Buffalo County, Wisconsin - The whole text, 1888 (part 2 of 13)

Conclusion

I am aware of the many objections to the mode in which insects have been treated here, and most of these objections I have already met in the introduction. Those, who wish for a more satisfactory instruction in this branch of Zoology are referred to the book " Insects at Home," and others. I would be glad to refer especially the young-people to some expert in this branch, but I know not where to find one in this vicinity. Indeed there is precious little of actual knowledge afloat among us on this and many another similar subject; there is no lack of hearsay evidence and some are adroit iti arranging what they are hot even superficially acquainted with, and think they understand arrangements or classifications made by others. We must leave them to their notions, but we will have a chance to disCUss the matter under the head of " Education."

Botany

In the following enumeration of indigenous plants I have endeavored to accept only such as I have observed in this neighborhood or else thought very'pi-pbable of occurring. I have given the popular or vulgar name, as liear as I was able to do so, but whether I was always correct in this, or whether the name given will be accepted in every locality, I cannot now assert. The names as well as any evidences of a probable occurrence of the plants in our vicinity I have taken from Wood's Class-Book of Botany, edition of 1856, and Gray's School and Field Book of Botany, edition of 1868, the arrangement being the same as in Vol. I, Geological Survey of Wisconsin, from page 377 to 395 incl. The names of families and genera of plants are given in Latin, for the purpose of assisting those who may have a desire for consulting the books mentioned, or some equivalent treatise. It was however not deemed advisable to put in the names of species and varieties, as these could not be of any interest to the general reader, and could easily be found in books devoted to the subject by the curious and those especially interested.

In the appendix I have tried to give the best enumeration of cultivated plants separately. It is much to be regretted that botany is not a branch of instruction in the common schools, since it would not be so very difficult to make pupils acquainted with the general appearance of numerous plants, and afterwards to instruct the higher classes in the scientific arrangements of the same.

is omitted advisedly, since all those who might profit by it must be in possession of much more knowledge about them, than eould be conveyed here, or would interest, the general reader.

In the following "Appendix " I will endeaver to enumerate the most important of such plants as are cultivated or domesticated here, not because there are none who are informed on that subject, but to point a road for the information of those who are yet deficient in that kind of knowledge.

Ornamental Plants

eration of ornamental plants was two-fold. 1. It was sure to contaiit the most important and withal a generous number; 2. It was in the hands of not a few of the population, by which at least some of the names in the list were already familiar to many readers. I might have swelled the list to a great extent by repeating the names of some plants which appeared among annuals and perennials, but I think it is sufficiently large.

It occurred to me while writing out these lists, that I really know but very few inhabitants of this county, who ever showed to me a considerable acquaintance with the vegetable kingdom or of any special part of it. Though not by far as well informed on the subject myself, as I would wish to be, this lack of information in others surprised me as being extraordinary for people yet in neighborly contact with objects under consideration, and otherwise mostly intelligent and some of considerable accomplishments. Not the least of my aims in giving this very extensive list of plants, was to arouse among the younger generation a more intense curiosity in regard to the knowledge of the Vegetable Kingdom.

The Mound Builders

This is the name of a race, of which numerous traces remain, mostly in the shape of larger or smaller mounds, conjectured variously to have been the ancestors of the Aztecs; the original immigrants from Asia by way of Behring Strait; the descendants of the Welshmen, who crossed the ocean with a fleet under a Captain Madoc; some people saved by forethought or accident when the Atlantis, the supposed connection of Africa and America was sunk beneath the water of the ocean; the lost tribes of the Israelites; and so forth, as fancy or prejudice may lead people in their explanations of the indisputable relics of a race, of which its mysterious disappearance is not the least perplexing characteristic. To enter at length upon the subject and the different hypotheses concerning that people and its monuments can not be my intention, so much the less, because we have no authenticated monuments of its presence in this county or its immediate neighborhood. One thing seems to be conceded: the Mound-builders were not the ancestors of that Indian race, which was in possession of the country at the time of its discovery by the Europeans. The reasons for this assertion or belief are two: 1. The Indians had no traditions of a race that was in possession of the land before their own race, and knew nothing of the purposes for which the monuments or mounds seem to have been constructed. 2. The mounds or monuments contain almost incontestable proofs of a higher civilization than that of the Indians, to have Ijeen prevalent among the mysterious Mound-builders. It might be said that this civilization was lost in the lapse of a long time, as there are instances of whole nations receding from the high standard of a civilization once attained, but these instances are not very numerous nor the changes quite so marked and radical.

The French, the earliest pioneers in the northern and northwestern part of this continent, seem to have taken no special notice of these mounds. Their missionaries had seen among the Hurons how such hills originated, and probably concluded that all of them had the same origin. To Captain Jonathan Carver the credit seems to belong, to have first called the attention of civilized or educated men to the existence of the monuments in question. He had no propensity for rooting among them, nor was archaeology At that time addicted to the use of the spade as it now is, or perhaps this science did not not form any part of his stock of information. Among such monuments described by him one is within the horizon of our county, at Wabasha, Minnesota. For that reason I will transcribe his description, without, however, vouching for the perfect reliability of the source, from which, for want of a better, I had to take it. He says:

" One day 1 walked some miles below Lake Pepin to take a view of the adjacent country. I had not proceeded far, before I came to a fine, level, open plain, on which I perceived, at a little distance, a partial elevation that had the appearance of an i^trenchment. On a nearer inspection I had greater reason to suppose that it had really been intended for this many centuries ago. Notwithstanding it was now covered with grass, I could plainly discern that it had once been a breast work about four feet in height, extending the best part of a mile, and sufficiently capacious to cover five thousand men. In form it was somewhat circular, and its flanks reached to the river. Though much defaced by time, every angle was distinguishable and appeared as regular, and fashioned with as much military skill, as if planned by Vauban himself. The ditch was not visible, but I thought on examining more curiously, that I could perceive there certainly had been one. From its situation, also, I am convinced that it must have been designed for that purpose. It fronted the country, and the rear was covered by the river; nor was there any rising ground for a considerable way that commanded it; a few straggling oaks were alone to be seen near it. In many places small tracks were worn across it by the feet of the elks and deer, and from the depth of the bed of earth by which it was covered I was able to draw certain conclusions of its great antiquity. To show that this description is not the offspring of a heated imagination, or the chimerical tale of a mistaken traveler, I find on inquiry since my return, that Mons. St. Pierre and several traders have, at different times, taken notice of similar appearances on which they have formed the same conjectures, but without examining them so minutely as I did."

military enthusiasm, especially as to the extent of the supposed fortification, for which according to the Indian mode of warfare there seems to be no occasion whatever. It might also be asked, how far his knowledge of the system of fortification introduced by Vauban extended, since there is no probability that any extensive works after that model existed in America.

In opposition to Carver's view we may be allowed to quote the opinion of a modern observer, Mr. Thos. E. Randall, in his " History of the Chippewa Valley." He says: " I have frequently passed over, and examined the "earthworks" spoken of by Carver and Featherstonehaugh as vast, ancient fortifications, situated on the west bank of the Mississippi between the village of Wabasha and what used to be known as the Grand Encampment, and must say a great stretch of the imagination is required to make anything more of them than the formations of nature's own handiwork. And until further excavations shall disclose more convincing evidence of human agency in their construction, I shall be slow to accept their conclusions."

This opinion of Mr. Randall's is entitled to some consideration as he had, according to his statement, some previous experience in the -matter.

Judge Gale in his work entitled "The Upper Mississippi", after enumerating monuments of the Moundbuilders in different other states of the Union says : " Wisconsin can scarcely dignify any of her old earthworks into fortifications."

" But what destroys the probability that the Aztalan works were a fort, is thfr fact that it was commanded by a ridge on the west side, and the bank on the opposite side of the creek, both within an arrow-shot of the enclosure." The judge then discusses the other kinds of mounds, especially those supposed to have been used for religious purposes, and which in the m ain consist of truncated cones or pyramids, which he finds to be much less in size than in other states, and to have been noted only at three localities; viz: at Aztalan, Ontonagon River and Trempealeau Village. The mound at Trempealeau is about seven feet high, with a level surface at the top aboat twenty five by fifty feet, with graded ways from each of the four sides, about twenty -five feet long, with the full width of the sides. Others may yet be discovered. This is the nearest authentical structure of the kind.

The works at Aztalan are mentioned and described in the work of I. A. Lapham on Wisconsin, printed 1846. He is not very positive in regard to the purposes for which they were erected, but seems inclined to the Aztek origin of it.

As the subject is too extensive, and as there is really no proof of any such structure existing or having existed within the territory under consideration, we may dismiss all speculations on the subject.

While there are no mounds or hills of the kind we have hitherto considered, there are still some others, quite numerous in some localities, especially along the lowlands of the Mississippi, yet but rarely on the prairies. The locations are frequently at the entrance of the valley of some creek or river from the main valley. Some of them are near the mouth of Beef River, or rather its junction with Beef Slough in clayey soil. The next collection is on the level space above Deer Creek, on the east side of the road branching off from the Alma and Durand road, near the schoolhouse of Dist. No. 3 Town of Nelson. There these knolls are quite numerous, but partly obliterated. Another considerable group we find in the neighborhood of Misha Makwa, on the prairie plateau close to the foot of the bluff near the junction of the north side road of Little Bear Creek Valley with the Alma and Durand road. These latter mounds seem to distinguish themselves from the other two groups, by being, even down to the surrounding level spots, composed of a very dark sandy Ipam, quite in contrast with the soil in the next vicinity, while in the others no other soil appears, but such as is similar to the next surrounding.

There is no order or arrangement among those knolls, and it seems evident, that, though they were erected within a short time of each other, and long ago, they were not erected at the same time, nor any of them for another purpose than the remainder. Their form tends somewhat to the elliptical cone, the slopes are moderate, and there is usually no level space on the top, and their depth is not often four feet, though, possibly, sometime that or more. It is very probable that small collections of such hills are to be found at other places, and they are indeed to be looked for in locations similar to those described. Some knolls to be seen at different places along sloughs or along places reached by high water, one or two at a place may also occur.

These knolls I consider Indian graves. They occur in greater number where it is most probable that Indians would congregate for purposes connected with their mode of life,^as for hunting, fishing or fighting. Especially the latter seems to have given a cause to start up these grave-yards. As far as I have learned there has no evidence been found, which might controvert my opinion, but I think that all articles found in or about such grave-yards, as arrows, stone-hatchets, pipes and stone implements in general, have been such as are known to have been used by the Indians before their contact with civilization.

Nor is it to be supposed that these knolls are so very ancient. It is less than three hundred years since the first permanent settlements along the Atlantic and almost to a year but two hundred since the first explorers entered upper part of the Mississippi Valley. This seems more then time enough to efface almost any knoll of so small a size. Hence, we are not justified in ascribing these monuments to any race anterior to the Indians.

The possibility of their having remained as perceptible elevations is due to their situation, almost always a dry one, not swept by occasional surface currents of any considerable force, with a dry and solid substratum. They also indicate the Indian mode of burial, which was not by digging a grave, but by heaping earth upon and around the body until it was not only covered or hid from sight, but also from the scent of beasts of prey. This seems to have been a good deal of work, yet it was much easier for a people without spades, mattocks and shovels, than to dig a ditch. Many of these burial spots were probably intended to be but temporary, and knolls would assist in the finding of the place, and earth heaped up would be drier and less difficult to remove for the recovery of the remains. About implements and other objects obtained from any of these graves or burial-knolls, we shall speak in the chapter on Indians.

The foregoing was written down a short time ago and laid aside for future consideration, experience having taught me, as well as others, that it is sometimes necessary to change our opini- ons. I have also, in the meantime, procured a book on the subject, entitled, " The Mound-Builders, being an account of a remarkable people that once inhabited the valleys of Ohio and Mississippi, etc., by J. P. MacLean." This book is, like all books on such subjects, rather enthusiastic, though on the whole fair and candid. In the chapter on Preliminary Observations the author

These works are very irregularl}' distributed, being found principally along the river valleys. They are only occasionally met with in the hill or broken country, and when thus found are always of small size.

Their number is very great; in Ohio alone there are not less than thirteen thousand, including both mounds and enclosures. Within a radius of fifty miles from the mouth of the Illinois River in the State of Illinois, there are about five thousand mounds. All the mounds located in the territory occupied by the Mound -Builders do not belong to that ancient people, for many of them have been constructed by the Indians, and doubtless many in Ohio have been assigned to the epoch of the former, when in reality they belonged to the latter."

Mr. MacLean, in his book above named, has also discussed at length a number of frauds which have from time to time come to light in such investigations.

It reminds me so forcibly - of the following scene from the "Antiquary" of Sir Walter Scott, that I cannot resist the temptation to transcribe the latter or at least part of it. We find Monkbarns or Oldbuck explaining to his young friend Lovel the situation of the'whole and of the different parts of what he chose to believe, and to declare to be, a camp of Julius Agricola and he had come to say: that his ears had betrayed their duty: 'What were you speaking about?' 'About this bit bourock, your honor,' answered the undaunted Edie; 'I mind the biggingo't.'

Well, we can not exactly say that we mind the "bigging o't" but we dare say that we find that great enthusiasm is often very much mistaken, and though we would not feel like disputing the views of others in this matter, we would hesitate to credit all the stories, inferences, theories and speculations connected with antiquarian researches of this and of every other kind.

I cannot omit a laughable fraud committed by a man entirely unprepared, as most people must have thought, to have produced the results of it, but who, owing to the ignorance of his neighbors, was considered to have actually made his pretended discoveries.

Opebations Of David Wyrick

David Wyrick, of Newark, Ohio, was an uneducated man, but on the subject of mathematics he possessed decided ability. He had held the office of county surveyor until he was forced to retire on account of long continued attacks of rheumatism. He was regarded as an eccentric character and incapable of deliberate deception. He had adopted the idea, that the Hebrews were the builders of the earthworks of the West, and as often as his disease would permit, he sought diligently for proofs of his theory. His first discovery was made during the month of June 1860. This discovery consisted in what is known as the "Newark Holy Stone ," and was found about a mile southwest of the town, near the center of an artificial depression common among earthworks. As soon as he found it, he ran away to the town, and there with exultation exhibited it as a triumphant proof of his Hebrew Theory.

Upon examination it proved to be a Masonic emblem, representing "the Key Stone," of an arch, formerly worn by Master Masons. The Hebrew inscription has been thus rendered into English: " The law of God, the word of God, the King of the Earth, is most holy." The stone did not have the appearance of antiqqity, and probably was accidentally dropped into the depression

Wyrick continued his researches and soon made a startling discovery. During the summer of 1860, with three other persons, he repaired to the spot where the stone mound h«d stood, and there dug up the trough, which had been re-entombed by the farmers in 1860. In the following November Wyrick, with five other men, met at this spot and made still further examinations. They found several articles of stone, among which was a stone box, enclosing an engraved tablet. Upon one side of the tablet there is a savage and pugnacious likeness of Moses, with this name in Hebrew over his head. Upon the other side of this stone is an abridgment in Hebrew of the ten commandments. Archaeologists never had much faith in the Holy Stone, and the discovery of Moses and the Ten Commandments soon established Wyrick's character as an impostor. Not long after he died, and in his private room, among the valuable relics he had so zealously collected, a Hebrew Bible was found which fully cleared up the mystery of Hebrew inscriptions " even in Ohio." This had been the secret and study of years, by a poverty stricken and suffering man, who in some respects, was almost a genius. His case presents the human mind in one of its most mysterious phases, partly aberration, partly fraud.

There are numerous other instances of fraud and several of doubts and contentions as to the genuineness of certain relics also mentioned in Mr. MacLean's book. In consideration of these, and in the absence of any specific object to disagree about I am willing to assent temporarily, to any plausible theories about the mounds in Buffalo County. I do not, however, wish to have it understood, that I deny the existence of mounds of the ancient race prior to the Indians, but that I am inclined to be cautious in my own assertions about them. Mr. MacLean says: "It is a fact that a person may start out with a theory, and soon he will be overwhelmed with proof- Relics of Mound-Builders and relics of Indians, that is arte-facts ascribed to either of the two races do not to unpracticed eyes present such differences as to distinguish them very easily from each other, although experts assert that they can do so very readily. Pipes, supposed to be of Moundbuilder origin the reader will find described under the head of

Indians, where I mention the use of tobacco among them; at the same time some remarks as to those pipes which are claimed to belong to the one or the other of the two consecutive races that have preceded the white race upon this continent. Other .implements found in prehistoric mounds and in the neighborhood of such are: Arrow-Heads, of which Mr. MacLean mentions eight sorts, each employment. Axes or Hatchets, cutting by blows, employing weight to exert force. Not abundant in the mounds, and mostly found along paths in the valleys. The best specimen ever seen by me was the one dug up in running the deep cut on the sandprairie, near Fred Richter's place. It was large, well-shaped, and sharp, of a greenish glassy stone. Some of the axes were adze-shaped and used in digging out troughs, canoes and similar things. Hammers or Mauls. They were furnished with an indented rim at or near the middle for fastening the handle in the manner described under the head of Indians. Pestles or Mullers. The only specimen I saw is in possession of Wm. Finkelnburg, Esq., of Winona, Minn. They were used for disintegrating corn and other grain more or less minutely. Wedges or Fleshers. They are mostly of a hard, close-grained and almost polished black stone, sharpened at one end, from one to two inches in diameter, the body cylindrical but rounded off on top. They were probably used for separating the hides from the carcasses, and bark from the trees. They may also be called chisels, and are -from two to six or more inches in length. Sinkers. They are usually triangular, with rounded points, and may have served as weights' for sinking fishing nets, ailso for stretching yarn in' making nets and mats. Mr, MacLean considers them as badges of authority, worn in a conspicuous place, possibly on string around the neck as they are nicely perforated near the smaller end. Pottery. Pots used for cooking and other purposes, made of a darkish clay, sometimes mixed with fragments of small shells. Probably formed inside a basket which was burnt in the baking. Pipes were the objects upon which the Mound-Builders expended the greatest skill and labor, and I _am inclined to say the same for Indians. As pipes and smoking naturally relate to tobacco, I have said as much about them in speaking of that weed, as I thought proper. Sculptures with the exception of pipes have not, as far as I am aware, been discovered of that origin in this county. Besides the attempt at an exact representation of natural objects according to their understanding, nothing seems to have been attempted, and the most wonderful thing about it is, that they succeeded so well without any proper tools and arrangements for their work. After having, as I may say, re-opened this subject I suppose the reader wagts to know the opinions as to who these Mound- Builders were, what became of them, and why they did not remain in the countries, where the testimonies of their former existence are yet found.

I have above remarked that it is usually conceded that the Indians were not their descendants and I gave the reasons above for this concession. But it must also be conceded that the habit of smoking tobacco, and providing implements for this process, is common to both Mound Builders and Indians. The other similarity is that of their tools and instruments for different purposes.- It is true that experts say that there is a difference, but I can not believe that anyone, however enthusiastic, will insist on this difference being generic. I do not mean to say that the Indians are the descendants, or otherwise near relations, of the Mound Builders, but there is a remarkable similarity in some essential points. Mr. Mac Lean,, like many others, leans to the opinion that the To) tecs of Mexico, the predecessors of the Aztec population found by the Spaniards in that country, were the descendants of the Mound Builders. There are perhaps enough similarities between them to cause such a belief, but how about the dissimilarities? Do we really know enough of either Mound Builders or Toltecs to decide upon the point? The possibility can not be disputed, there are even some foundations of probability, bit whether it is a fact, we may doubt. This involves the necessary supposition that the Indians drove the Toltecs out of this country, but if so, why did they not follow them into the one which must have appeared to them decidedly the better one? The Toltecs could not have prevented it. It is true that the Aztecs might intervene, but who drove the latter out?

The theory that the Mound Builders were the descendants of the " Lost tribes of Israel" is met by the objection, that there never were any tribes of Israel lost. That the Israelites were scattered among the nations of Asia and Europe we know, but that they were lost, whole tribes of them, across any ocean, is not only impossible, but there is not the slightest evidence for it. When the Israelites were scattered among other nations they had a knowledge of Iron and other metals, and probably know how to work and procure them. Nothing beyond copper, known to have been found pure, even up to the time of European discovery and afterwards, has been found of metals in mounds and monuments of this departed race. This theory rested on the crude and fanciful interpretation of some verses in the New Testament, upon which a system was built up, that was not only erroneous, but very often intentionally fraudulent, as we see from the operations of David Wyrick related above.

The theory of these prehistoric remajns belonging to the descendants of an almost mythological prince or captain of Welsh origin, Modoc, and his followers, has not so much as a shadow of demonstrability, even admitting their legendary existence.

It may not be very flattering to our pride, and archaeologists and enthusiasts of that ilk may be offended at the ccnclusion, but I mean to be honest, and with special application to the case on hand, I say:

" All that we know is, nothing can be known." (Childe Harold, Canto II, VII.) If now, in apparent contradiction with the above, I continue speculation on the origin of the Mound Builders, the reader will excuse it, because where there is no certainty, not, perhaps, even sufficient ground tp build a- consistent hypothesis upon, there is naturallj' so much more room, and an irresistible inclination to speculate, that is to find some plausible explanation for existing facts, and because I have not yet said anything concerning another theory of the origin of that mysterious race, which I have already alluded to at the beginning, viz: Their descent from some people or race that once inhabited the supposed Atlantis, the great island or group of islands, some are inclined to call it a continent, located in the north central part of the great Atlantic Ocean. Ancient writings mention this land complex, some even indicate that the Carthageniens, the greatest maritime explorers of ancient times, had made commercial voyages to these happy islands, and the existence of this Atlantis had a great influence pro and contra, in the discussions connected with the propositions maintained by Columbus at the Spanish Court before his first voyage. It was then supposed to have sunk below the water, as it certainly had passed from the actual knowledge of the civilized nations of that period. Some theorists maintained that there was a strong probability of a remnant of the inhabitants having escaped westwards, as they certainly must have possessed such knowledge-of navigation as was common to their supposed age, and probably also were acquainted with the existence of a western continent. Admitting for the sake of argument all I have stated of this departed race, it is nevertheless entirely improbable, that they were the Mound Builders or their ancestors. Their civilization, if they had any, was most probably, similar to the European or at least to the Carthagenian of their time, including a knowledge of iron and other metals, and also of such grdins as were cultivated around the basin of the Mediterranean Sea during the time when the power of the Carthagenian Republic or Kingdom was at its undisputed height. But we find nothing of the kind among the mounds, nor among the Indians, and it is almost impossible that no such traces should have been preserved. The universal custom of smoking tobacco, which must be attributed to Mound Builders as well as to Indians, was entirely unknown to the nations of antiquity ; so also was maize and its use and culture. This seems to be decisive against that theory or hypothesis, and the reader may take his choice, in doubting either the existence of Atlantis, or the transmigration of its inhabitants to the Western Continent. Tradition, indeed, does not favor the transmigration, insisting that the land or islands had been suddenly swallowed up by the ocean, even maintaining that the sea by this engulfing of land had become so thick with mud as to be unnavigable; a superstition prevalent at the time of Columbus and only dispelled by the discoveries of the I^ortuguese and Spaniards shortly before and after his own discoveries, probably finally by the voyages of Vasco de Gama to the East Indies and that of Magellan around the world.

I think I have now exhausted the subject as much as could be expected in a book not specially devoted to that purpose, and after recurring to it so often, might close. But the matter would hardly be properly disposed of without mentioning the fact that the weapons, implements and pottery found in ancient monuments of prehistoric races in the Old World, that is, in Europe, Asia and Africa, bear a close resemblance to those found in mounds here. This, however, cannot be construed into any connection of the. two worlds, or their inhabitants in prehistoric times, but may easily be accounted for by the common necessity of all mankind of making the best of circumstances, and using for tools of any kind such materials as were to be found, and could be shaped for certain purposes. In fact it was the discovery of stone implements, especially axes, in the valley of the river Somme in France by Boucher de Crevecoeur de Perthes, which' gave the first impulse to prehistoric investigations in Europe.

Note: - The river Sorame, from which a department of France has its name, rises in one of the northern valleys of the Ardennes, north of the Oise, and flows in a northwesterly direction into the English Channel southwest of Dover Strait.

Addenda

The reader may already have noticed that I am inclined to consider the Indians, or some of them, as the originators of the monuments usually ascribed to the so-called Mound Builders, and will excuse addition of some new proofs that others, and quite respectable authorities, sustain this view of the matter.

Dr. P. R. Hoy of Racine in a paper read before the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, and contained in Vol. IV of the Transactions, after giving numerous proofs to .sustain his statement, says : posture, surrounded by their worldly v.realth, and supplied with a sufficiency of food to feed the hungry soul on the long road to the happy hunting ground. I should like to see that anatomist who can distinguish the crania (skulls) taken from mounds from those' procured from Indian graves. The skulls from mounds differ just as much and just as little as do those of the present tribes of Indians. I obtained a skull of a Pottawatomie chief (it is now in the U. S. A. medical museum at Washington) which is one of the largest known. It is very symmetrical also, the capacity being 1785 cubic centimeters (about 114 cubic inches); maximum length, 188.9 (millimeters), maximum breadth 16-3.9 mm., circumference 555.6 mm., facial angle 75 degrees; measured and photographed by order of the Surgeon General. I had a second Pottawatomie cranium that is as unlike the above as possible, the capacity being 40 cubic inches less, facial angle 70 degrees. In view of the foregoing evidence, the legitiuiate conclusion must follow, that the " Mound Builders " were Indians, and nothing but Indians, the immediate ancestors of the present tribes as well as many other Indians that formerly were scattered over this country.

Differing in habits of life and language, just as the Indians of the several tribes did before the white man changed them, they continued to build mounds after they had communication with Europeans, since which time mound building, together with many many of the arts of the red man, such as making wampum, flint, stone and copper implements, pottery, etc., have declined and finally nearly or quite ceased.

On Indian History

Mankind in general have an irresistible desire to pry into the past and into the future, and it is only sensible, slow, prosaic and unimaginative people that can sometimes suppress this morbid curiosity. The historian, being obliged to narrate what is usually called, history, that is past events, things gone by, having been enacted in times more or less remote, feels it his duty to d.escend into the sepulcher of the past, and look after the peoples and communities, tribes and nations, generations and centuries that are buried there. Some of these have left marks and monuments, or writings and documents, from which themselves and their actions, their accomplishments, their fate and destiny may be known. I do not mean to speak of these here, although the common acceptance is, that we have marks and monuments of a race, of which even the long-lived, much cherished, and greatly coveted traditions of the Indians do not tell us a single word. Within this county, or within the visible horizon of the highest bluff in this county, we have an acknowledged mark or monument of this race and if the Mound Builders find any place in this history, it is rather to explain the significance of their name, than the traces discovered of them here. But I want to speal^ of the Indian, of that species of the genus "Homo," of which we have seen numerous individuals in times yet scarcely past, and of which we even now sometimes meet the stragglers and laggards of an armyj which, as far as our own neighborhood is concerned, has disappeared, has vanished, never to return. I cannot mention this fact without admitting and deploring that this annihilation of a whole race, so to speak, is largely, if not exclusively due to the aggressions and encroachments, open and secret, of another race, the one to which we ourselves belong. According to the laws and customs of our own race the. Indian was the rightful owner and possessor of the whole of the American continent no matter whether any one, or none, of the several tribes or nations had a title or estab- lished right to the precise spot upon which they were met by the intruders. It cannot be my intention, nor is it possible in this book, to discuss the Indian question.

Although the Indian has scarcely disappeared from our immediate view and although even long ago white men, the more or less acceptable or reputable representatives of a civilization, of which the nations to which they belonged were unquestionably proud, have been among the Red men, yet we have comparatively few books or documents relating to this intercourse, and of these only a small portion possess any authority or deserve credence. Not that there is not a multiplicity of works on early explorations, on life amdhg the Indians, on their character and circumstances, their habitat and history (supposed), but the great majority of these works are simply copies, real or pretended, of the few original ones, interspersed with anecdotes and adventures very often totally irrelative of the subject pretended to be discussed in the work. Hence it is uncommonly difficult to give something on the interesting subject of the "Indians" deserving the name of history As an example of the way history is sometimes treated or maltreated I need only refer to the history attached to the "Atlas of the State of Minnesota" published in 1874, in which there is perhaps sufficient information of the Dakotas or Sioux, but not a word of the Chippewas. It is true that Hole-in-the-day (Jr.) did fortunately, not make such an extraordinary disturbance, as his treacherous and bloody contemporary. Little Crow, but why it should be forgotten, that the former remained the steadfast friend of his white neighbors, while the latter carried murder, rapine and destruction among those on his side of the line, I do not understand. This is only one instance.

" We might go to our own state atlas, issued in 1876 by Walling, and find that all of the history given relates to Green Bay and Prairie du Chien, and to the Langlades and Grignons.

The historian, who is honestly and diligently exploring the fountains of his narrative, must therefore be excused, if he grows' cautious even to the verge of scepticism.

On Indian History. 8S

In answer to the first question, we must say that they were, first and last. Frenchmen, and that they must be divided into two classes: Traders and Missionaries. Each of these classes had many peculiarities, of capacity, education, opportunity and purpose of investigation, and of rendering a full or a more partisan reports. I think it is well to consider them under separate heads.

As the name implies they came to trade with the Indians, that is to exchange commodities for which the Indians might show a desire for the productions of Indian industry. The trader had to look to two essential conditions, profit and security. The venture was great, the profit might be enormous, but that depended on the security of life and property. The trader was usually a man of considerable means, of corresponding influence, and necessarily surrounded by a crowd of adventurous dependents, who traveled into remote parts to procure the desirable articles. The principal articles for which the trade was undertaken were the furs of different animals, especially the beaver. From this fact the trade was called the fur-trade. Other articles were incidental aggregations, but the trade in Beaver-skins was for a long time of such importance, that these skins became the standard of value for every thing bought, sold, or exchanged. In order to procure articles of trade, to conclude bargains, gain possession of advantageous posts and for intercourse in general, it was necessary to learn something, at least enough for the purposes of trade, of the language of every tribe. On this knowledge depended much more than the mere traffic, and it may be imagined that every possessor of a trading post had at least onfe person about him, who was a competent interpreter. The necessity of remaining sometimes for years at the same post, as well as amorous propensities, soon led to family relations between the trading people and the Indians, that is, most traders and dependents married Indian women. We may differ in our opinions about the morals involved in such marriages, but we must all agree, that they afforded op- portunities of acquiring a through knowledge of language, manners, conditions, traditions and all the more obscure facts about Indians, such as would not, or but imperfectly, be observed in any other position. As far as opportunities were concerned, the traders were in the most favorable situation; they were among the Indians, they had time, and their very existence depended mostly upon their intimate knowledge of Indian characteristics. But as to rendering a report on their experiences and observations the traders and their dependents were, as a class, but little fitted to produce anything reliable. Most of them were illiterate, some to the lowest possibility. VA^e can not be surprised at that, when we consider that in the sixteenth, seventeenth and even the eighteenth century popular education in France can not possibly have had any existence, that all literary education was confined to the higher classes the nobility, the clergy and the rich, and not even very creditable among the majority of these. The trader, that is the actual merchant, we may call him "Bourgeois," or " Sieur," or " Seignieur," had some knowledge of mercantile affairs, and may be generally credited with the accomplishments of reading and writing, though it was notorious that some of the class did not possess, and did not even value these accomplishments, which, at least in the immediate trafBc, were of but little consequence.

Another cause, which prevented the reports from traders, was the natural tendency of mercantile operations to court secrecy, in order to elude competition. Possibly, though perhaps there was scarcely any occasion for it, reports from this quarter were suppressed by the national jealousy between the French and English, which was especially active in the French government of colonies,- and for which there was cause enough, on account of the adjoining New England colonies. So we find that those who were in the best position to know, did not furnish much information, which is the more to be regretted, as there were numerous causes of prejudice animating the other class of explorers, but which were less potent, or entirely absent among the trad,er8.

Of these we must remember that they were French, Catholics, Clericals, and Celibates. The first two of these qualifications they had in common with the traders and their dependents and these same qualifications placed the Missionaries under the gov- ernment and protection of the Representatives of the Royal Power of Prance. The missionaries being professedly non-combatants, had to rely on that protection much more extensively than the traders, who were supposed to provide for themselves in cases of emergencies, and whose arms and combativeness probably furnished as much protection to the Lilies of the Bourbons, as the same flowers could be expected to afford to them. The character of the missionaries as Clericals and Celibates seems to have made them more independent of worldly affairs than the traders, and to have put them on a basis of impartial judgment. Yet, while they were on one point put on a more independent basis, they were, especially by being celibates, put at a disadvantage as far as observation was concerned. They were, in a somewhat opprobrious sense considered as intruders, who could hot share, but might misrepresent, family life among Indians. Their aim was not so much to reform, but to overturn the entire fabric of what- may have been superstitions, but were, nevertheless, actual parts, traits and motives of Indian life. How could they have reformed, what was to them an abomination? For many of these disadvantages their zeal and devotion supplied remedies, and if their theorj'' was austere, their practice has been found to have been accommodating itself to circumstances. A number of them had been people of the world and had made different kinds of experience before entering their orders; and such frequently found occasion to utilize their experience in the council of their convict, in their own conduct, and in regulating the conduct of their converts, and their zeal was not altogether without that discretion, which made fhem not only obedient instruments, but also close and able observers. Yet, when we contemplate their preconceived ideas, their doctrinal obstinacy, aad their ascetic tendency, according to which they sometimes condemned the most innocent manifestations of nature, we will feel inclined to look upon their reports and relations of Indian life and manners with an eye of caution, if not actual suspicion. As far as their own personal sincerity is concerned, at least as it relates to the earliest Jesuits in the New World, I am incliaed to agree with Parkman, and concede the point. We find, however, that some of these monks, Jesuits and Franciscans, were not above a desire of appropriating to themselves the achievements of others, B^atrjples of this you will find in the histories of La Salle and Du Luth. In regard to literary capability and preparation for their labor and especially the task now under consideration, they were widely different, the Jesuits as a rule far superior to the Franciscans. The Jesuits being known and acknowledged as superior scholastics, we may turn to their opponents, the Franciscans, who were of the two peculiar degrees or sub-orders called Capuchins and Recollects. The Capuchins were professed " ignorantes," that is, they considered secular knowledge as detrimental to supernatural virtue. They were an order of mendicants, subsisting ostentatiously upon charity. The Recollects or Recollets were similar, though probably of a different habit or mode of clothing. Of the latter we find that Hennepin, who belonged to that order, was the author of a book, . hence they probably were themselves or admitted to their ranks, men of scholastic acquirements. Their religious tenets being alike, we. may omit their discussion. It is worthy of remark, that there was a pronounced disinclination on the part of the traders towards the ecclesiastics, but more so towards the Jesuits than the Franciscans. Devout Catholics they all were, at least professedly, and educated in the veneration of the priests or monks, and this distinct antagonism. is well worth contemplation, though the causes have nothing to do with this matter. As it was, it certainly influenced their mutual relations to each other and the Indians, and possibly colored some of the narratives from either side. And, since the ecclesiastics were almost the only historians, we must bring this antagonism into account in the formation of our judgment regarding the Indians.

What has been said relates mainly to the very earliest periods of exploration, and does not locally extend to our part of the country. It is, nevertheless, important as'the most reliable source of a knowledge of the original Indian character, and of the habitat of some of the Indian tribes or nations, who subsequently were domiciled upon, or claimed prescriptive possession of, the very soil upon which we are now living. There was always a wide difference in these reports, and although the older ones are certainly preferable, yet we must come to the conclusion, that most of them were written to support certain theories, and that the remarks of Parkman in regard to later writers on the subject might to a certain degree be applicable to all these histories and not only to the

" Many observers have interpreted the religious ideas of the Indians after preconceived ideas of their own, and it may safely be'afl&rmed that an Indian will respond with a grunt of acquiescence to any question whatever touching his spiritual state. Loskiel and the simple-minded Heckewelder write from a missionary point of view; Adair to support a theory of descent from the Jews; the worthy theologian, Jarvis, to maintain his dogma, that all religious ideas of the heathen world are perversions of revelation; and so, in a greater or less degree, of many others. By far the most close and accurate observers of Indian superstitions {and character) were the French and Italian Jesuits of the first half of the seventeenth century. Their - opportunities were unrivalled; and they used them in a spirit of faithful inquiry, accumulatirig facts, and leaving theory to their successors."

With this quotation I may dismiss the tnissionaries as explorers. I think that in the above the 2d, 3d and 4th of my questions have been, incidentally, but fully, answered.

Pronunciation And Translation

We come now to a source of trouble originating in the difference of languages, the French and the English on one side, and the different tongues and dialects of the Indians on the other. In the transitions from the Indian into the French and from that into the English the names of Indian tribes or nations have been so much disfigured, that it may be set down as a fact, that very often authors spoke of what they did but imperfectly know, and what might have been something or somebody else. The Indians having no written language in ,,the modern acceptation of the term, the French in writing about any particular nation or about its location and other- things connected therewith, tried to imitate the sounds of the Indian names and as their language is almost devoid of any gutturals, they could not express such sounds very closely.

It does not possess, for instance, the sound or letter of W, but we find them trying to represent that sound by ou, which, however, in most words of their own language has not a consonant but a vowel sound, the same as oo in boots, and was certainly a poor substitute in such words as Wisconsin = Ouis-con-sin. In

On Indian History.'

|same word the last syllable, according to their own language it be pronounced sang. We find in this one word an example of the transmission of Indian names, which convinces us that our present pronunciation of them is not at all reliable. We find another familiar instance in the word Sioux, in which even according to their own orthography the letter i is without any function, and that Soux would answer the purpose as to pronunciation, admitting the x as a silent sign of the plural. The diflBculty thickens when we come to the interpretations. In such cases, however, the French circumvented the difficulty frequently by adopting the names suggested by localities or by the language of adjoining tribes. They, for instance, called the Winnebagoes, whose name in their own (the Winnebago) language is Ochunkosaw, by a translation, or may be perversion, of the Algonquin word " Winebeg," meaning fetid water, naming them " Puants," that is "Stinkers," and, as the Winnebagoes at first lived near Green Bay, they called the place " Baie des Puants," though perhaps also "Baie Verte." Such instances might be multiplied.

After the conquest of Canada and its surrender to the English these names existed and were forthwith represented in English orthography, always with the evident intention of rendering them pronounceable, or rather easy of pronunciation. Naturally they were subjected to further transformations or disfigurations. French and English orthography having during the term of a century undergone numerous changes, some of which were probably extended to proper nouns, we are at a loss to say which is which in the pronunciation of Indian names, and also in regard to their meaning or significance. Another great difficulty in the study of Indian history is the constant displacement of the tribes. So, for instance, we find that after having established a temporary trading post at Green Bay, and having named the locality by the name they chose to give the first inhabitants they had met in the neighborhood, we find the French engaged in desperate feuds with the Foxes, a tribe not at all related to the Winnebagoes, but living upon the country actually occupied by the latter at an earlier date, these, the Winnebagoes, still occupying adjoining parts of the country, but whether in league with the Poxes, or with the French, we have to guess.

were the warlike excursions of some of the preponderating Indian nations.. The most conspicuous of these were the Iroquois of New York, a confederacy of five distinct nations, who came shortly after the visit of Jean Nicollet, up to Wisconsin and defeated the Winnebagoes, and, at the same or some later time, also the Foxes on Rock River. The same powerful confederacy had driven the Sacs and Poxes from their ancient possessions in the southern peninsula of Michigan.

These incidents are cited to give an idea of the tangled mass of facts, reports and traditions, of which what we term Indian history consists. Speaking of the three tribes or nations, which afterwards claimed or, after the Indian custom possessed the soil which now is within the boundaries of our county, and the adjacent parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota, I shall find occasion to point out other instances of uncertainties and contradictions. Some of the above remarks might have been made in the recital of specific explorations and settlements, and of lives of individual explorers, but in such cases we are in danger of wronging those who were probably sincere and might have been misrepresented, and we would not have established a standard of judgment or criticism by merely questioning individual assertions or character. I shall, therefore, apply but little criticism to the narratives of such authors, as have written about our own part of the country, unless as far as they can not be included in the classes here, enumerated. Of these exceptions are Du Luth,;La Salle, and Capt. Jonathan Carver the most conspicuous.

The Indians

Whenever anybody begins to speak of Indians, that is of the population, which as an aggregate, was found in actual occupation of the islands as well as of the continent of North America, it is supposed, mentally and unconsciously, that he is speaking of a homogeneous body, in which every individual is simply an Indian, a barbarous, undeveloped being, who, for the very want of development, must be like every other individual of his nation and can not possibly be different. Some people, at least, have an idea, or pretend to know, that in Europe we have Russians, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Dutch, Germans, English, French, Spaniards, Italians, Greeks and Turks, Hungarians, Croatians, Bohemians, and Polanders, besides a number of small nationalities, such as Irish, Gaeles, Basques and similar, but for most people it seems to be incomprehensible that there should be as many if not more, Indian nations as there are European ones. In the same way it might occur to most people, from analogy, that the Indian nations might be grouped by some common distinction of certain ones of them, not possessed by certain others. Without going any deeper- than the most obvious differences, we find in Europe three or four principal groups of peoples or nationalities, distinguished from each other mainly by their languages. Philologists may have conclusive proofs of a common origin of most European languages, but the distinctions still exist, between Russian, Polish, Bohemian, and Croatian, as one group, the Slavonic; and the German, Dutch,- Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, another, the Germanic or Teutonic; the French the Spanish, the Italian and the Greek, as the Grecco-Romanic; the Hungarian or Magyar, Turkish and Finnish as the Tartaric; with several languages, each made up principally of elements thrown together from two groups, as the English, from Germanic and Romanic elements, with a few others not conveniently to be arranged into either group. In a similar manner the Indian languages of this continent may be grouped and the tribes or nationalities arranged into the groups principally according to their languages or dialects, for in our stage of actual knowledge possessed of any of the Indian languages, defunct, or still existing,, it is probably not safe to draw a very sharp line between language and dialect. In the investigations incident to procuring a sufficient knowledge of those Indian tribes or nations, whom I shall have to mention at some length, I have discovered, that in this as in every other matter " doctors disagree."

In regard to such disagreements there is but little chance for a successful appeal, as the material for investigation is rapidly disappearing, and I have therefore concluded to adhere to such distinctions for the formation of the groups, as are least disputed and easiest of understanding, and shall use for the different nations or tribes such names as are generally accepted. Leaving out the Southern Indians, those who usually dwelt below the line drawn from the headwaters of the southern branch of the Ohio River, the Monongahela, to the northern end of Chesapeake Bay, and designating those who dwelt up North from that line, and a line formed by the Ohio, the Missouri and the Platte River, and between the Atlantic Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, as Northern Indians, we may, by affinity of language, divide them into the following four groups :

I. Algonquins, originally along the coast of the ocean, along both sides of St. Lawrence River up to the Sorel, thence only on the northside and thence on the eastside of the lakes, probably in the northern peninsula and the greater part of the southern peninsula of Michigan, thence to the Wisconsin River and below that on the east side of the Mississippi, down to the Ohio and up the Alleghany River to the mouth of French Creek, thence up that creek to Chautauqua Lake not far from the southern shore of Lake Erie, about one fourth of the whole length of that shore west from Bufifalo, and from that point east parallel to the former line. The tribes or nations belonging to that group were the following: b. Upon the St. Lawrence: Montagnais, (somewhere on the lower stream on either side,) Ottawas, on that river and its islands, the Nipissings around the lake of the same name, and further north on the east side of the lake the Ojibways of Sault Ste. Mary.

chigan: North of Lake Superior and towards Hudson's Bay the Knistenau, on the Upper Peninsula some Ojib ways, and on the river of the same name the Menomonees.

On the Lower Peninsula the Sacs and Foxes and possibly the Miamis. On the westside of Lake Michigan, south along shore, the Patawattomies, and further west the Mascoutins and Kikapoes, south of them the Illinois, who are supposed to have been a confederation of numerous tribes speaking Algonkin dialects; farther east in Indiana and Ohio were probably the original quarters of the Miamis.

They were located within the circle formed by the Algonquin tribes enumerated above, and distinct from them in language, manners of living, government and customs. They consisted of five distinct tribes, the Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Senecas. The Fries and the Kat-Kaws or Neutrals spoke the same language or some dialect of it, but did not belong to the confederacy. The same may be said of the Hurons, who lived beyond the Iroquois boundary, on the eastern shores of the straits connecting Lake Huron with Lake Erie, mostly on the shores of Georgian Bay. This group does not inaterially interfere with Indians living on or in the neighborhood of our territory, and are only remarkable as furnishing a precedent of Indian government and clanship which repeated itself among other groups, notably among the Dakotas.

III. The Dakotas or Sioux. This group of which there will be occasion to speak at length hereafter, was situated mostly on the westside but contiguous to the Mississippi.

This nation may be said to have occupied, in general terms, the country between the Wisconsin, the Chippewa, and the Mississippi rivers. They called themselves O-chunk-o-saw and claimed relationship with the lowas, the Omahas and the Ponkas. By some writers they are classed with the Dakotas, but they denied the relationship. I find that by a late philologist they are classed with the Dakota stock, their language being by him called Hot- can'gara, a n3,me not too remote from the other to confirm their own appellation of 0-chunk-o-saw, the word Hotcan'gara, being a Dakota corruption. This nation being one of the three demanding especial notice, it may here be passed over. In the above enumeration I do not mean to claim I exhausted the subject, nor that I could not have made some mistakes. The location of most Indian tribes was uncertain. The weaker ones especially, were constantly wandering, and in their continual warfare they sometimes made astonishing excursions, gained and lost in one short summer campaign sometimes more land than is included in our whole state. It is, however, to be remembered, that Indians of any name but seldom went to war for the purpose of acquiring or extending territory, unless entirely expatriated by a superior force.

Indian Manner Of Living

According to accepted definitions the Indians were savages; they lived by hunting and fishing almost exclusively. That they were roving and had no permanent habitation was but the result of their mode of subsistence. Game of any kind will become scarce if constantly exposed to destruction. Some of the game animals are regular migrators, as for instance, the buffalo, others shifted their haunts to elude pursuit and destruction. This mode of life and way of subsistence, however, was more compulsory on the northern Indians than on those farther south. Not only was game more abundant in the genial climate, more prolific and less exposed to suffering from want of nourishment, but the productions of the soil were more numerous and various, more reliable in their annual crops, and vastly more abundant in these. But how could Indians, savages as they were called, have any crops ? Beyond any question or doubt they did have crops, not only of such fruits and grains as might be considered growing wild, such as berries, plums, nuts, and wild rice, but they also had crops of Indian corn or maize. Not only in the warmer parts but also in the most northern latitudes inhabited by them, did they cultivate this kind of grain, in the high latitudes with very many risks and failures. They also raised other crops, some for subsistence, as squashes and pumpkins, and one, notably, for mere enjoyment, a crop of tobacco. Maize and tobacco were unquestionably of American origin, though perhaps native to the warmer climes to Central-America and the West-Indies. The cultivation of both extends far back of the discovery of the New World by Columbus or by the Northmen. But though roving, the Indians were never truly nomadic. With them the usual order of development had been reversed, or interrupted. The Indians were still hunters and fishers when they practiced agriculture, and they never were herdsmen. Their only domestic animal was the dog, and even this one they had not yet learned to use for many things. Although hunting and war led the Indians sometimes far away, the feeble attempts at agriculture made by them, or for them by their women, induced them always to return to certain localities. It is strange that the cow and the horse were entirely absent when the Europeans began to plant colonies along the coasts. Thus the Aborigines missed the one intermediate step between the savage hunter and the cultivator of the soil, who is at the foundation of civilization. The use of the milk of certain animals, which leads to the care and protection of such animals, and to the dependence upon the products afforded by them, they had never known. Nor had they ever learned to domesticate and to propagate an animal which exceeded themselves in strength, and which could transport themselves, and their effects with a speed exceeding their own greatly. It may be questioned whether the buffalo could have been domesticated and the milk of the cows might have been used in the same way as that of the common cow; if possible, it was never attempted, or at least no trace of such an attempt is known. There is no question, however, in regard to the horse and its congeners; none of them were present af the first landing of eastern people. As to means of subsistence the Indians had yet to rely almost entirely upon primitive and natural resources, and as to transportation, they . had to rely upon the means furnished directly by nature, their own legs and the waterways. It is a remarkable fact, that, though the Indians were by dint of constant and exhaustive practice, very fleet walkers and runners, they still preferred the travel in canoes, whenever it was possible to make use of them. This sort of locomotion, which can hardly claim the title of more than the lowest degree of navigation, coasting, in fact afforded to them the only convenient mode of travel and of transportation. Not that it was in itself an easy task, but it relieved one pair of limbs by employing the other.

In the chase, in fishing, in the building and propelling of the canoe, and in the practice of their rude and limited agriculture the Indians were naturally compelled to use implements. The implements for the chase before the introduction of European articles of any kind, were bows and arrows, stone hatchets and stone knives, and lances, which like the arrows were tipped or headed with stone. The shape of these lance-heads and arrow-heads is familiar to the present generation in our part of the country; knives also, and hatchets, and axes were found at numerous places. The stone hatchet resembled the hatchets of our days only in having a sharp edge on one side and a hammer on the opposite, but was essentially different from them in the way of attaching or fastening the handle to it. In our hatchets the handle goes through the hatchet, in the stone hatchet the hatchet went through the handle, that is through an opening in the same, and the handle was fastened to the hatchet by the parts fitting into a rim all round the hatchet. Considering that the only implements for making a suitable opening in the handle consisted of stone knives, some of which might occasionally serve as saws, it is quite reasonable to think that the handle consisted of two parts for at least most of its length and that these parts were fastened by the cords" or sinews of animals killed in the chase. To the hainmer or the axe the handle had to be fastened in the same way. The club, which might be as serviceable in the chase as in a fight, was a more secondary implement, which sometimes might be found readymade, or requiring but little preparation.

For fishing the implements were the book, the spear and the net. Hooks were made of bones. The bones of fishes and the antlers of deer furnish some natural shapes for these hooks and they were extensively used. As we do not find that the Indians used any fibres of other plants, except the bast of trees or roots finely divided, and possibly some long and fine grasses, we must come to the conclusion that the lines used for angling and for weaving or knitting nets were of the same materials. Hiawatha in his fishing used a line of cedar, which must have been exceedingly strong, since it could not be broken by the pike, nor by the sun fish strong and heavy as they must have been, making the birch canoe stand on end as each in turn pulled on the line. But to come down to well authenticated facts, we find that the Hurons used nets for fishing in their lake, and may reasonably conclude that these nets were large. It is also certain that they had nets before the French came among them, for though the missionaries were the first to give the necessary testimony in the matter, they already found a custom among the Indians, which was immediately connected with the net-fishing and certainly very ancient. This custom, annually performed for the propitiation of the manitou of the lake or of the fishes, was the marriage of two virgins to his mightiness. The missionaries, well aware of the almost promiscuous intercouse of the sexes among the Hurons very sagely intimate that the brides were always very young, in fact mere children, in order to make sure of the imperative condition of the charm. This marriage, however, was merely symbolical, the young brides each taking hold of one end or corner of the net until the address to their supposed bridegroom by some chief was over. The ceremony indicates the antiquity of the use of nets. The spear used by the Indians for fishing is at the present day, and seems to have always been a single one, not a pronged instrument, as used for similar purposes by white men. It was probably made of the antlers of deer, and arranged in a manner to come off its pole, if the fish made unexpected resistance, the hook being then held by a verj' strong line or thong of tough leather, allowing the fish the necessary play to exhaust itself, until finally secured. It may be added that one authority says the Huron women manufactured out of the fiber of hemp the lines or the twine for nets, and most probably for angling, by the most primitive way of spinning, that of rolling it on their exposed thighs. This may have been after their acquaintance with the French, or else the hemp here mentioned is a different plant. The common hemp, (Cannabis sativa,} is certainly a plant of eastern origin and of late introduction. There are, however, some species of urtica, or nettle, indigenous, and the toughness of their fibres may have been discovered accidentally.

In their agriculture the Indian women used the fire for clearing the space to be cultivated. Trees were felled by the same agency, and the ground partially loosened by the burning was worked by pronged limbs of trees, by hoes made of the breastbone of large quadrupeds, or of horns, pronged and otherwise, of such animals. Plowing was out of the question, though dogs, which they had in abundance, might have been trained for running some scratching wooden instrument in a line or furrow. The result of their labor was a crop of corn, some of which was roasted in the ear, while yet fit for eating in that way, the rest being garnered in different ways, among which the process of hanging tlie ears, probably by the husks, to the poles immediately under the ridge pole is mentioned to have been practiced by the Hurons, and was probably common among northern nations. Much of this crop seems to have been kept in barrels or similar vessels around the house, and some of it may have remained in the fields, when there was no apprehension of any warlike incursions. The Illinois, we find, buried their supplies in the earth for security. All these labors were done by women, and besides tha exertions, required considerable skill and experience, and if it had not been for the want of working animals and cows and sheep, the Indians would have made a respectable figure among semi-civilized nations, even before the advent of Europeans. The corn which was dried had to be used in dififerent ways. Hunters and war-parties took it along parched, to be used when needed. Some, and probably the most of it, had to be ground or pulverized in some way for use as mush, along with meat or vegetables. I can not find any positive statement that they made bread of it, at least not in earlier times. The grinding, pounding or pulverizati9n was done in wooden mortars, which were hollowed out by alternate burning and scraping, sometimes perhaps on flat stones, with other stones that were thick and heavy on one end and rounded off by continued use. All the farmwork, the housekeeping, cooking and spinning and such knitting and weaving, and perhaps sewing, as might be required, was done by the women, also the gathering of firewood. Besides the chase, the fishing, and the care for the arms and weapons, the building of the canoe was the work of the men. Most Indians built bark-canoes. The Algonquins especially used the bark of the white or paper birch for the body of the canoe, the Iroquois had to use the bark of elm trees; other tribes substituted the bark of the spruce. Besides the advantage of lightness and suppleness the bark of the birch presented the further one of admitting of being stripped from the tree at almost any season, while other barks were very seldom to be had out of the season when the sap was in full circulation.

" Down the trunk, from top to bottom, Sheer he cleft the bark asunder, With a wooden wedge he raised it, Stripped it from the trunk unbroken."

But I have seen wedge shaped stones much better adapted and unquestionably used for the purpose. For a further description of the proceedings, which must have been much the same in every case, the reader will please consult the chapter entitled " Hiawatha's Sailing." There is some doubt in my mind concerning the use of bark canoes in the hotter parts of the continent, on account of the softening and final melting of the balsam or pitch necessary to make the seayas waterproof, and also, because the rapid and very large growth of some of the trees of that part of the country naturally sugge.4ed substitutes for the bark canoe. The latter had some advantages in the ease of management over wooden canoes or dug-outs, and where the paper birch existed and grew large enough, remained the favorite until now among the aborigines.

From the building of the canoe the most natural transition leads to the building of the tent, lodge, hut or house, which was a task for the men. But as this subject is closely connected with the family life or social habits of the Indians, I will postpone its consideration until I reach that topic.

Among the. crops enumerated above we find one which would surprise us, did we not know, that the use of tobacco, met everywhere on the continent and on the islands among Indians, whenever Europeans first came in contact with them, was universal, both as an article of enjoyment, and as an indispensable requisite ' in the propitiation of the okis and manitous, for the councils of war and peace, and especially in the expression of a favorable disposition to strangers, or other visitors in an Indian encampment. For that reason I will go back to the first observation of the use of tobacco made by Europeans among inhabitants of Cuba. Washington Irving says in his " Ufe and Voyages oj- Christopher Columbus ": " On their way back, they for the first time witnessed the use of a weed, which the ingenious caprice of man has since converted into a universal luxury, in defiance of the opposition of the senses. They beheld several of the natives going about with fire brands in their hands, and certain dried herbs which they rolled up in a leaf, and lighting one end, put the other in their mouths, and continued exhaling and puffing out the smoke. A roll of this kind they called a tobacco, a name since transferred to the plant of which the rolls were made."

This is the general sense of what Las Casas says in Hist. Gen. Ind. as quoted by Irving. The first thought of any unprejudiced person in reading this would be, that smoking was invented to protect the face against the attacks of insects of the kind of mosquitoes and gnats. But the smoker knows from experience, that after the nauseous feelings and the nervous prostration incident to the first attempts are overcome, the cigar, (as we may call the " tobacco " of the Cubans,) and the pipe afford a gentle excitement often quite welcome after hard labor of any kind, and a stimulus for mental labor to numerous persons. I can not enter into a discussion of the merits and demerits of the weed, and the different uses it is applied to, but I must state, that the smoking of tobacco was common among all Indian tribes yet discovered, and that in consequence of this habit the planting and further manipulation of tobacco foi«ned an important item in their agriculture and industry, simple as they both were. Still more remarkable than the prevalence of the use of tobacco is the fact, that there was one nation of Northern Indians who not only smoked tobacco, and raised it for their own consumption, as probably all other tribes did, but cultivated it as a crop for export, as we might call it now-a-days, that is, for the purposes of barter and trade with friend and foe. .This nation was called the Tobacco Nation, but in the Huron-Iroquois they were called Tionnontates. The French name " Nation du Petun," gave by literal translation the English appellation, but neither of them necessarily agrees with the one in their own language. The habitat of this nation was between Lake Ontario on the south and Nottawassaga Bay, the southern bay of Lake Manitoulin, now Georgian Bay, the eastern part of Lake Huron. Towards the northeast the Hurbns were their neighbors, to the southwest the Neutrals held possession of the country between them and Lake Erie. The latitude is 44° to 46° north, but the climate is more equitable than in our own part of the country, which in some measure explains the success in cultivating tobacco. The nation was, like the Hurons, the Neutrals and the Eries, all of them kindred by language, destroyed by the fury of the Iroquois, but the renaains of the nation, exi ting at different places, among kindred and even hostile tribes, exercised a powerful influence among Indians, and were the most inflexible foes of the English in the Pontiac confederacy and to the United States at later times. They called themselves Wyandots. But to return to tobacco, we regret being unable to say how the Indians prepared the weed for smoking, though perhaps drying was the only process it was ever subjected to. We know it was smoked, and we find that it was smoked in pipes, and that the use of the pipe was a habit of the Indian men at their leisure, in the council and on difierent ceremonial occasions. Like most other people I imagined once, that the pipes of the Indians were made of the red pipestone, a notion in which I was confirmed by the description in Hiawatha and different other writings. But I have come to the conclusion that all this was fabulous, and the reader will agree with me, when he considers the immense distance, the constant wars of the different nations, and the impossibility of approaching the Pipestone Quarry by any mode of travel and transportation usual with the Indians. This, of course, applies more especially to Indians east of the Mississippi and most forcibly to those near to and even east of the Great Lakes. But more conclu- j sive than any arguments are the ocular proofs consisting in an almost unlimited number of pipes found in Indian burial mounds. Most of them are of an entirely different kind of stone, some of them even of a sandstone, which looks gritty but scarcely hard enough; others are of baked clay. Of those that have come under my observation, some two or three were remarkable for not looking like common pipeSj being rather blocks of sandstone, into the top end of which two holes were bored, the small ends of them [ meeting at a common point. Of these holes one may have been considered the bowl, the other may have served for the insertion of a stem. One can not but admire the workmanship of these implements of sacrifice or pleasure, the point of contact of the holes being exactly at the apex of the cone or conical hollow of each (ipening. The work is quite smooth, and considering the want of metal for the purpose of hollowing out the stone, must have taken considerable time and perseverance in its execution. But while contemplating it, I was struck with the smallnees of the bowl and its very limited capacity, being from its conical shape the least compatible with the surface opening. I am almost tempted to think that the tobacco was inserted in it in the shape of a cigar, though that may simply be a fancy of mine. William Finkelnburg, Esq., of Winona, Minn., who is an enthusiastic collector of Indian relics as well as of geological specimens, showed me two pipes of the^ind here described, one of which was found in this county opposite Winona, the other somewhere in Minnesota. One of them was marked on one of its faces by a crude ..figure, probably intended as a bird or animal, and possibly the totem of the-maker or owner. Mr. Finkelnburg ascribes this kind of pipe to the Moundbuilders, insisting that real Indian pipes were always of pipestone. As the pipestone quarry is between the Mississippi and the Missouri, my argument against that proposition is certainly not as valid as with the nations heretofore enumerated. His propositions are here given as by him stated, and as he is probably a better authority on the point, than I, it would be of no use to argue against them.

A third pipe of the same kind is certainly the most remarkable relic of ancient times ever found within this county, be it now of Indians or Moundbuilders. It was found in Bohri's Valley, on level ground, and accidentally picked up, not dug out by an explorer. It has the shape of an animal sculptured with great exactness out of a hard sandstone. The hind part of the right side has been damaged by the plow, most probably at the time of the first breaking of the soil, as after that it would probably not have resisted enough to be torn. A few scratches, as if made by the tooth of a harrow, are also found, but nothing to mar the form and execution. The head is entirely free all round and the eyes and eye-slits are very clearly marked. The head is broad on its base and not very long, but sharply flattened at the snout, so that the face looks somewhat like that of a frog, for which the figure might be mistaken, were it not for the long tail, the position of the eyes, and the prominent, well formed, but short ears, which were, however, somewhat longer at first, and are worn down. The position of the animal is standing; the legs are well carved, but the material between them is not entirely removed, yet enough of it to make them appear in good relief. On the right fore-foot the toes may be counted, and the execution of the work is as fine and cor- rect as the material would allow, .which would hardly admit of much finer workmanship even with our perfect steel tools. The tail is quite prominent and though one side adheres to the total figure, the other sides are distinct and well rounded. The figure has been claimed to resemble a bear, on account of the thick head, and general massiness of appearance, but the length of the tail and the tapering of the fore-feet seem to contradict this notion. The comparative bulkiness is easily explained by considering that the holes for the bowl and stem of a pipe are on its back, which required not only room for themselves, but also enough material around them to make reasonably sure of durability.

This valuable relic is in possession of George Schwoebel Esq. of Fountain City. The description may seem long to some people, but does no more than justice to the interesting object.

Other pipes might be described, but they are differing almost altogether from the kind above mentioned. The leading form is substantially the same as in our common clay-pipes, that is the suction tube or stem is joined at about a right angle to the centerline of the bowl which is an inverted hollow cone. Pipes of that shape would naturally be ascribed without reserve to the Indians, inasmuch as the pipes found in actual use among them were, and are now of this description. But in writing out this chapter I suddenly remembered that I had a collection of pictures of pipes, published in the "Illustrated World", (German, and printed in Stuttgard and Leipzig) containing seventeen numbers or specimens of pipes, all in the main of the last described . construction. The most remarkable is number one, of which a front, and a side-view are given. The bowl is a well carved human head with hat-like extension above, and the stem connected therewith at a right angle and being of the same piece, has a length of about three times the diameter of the bowl, tapering slightly towards the end opposite. The material is clay, the workmanship is said to be very artistic, but the most remarkable thing about the specimen is the fact, that it was found in a mound which had been opened by the command of the unfortunate Maximilian, the emperor "of Mexico, who was shot at Queretaro in 1867, and it is said to have been in his own hands and possession. The collection in which this pipe was exhibited for sale by a Mr. Wareham at London, contained many specimens, and a short historical sketch was attached to each.

Considering the publicity of this exhibit, it might reasonably be inferred that these sketches would not deviate too far from the facts in each case, and reasoning from this supposition, this pipe overthrows all theories of distribution of pipemodels among Mourtdbuilders and Indians. But it is enough of tobacco and pipes, and if it were not for the fact that a majority of our masculine population is in some way and degree or other addicted to the consumption of the weed, I would scarcely have said so much.

The most important means of shelter in all climates, but more particularly in our northern latitudes, is a house. But the idea -of a house is susceptible of very great variations and its building dependent upon so many circumstances that the most important question will be: What kind of houses did the Indians build? From our standpoint we would deny that the Indians built houses. We would call them hovels, or perhaps tents jor huts. There were, however a great variety of structures intended to do duty as houses among the Indians. Something all of them had in common; they were rude, frail and insufficient for the purpose of such shelter as human nature seems to demand in a climate in which the winter season is neither short nor mild. The houses of the strolling Montagnais in their winter hunt in the mountain region between the waters of the St. Johns River running south and the tributaries of the lower St. Lawrence running north, were of the most unsatisfactory kind. Their construction is described by Paul Le Jeune, the first Superior of the Jesuit Mission at Quebec, who had joined a band of them on such an occasion, as follows :

"The Squaws, with knives and hatchets, cut long poles of birch and spruce saplings; while the men, with snow-shoes for shovels, cleared a round or square space in the snow, which formed an upright wall three or four feet high, inclosing the area of the wigwam. On one side a passage was cut for an entrance, and the poles were planted around the top of the wall of snow, sloping and converging. On these poles were spread the sheets of birch-bark; a bear-skin was hung in the passageway for a door; the bare ground within and the surrounding snow were covered with spruce boughs, and the woi'k was done." These Montagnais Indians were of the Algonkin family and lived in a latitude corresponding to that of the country around Lake Superior, in a climate proverbially severe. We may conclude that the temporary winter wigwams of the tribes of their kindred were of the same description, and can imagine that their summer tents were not much more solid or comfortable.

The houses or dwellings of the Hurons, the Iroquois and all the tribes or nations of the Iroquois lineage were much more pretentious, more solid and permanent. Usually these structures were thirty or thirtyfive feet long and wide. That they were as high may be doubted, though it is asserted. But in some of the villages there were dwellings two hundred and forty feet long, though in width and height these did not exceed the others. In shape they resembled an arbor overarching a garden walk. Their frame was of tall and strong saplings set or stuck in opposite rows to form the opposite sides of the house, bent till they met, and lashed together at the top. To these other poles were bound transversely, and the whole was, covered with large sheets of the bark of the oak, elm, spruce or white cedar, overlapping like shingles on a roof, upon which for better security, split poles were made fast with cords of linden bark. At the crown of the arch, along the whole length of the house an opening a foot wide was left for the admission of light and the escape of smoke. At each end was a close porch of similar construction; and here were stowed casks of bark filled with smoked fish, Indian corn, and other stores not liable to injury from frost. Within, on both sides, were wide scaffolds, four feet from the floor, and extending the entire length of the houses, like the seats of a collossal omnibus. These were formed of thick sheets of bark, supported by posts ai;Ld transverse poles, and covered with mats and skins. Here in summer was the sleeping place of the inmates, and the space beneath served for storage of firewood. The fires were on the ground, in a line down the middle of the house. Each sufficed for two families, who, in winter, slept closely packed around them. Above, just under the vaulted roof, were a great number of poles, like perches of a henroost, and here were suspended weapons, clothing, skins and ornaments. Here, too, in harvest time, the squaws hung the ears of unshelled corn, till the rude abode, through all its length seemed decked with a golden tapestry. In general, however, its only lining was a thick coating of soot from the smoke of fires with neither draft, chimney, or window. So pungent was the smoke, that it produced inflammation of the eyes, attended in old age with frequent blindness. Another annoyance was the fleas; and a third, the unbridled and unruly children. Privacy there was none. The house was one chamber, sometimes lodging more than twenty families. This is Parkman's description, after the delineations given by the Jesuits in their " Relations. " The building and maintenance of such houses, rude and uncomfortable though they were, required considerable time and labor, and could only be undertaken by tribes, whose families, at least, were sedentary. Consequently we do not find such houses, or rather barracks, among the roving Ojibways nor among the Dakotas. The former lived in such a cold region that agriculture was but seldom successful, the latter in a country largely destitute of the heavy timber, which had to furnish, if not the wood, still the bark for the houses described. One point is remarkable; the Indians do not appear to have taken to digging into the ground for shelter, and had evidently not yet experienced the protection of stone walls. Hennepin described the habitations of those Sioux he had to stay with as bark-lodges of a conical shape, and his description of the hunting tents tallies well with the tipee of those vagabonds, known among us at the present day as Indians, most of which are of Dakota stock, more or less mixed with Caucasian of French and other nationalities. It seems that Nicolet did not find any surprising novelty in the way of buildings among the Winnebagoes of Green Bay, but one hundred and thirty two years after his visit, Capt. Carver admired their loghouses in the region between the Wisconsin above its elbow and the Mississippi. We can account for this change by remembering that during that time the Indians had provided themselves with steel tools and grindstones, and if they had not yet introduced draught cattle, they had certainly witnessed the proceedings of white men in building log-houses, and had found them to be not only more comfortable, but also in the end much easier of maintenance. In fact, we must ascribe the construction of houses of upright posts, as related above, to the inferior condition of the implements that had to be used for the purpose, since it is indisputable, that a log laid flat, unless in a very damp place,lasts at least as long, and very often longer, than the fence post that might be made of the saiae tree.

From the stationary shelter furnished by a house, or what, for want of something better, we call so, it is quite natural to proceed to that shelter, which we carry with us as we go. This shelter we call clothing, dress, or habiliments. The poet Heine says: