the animal to weaken and drown. Buffaloes 
were driven into enclosures and shot tc death 
with the bow and arrow. Rabbits and par- 
tridges were caught with the snare. Fish were 
caught part of the time in weirs and all the 
year with hook, spear, and net; fish were also 
shot with the arrow. Ducks were often taken 
in the same nets set for fish; in the rice fields 
late in the fall they were easily approached by 
canoe and slain in great numbers with the bow 
and arrow or simply with the paddle used as a 
club; they were then heavy with fat and wer 
slow to rise. Eagles were clubbed; bait was set 
for them in a thicket where it was made hard 
FOREST AND STREAM. 

257. 

for the bird to escape before the arrival of the 
hunter. 
Ceoking. 
“Most of the food was cooked. Meat was 
boiled, or roasted. Birds were broiled, or 
roasted, or baked in a bed of ashes and live 
coals; a common way of baking was to inclose 
the bird in a ball of clay, and then lay the ball 
in the bed of hot ashes. Gull eggs were boiled, 
or baked in ashes. Cereals were boiled, or 
roasted, or parched; the parching was done in 
a vessel, or near or in a bed of hot coals; corn 
might be roasted on the ear. 
“Tradition tells that boiling was done in 
earthen, wooden, and bark vessels; that the 
water was heated by the fire beneath or by hot 
stones put into the vessel; and that the bark 
vessel was generally of birch and would not 
flame if put over the fire with the water already 
in and if the fire was a bed of live coals. 
“It was considered best not to let the food 
become well or overdone; for it was believed 
that food lost strength in the cooking, and that 
the longer it cooked the less nourishing it be- 
came. 
“A favorite kind of food for a long journey 
was made from meat that had been roasted on 
a frame over a slow fire, and finished drying in 
the sun or in the smoke of the fire of the lodge. 
It was more to be relished if mixed with tallow, 
especially with that of a bear; it was even more 
choice if maple sugar and pounded rice or 
pounded corn were added to the mixture. 
Fire. 
“The Ojibwas knew of two methods of mak- 
ing fire. One way was to spin the end of a dry 
stick, usually of cedar, in the socket of a dry 
block of the same wood; the stick was twirled 
by means of a bow, the cord of which went once 
round the stick; the top of the stick fitted into 
the socket of another block; the top block was 
gripped with one hand and against the back of 
the hand was braced the chest, while with the 
other hand the bow was sawed parallel to the 
blocks, causing the stick to twirl; the live 
embers dropped into a lower trough, where 
they ignited with the punk. The other method 
of making fire, and the one more common, was 
to strike one piece of flint against another; 
the tinder was preferably the punk of birch.” 
Game on Staten Island. 
Prince’s Bay, N. Y., Aug. 10.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: It is said that Governor Thomas 
Dougan was quite a sportsman and that he kept 
a hunting property on Staten Island for the use 
of his friends who came to see him. He cer- 
tainly must have had plenty of game and not 
much trouble to keep it in those days. Even 
in Dougan’s patents of lands the fishing, fowling 
and hawking clause is inserted. Morris, in his 
history, also speaks of Governor Dougan being 
absent at one of the council meetings in the 
city, the Governor being over on Staten Island 
at his “hunting lodge” killing bears. Dougan 
was not governor long before he had bought up 
land enough to have everything about the way 
he wanted it. He was appointed Governor of 
New. York in 1683. Staten Island is not much 
of a place for game to-day. There is good 
rabbit shooting the first few days of the open 
season and that is about all. Sixty years ago 
partridges were quite numerous. The last par- 
tridge that was shot here was in the fall of 1880. 
Raccoons used to be plentiful here not many 
years ago. Two ’coons have been shot on the 
west end of the island in the last ten years. 
Gray squirrels are here yet, but are protected 
by law at all times, but they are shot off ille- 
gally so much they are becoming rare. Opossum 
(the colored man’s turkey) are quite plentiful. 
Quail have been introduced and are protected 
by law until 1908, but they cannot stand the 
onslaught of the Italians any better than a 
robin, and another year there will be no quail. 
Fifty years ago there were a good many trout 
in the streams of the island, but as the forests 
disappeared so did the places for trout. Even 
twenty-five years ago, not far from my house, 
trout were often shot by people out after wood- 
cock. The stream runs through a swamp full 
of boiling springs and it made a fine place for 
them, but there are no trout there now. There 
are trout in a private pond near the middle of 
the island, and I am told there are a few left 
in Willow Brook. Last summer I was told there 
were trout in what is called Benham’s Brook. I 
made an investigation and found they were 
pickerel. I saw several ten inches in length. 
Some were caught on a trout fly and returned 
to the water. Not many years ago trout were 
plentiful in this brook. I have fished a great 
deal in my life for all fresh water fish and it 
was something new for me to know that a 
pickerel would take an artificial fly. 
Black bass fishing is good here if you only 
know where to go. I have seen some taken 
weighing between five and six pounds, large- 
mouth. of course. The ponds of the island have 
plenty of goldfish in them and many a boy makes 
a few nickels catching them for people who wish 
to keep them in the house. 
I saw in the New York Aquarium some time 
ago a few fan-tailed goldfish presented by some- 
one from Baltimore, I think. They attracted 
considerable attention from the crowd and a 
man standing near the tank where they were 
confined told me they were rare. They may be, 
but we have them here. Perhaps fantail is not 
correct, but it is applied to pigeons, and I guess 
I will not attempt to change it. sa 
The Lame Road-Runner. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
We have in California a long-legged, long- 
billed mottled bird called a road-runner and he 
can run to beat the band, especially when a trap- 
door spider is the bait and the spider is doing 
his utmost to jump into his warm, snug, caisson- 
like retreat in the sun-baked abode and literally 
snap the door shut in the pursuers’ face and 
lie quiet and defy him. 
Six months ago I saw a full grown, but very 
thin and scrawny looking road-runner hopping 
about among the missemibranthiano plants and 
the nasturtiums, trying for a precarious exist- 
ence. One of his legs hung by a shred, shot 
loose by some hunter, who failing to hit a quail 
on the wing wondered if he could hit a road- 
runner on the ground. He came near it, but 
did not quite kill the bird. 
Just a moment ago from my tent window I 
again saw my friend the “legged” road-runner, 
the all but severed leg hanging seemingly by the 
tendon that failed to part and free it. 
And then I remembered this nature faker con- 
troversy and the story of the woodcock that 
turned surgeon by plastering its broken leg again 
into usefulness by gumming it around with a 
cement, of which feathers and fibrous matter 
formed a part. Now the query, and without 
belittling the woodcock story in any manner, 
but even for argument sake admitting its truth 
in every detail, why was that woodcock better 
versed and skilled in surgery than the poor 
“legged” road-runner, doomed to chase spiders 
and other things with but half his locomotive 
powers given or left to him? 
In this distribution of intelligence, instinct, 
knowledge, intuition, learning, wisdom—as you 
please—among the birds of the air, beasts of the 
field and fishes of the sea, is mother nature im- 
partial or not? That is the question I asked 
myself as I saw that poor, lean road-runner 
stilting it along in one-legged hurdle jumps over 
twigs and obstructions, dangling the broken leg 
after it. For if that poor bird could only encase 
that dangling limb within a mucilaginous plaster 
cast of feathers and debris, giving it another, 
though maybe, stiff leg, to run on, what a dif- 
ference it would make to that bird. And again 
it may have been an impossible surgical opera- 
tion, and the bird was wise enough not to try 
it. But be all this as it may, that poor bird is 
certainly no match for a lively wary spider when 
it comes to a race fo life on the part of the 
spider. CHARLES CRISTADORO. 
[The woodcock did not exist; your road- 
runner, one of the shrewdest of bipeds, did— 
Eprror. | 

