Elk hunting—beaver and buffalo hunting—endangered in killing
a buffalo cow—Fall Indians—return to Rainy Lake—Swamp River
and Portage—the Begwionusko River and Lake—honesty and good
faith in the intercourse of the Indians—hospitality—sufferings
from hunger—Red River—loss of packs—supposed dishonesty of
traders—rapacity of the traders of the N. W. company—disasters
following the loss of our peltries.
In the Assinneboin river, at one or two days above the Prairie Portage,
is a place called Ke-new-kau-neshe way-boant, (where they throw down the
gray eagle,) at which the Indians frequently stop. Here we saw, as we
were passing, some little stakes in the ground, with pieces of birch bark
attached to them, and on two of these the figure of a bear, and on the
others, those of other animals. Net-no-kwa immediately recognized the
totems of Pe-shau-ba, Waus-so, and their companions. These had been left
to inform us that Pe-shau-ba had been at this place, and as directions
to enable us to find them. We therefore left the traders, and taking the
course indicated by the marks which Pe-shau-ba had caused to be made,
we found him and his party at the distance of two days from the river.
They had returned from the abortive war expedition, to the trading house
on Mouse River, finished the canoes which they had left incomplete, and
descended along to Ke-new-kau-neshe way-boant, where, knowing there were
good hunting grounds, they had determined on remaining. We found at their
camp plenty of game; they had killed, also, a great number of beavers.
About this place elks were numberous, and it was now the rutting season.
I remember one day, Pe-shau-ba sent me with the two young women, to bring
some meat from an elk he had killed at some distance. The women, finding
that the elk was large and fat, determined on remaining to dry the meat
before they carried it home. I took a load of meat, and started for
home by myself. I had my gun with me, and perceiving there were plenty
of elk, I loaded it, and concealing myself in a small thicket of bushes,
began to imitate the call of the female elk; presently a large buck
came bounding so directly towards the spot where I was, and with such
violence, that becoming alarmed for my own safety, I dropped my load and
fled; he seeing me, turned and ran in an opposite direction. Remembering
that the Indians would ridicule me for such conduct, I determined to make
another attempt, and not suffer any apprehension for my own safety to be
the cause of another failure. So hiding myself again, in a somewhat more
carefully chosen place, I repeated my call from time to time, till at
length another buck came up, and him I killed. In this manner, great part
of the day had been consumed, and I now perceived it was time to hasten
home with my load.
The old woman becoming uneasy at my long absence, sent Wa-me-gon-a-biew
to look for me. He discovered me as I was coming out of a piece of woods
into a large prairie. He had on a black capot, which, when he saw me, he
turned over his head in such a manner as to make himself resemble a bear.
At first I took it to be a common black bear, and sought a chance to
shoot him; but it so happened that he was in such a situation as enabled
him to see me, and I knew he would certainly have turned and fled from me
had it been a black bear. As he continued to advance directly towards me,
I concluded it must be a grizly bear, so I turned and began to run from
him; the more swiftly I ran, the more closely he seemed to follow. Though
much frightened, I remembered Pe-shau-ba’s advice, never to fire upon one
of these animals unless trees were near into which I could escape; also,
in case of being pursued by one, never to fire until he came very close
to me. Three times I turned, and raised my piece to fire, but thinking
him still too far off, turned and ran again. Fear must have blinded my
eyes, or I should have seen that it was not a bear. At length, getting
between him and the lodge, I ran with such speed as to outstrip him, when
I heard a voice behind me, which I knew to be that of Wa-me-gon-a-biew.
I looked in vain for the bear, and he soon convinced me that I owed
all my terror to the disguise which he had effected, with the aid only
of an old black coat. This affair being related to the old people when
we came home, they reproved Wa-me-gon-a-biew; his mother telling him,
that if I had shot him in that disguise, I should have done right, and
according to the custom of the Indians she could have found no fault with
me for so doing. We continued here hunting beaver, and killing great
numbers until the ice became too thick; we then went to the prairies in
pursuit of buffaloes. When the snow began to have a crust upon it, the
men said they must leave me with the women, as they were about to go to
Clear Water Lake to make canoes, and to hunt beaver on their way down.
But previous to their going, they said they would kill something for us
to live on while they were gone. Waus-so, who was a great hunter, went
out by himself, and killed one buffalo; but in the night the weather
became very cold and stormy, and the buffalo came in to take shelter in
the woods where we had our camp. Early in the morning, Net-no-kwa called
us up, saying, there was a large herd close by the lodge. Pe-shau-ba
and Waus-so, with Wa-me-gon-a-biew, Sa-ning-wub, and Sag-git-to crept
out, and took stations so as nearly to surround the herd. Me they would
not suffer to go out, and they laughed at me when they saw me putting
my gun in readiness; but old Net-no-kwa, who was ever ready to befriend
me, after they were gone, led me to a stand not far from the lodge,
near which, her sagacity taught her, the herd would probably run. The
Indians fired, but all failed to kill; the herd came past my stand, and
I had the good fortune to kill a large cow, which was my first, much
to the satisfaction of my mother. Shortly afterwards, having killed a
considerable number of buffaloes, the Indians left us; myself, the old
woman, one of the young women, and three children, six in all, with no
one to provide for them but myself, and I was then very young. We dried
considerable of the meat the Indians had killed, and this lasted us for
some time; but I soon found that I was able to kill buffaloes, and for
a long time we had no want of food. In one instance, an old cow which I
had wounded, though she had no calf, ran at me, and I was barely able
to escape from her by climbing into a tree. She was enraged, not so much
by the wound I had given her, as by the dogs; and it is, I believe, very
rare that a cow runs at a man, unless she has been worried by dogs. We
made sugar this spring, ten miles above Mouse River Fort. About this time
I was much endangered by the breaking of the ice. The weather had become
mild, and the beavers began to come up through the holes on to the ice,
and sometimes to go on shore. It was my practice to watch these holes,
and shoot them as soon as they came up: once, having killed one, I ran
hastily up on the ice to get him, and broke in; my snow shoes became
entangled with some brush on the bottom, and had nearly dragged me under,
but by great exertion I at length escaped. Buffaloes were so numerous
about this place, that I often killed them with a bow and arrow, though I
hunted them on foot, and with no other aid than that of dogs well trained
and accustomed to hunt.
When the leaves began to appear upon the trees, Pe-shau-ba and the men
returned in birch canoes, bringing many beaver skins and other valuable
peltries. Old Net-no-kwa was now anxious to return to Lake Huron, as
was Pe-shau-ba; but Waus-so and Sa-ning-wub would not return, and
Pe-shau-ba was unwilling to part with them. Sag-git-to had for some
time been very sick, having a large ulcer or abscess near his navel.
After having drank for some days, he had a violent pain in his belly,
which at length swelled and broke. Pe-shau-ba said to the old woman,
“it is not good that Sag-git-to should die here, at a distance from all
his friends; and since we see he cannot live much longer, I think it
best for you to take him and the little children, and return to Lake
Huron. You may be able to reach the rapids, (Saut de St. Marie,) before
Sag-git-to dies.” Conformably to this advice, our family was divided.
Pe-shau-ba, Waus-so, and Sa-ning-wub remained; Net-no-kwa, and the two
other women, with Sag-git-to, Wa-me-gon-a-biew, and myself, with a little
girl the old woman had bought, and three little children, started to
return to Lake Huron. The little girl was brought from the country of
the Bahwetego-weninnewug, the Fall Indians, by a war party of Ojibbeways
from whom Net-no-kwa had bought her. The Fall Indians live near the
Rocky Mountains, and wander much with the Black Feet; their language
being unlike that of both the Sioux and the Ojibbeways. These last, and
the Crees, are more friendly with the Black Feet than they are with the
Fall Indians. The little Bahwetig girl that Net-no-kwa had bought, was
now ten years of age, but having been some time among the Ojibbeways, had
learned their language.
When we came to Rainy Lake, we had ten packs of beaver of forty skins
each. Net-no-kwa sold some other peltries for rum, and was drunk for
a day or two. We here met some of the trader’s canoes on their way to
Red River; and Wa-me-gon-a-biew, who was now eighteen years old, being
unwilling to return to Lake Huron, determined to go back to the north
with the trader’s people. The old woman said much to dissuade him, but
he jumped into one of the canoes as they were about to start off, and
although, at the request of the old woman, they endeavoured to drive
him out, he would not leave the canoe. Net-no-kwa was much distressed,
but could not make up her mind to lose her only son; she determined on
returning with him.
The packs of beaver she would not leave with the traders, not having
sufficient confidence in their honesty. We therefore took them to a
remote place in the woods, where we made a sunjegwun, or deposite, in
the usual manner. We then returned to the Lake of the Woods. From this
lake the Indians have a road to go to Red River which the white men never
follow; this is by the way of the Muskeek, or swamp carrying place. We
went up a river which the Indians call Muskeego-ne-gum-me-we-see-bee, or
Swamp River, for several days; we then dragged our canoes across a swamp
for one day. This swamp is only of moss and some small bushes on the
top of the water, so that it quakes to a great distance as people walk
over it. Then we put our canoes into a small stream, which they called
Begwionusk, from the begwionusk, or cow parsley, which grows upon it:
this we descended into a small Sahgiegun,[15] called by the same name.
This pond has no more than two or three feet of water, and great part
of it is not one foot deep; but at this time its surface was covered
with ducks, geese, swans, and other birds. Here we remained a long time,
and made four packs of beaver skins. When the leaves began to fall,
Sag-git-to died. We were now quite alone, no Indians or white men being
within four or five days’ journey from us. Here we had packs to deposit,
as we were about to leave the country; and the ground being too swampy
to admit of burying them in the usual manner, we made a sunjegwun of
logs, so tight that a mouse could not enter it, in which we left all our
packs and other property which we could not carry. If any of the Indians
of this distant region had found it in our absence, they would not have
broken it up; and we did not fear that the traders would penetrate to so
poor and solitary a place. Indians who live remote from the whites have
not learned to value their peltries so highly that they will be guilty
of stealing them from each other, and at the time of which I speak, and
in the country were I was, I have often known a hunter leave his traps
for many days in the woods without visiting them or feeling any anxiety
about their safety. It would often happen, that one man having finished
his hunt, and left his traps behind him, another would say to him, “I am
going to hunt in such a direction, where are your traps?” When he has
used them, another, and sometimes four or five, take them in succession;
but in the end, they are sure to return to the right owner.
When the snow had fallen, and the weather began to be cold, so that
we could no longer kill beaver, we began to suffer from hunger.
Wa-me-gon-a-biew was now our principal dependance, and he exerted himself
greatly to supply our wants. In one of his remote excursions in pursuit
of game, he met with a lodge of Ojibbeways, who, though they had plenty
of meat, and knew that he and his friends were in distress, gave him
nothing except what he wanted to eat at night. He remained with them all
night, and in the morning started for home. On his way he killed a young
Moose, which was extremely poor. When this small supply was exhausted,
we were compelled to go and encamp with the inhospitable people whom
Wa-me-gon-a-biew had seen. We found them well supplied with meat, but
whatever we procured from them was in exchange for our ornaments of
silver or other articles of value. I mentioned the niggardliness and
inhospitality of these people because I had not before met with such
an instance among the Indians. They are commonly ready to divide what
provisions they have with any who come to them in need. We had been about
three days with these Indians when they killed two Moose. They called
Wa-me-gon-a-biew and me to go after meat, but only gave us the poorest
part of one leg. We bought some fat meat from them, giving them our
silver ornaments. The patience of old Net-no-kwa was at length exhausted,
and she forbade us all to purchase any thing more from them. During
all the time we remained with these people, we were suffering almost
the extremity of hunger. One morning Net-no-kwa rose very early, and
tying on her blanket, took her hatchet and went out. She did not return
that night; but the next day, towards evening, as we were all lying
down inside the lodge, she came in, and shaking Wa-me-gon-a-biew by the
shoulder, said to him, “get up, my son, you are a great runner, and now
let us see with what speed you will go and bring the meat which the Great
Spirit gave me last night. Nearly all night I prayed and sung, and when
I fell asleep near morning, the Spirit came to me, and gave me a bear to
feed my hungry children. You will find him in that little copse of bushes
in the prairie. Go immediately, the bear will not run from you, even
should he see you coming up.”
“No, my mother,” said Wa-me-gon-a-biew, “it is now near evening: the sun
will soon set, and it will not be easy to find the track in the snow.
In the morning Shaw-shaw-wa-ne-ba-se shall take a blanket, and a small
kettle, and in the course of the day I may overtake the bear and kill
him, and my little brother will come up with my blanket, and we can
spend the night where I shall kill him.”
The old woman did not yield to the opinion of the hunter. Altercation and
loud words followed; for Wa-me-gon-a-biew had little reverence for his
mother, and as scarce any other Indian would have done, he ridiculed her
pretensions to an intercourse with the Great Spirit, and particularly,
for having said that the bear would not run if he saw hunters coming.
The old woman was offended; and after reproaching her son, she went out
of the lodge, and told the other Indians her dream, and directed them to
the place where she said the bear would certainly be found. They agreed
with Wa-me-gon-a-biew, that it was too late to go that night; but as
they had confidence in the prayers of the old woman, they lost no time
in following her direction at the earliest appearance of light in the
morning. They found the bear at the place she had indicated, and killed
it without difficulty. He was large and fat, but Wa-me-gon-a-biew, who
accompanied them, received only a small piece for the portion of our
family. The old woman was angry, and not without just cause; for although
she pretended that the bear had been given her by the Great Spirit, and
the place where he lay pointed out to her in a dream, the truth was, she
had tracked him into the little thicket, and then circled it, to see that
he had not gone out. Artifices of this kind, to make her people believe
she had intercourse with the Great Spirit, were, I think, repeatedly
assayed by her.
Our suffering from hunger now compelled us to move; and after we had
eaten our small portion of the bear, we started on snow shoes to go to
Red River, hoping either to meet some Indians or to find some game on the
way. I had now become acquainted with the method of taking rabbits in
snares, and when we arrived at our first camp, I ran forward on the route
I knew we should take on the following day, and placed several snares,
intending to look at them, and take them up as we went on our journey.
After we had supped, for when we were in want of provisions we commonly
ate only at evening, all the food we had remaining was a quart or more of
bear’s grease in a kettle. It was now frozen hard, and the kettle had a
piece of skin tied over it as a cover. In the morning, this, among other
articles, was put on my sled, and I went forward to look at my snares.
Finding one rabbit, I thought I would surprise my mother to make a laugh;
so I took the rabbit, and put him alive under the cover of the kettle of
bear’s grease. At night, after we had encamped, I watched her when she
went to open the kettle to get us something to eat, expecting the rabbit
would jump out; but was much disappointed to find, that notwithstanding
the extreme cold weather, the grease was dissolved, and the little animal
nearly drowned. The old woman scolded me very severely at the time; but
for many years afterwards, she used to talk and laugh of this rabbit, and
his appearance when she opened the kettle. She continued also to talk, as
long as she lived, of the niggardly conduct of the Indians we had then
seen. After travelling some days, we discovered traces of hunters, and
were at length so fortunate as to find the head of a buffalo which they
had left. This relieved us from the distress of hunger, and we followed
on in their trail, until we came to the encampment of some of our friends
on Red River.
This was a considerable band of Crees, under a chief called
Assin-ne-boi-nainse, (the Little Assinneboin,) and his son-in-law,
Sin-a-peg-a-gun. They received us in a very cordial and friendly
manner, gave us plenty to eat, and supplied all our urgent wants. After
we had remained with them about two months, buffalo and other game
became scarce, and the whole encampment was suffering from hunger.
Wa-me-gon-a-biew and myself started to cross the prairie, one day’s
journey, to a stream called Pond River. We found an old bull, so poor and
old that hair would not grow upon him; we could eat only the tongue. We
had travelled very far, in the course of the day, and were much overcome
with fatigue. The wind was high, and the snow driving violently. In a
vast extent of the plain, which we overlooked, we could see no wood, but
some small oak bushes, scarce as high as a man’s shoulders; but in this
poor cover we were compelled to encamp. The small and green stalks of
the oaks were, with the utmost difficulty, kindled, and made but a poor
fire. When the fire had remained some time in one place, and the ground
under it become dry, we removed the brands and coals, and lay down upon
the warm ashes. We spent the night without sleep, and the next morning,
though the weather had become more severe, the wind having risen, we
started to return home. It was a hard day’s walk, and as we were weak
through hunger and cold, it was late when we reached the lodge. As we
approached home, Wa-me-gon-a-biew was more able to walk fast than I was,
and as he turned back to look at me, we perceived, at the same time, that
each of our faces were frozen. When we came nearly in sight of home, as
I was not able to walk much farther, he left me, and went to the lodge,
and sent some of the women to help me to get home. Our hands and faces
were much frozen; but as we had good moccasins, our feet were not at
all injured. As hunger continued in the camp, we found it necessary to
separate, and go in different directions. Net-no-kwa determined to go
with her family to the trading-house of Mr. Henry, who was since drowned
in the Columbia River by the upsetting of a boat. This place is near
that where a settlement has since been made, called Pembina. With the
people of the fur-traders, we hunted all the remainder of the winter. In
the spring we returned, in company with these lodges of Indians, to the
lake where we had left our canoes. We found all our property safe, and
having got all together from our sunjegwuns, and all that we had brought
from Red River, we had now eleven packs of beaver, of forty skins each,
and ten packs of other skins. It was now our intention to return to Lake
Huron, and to dispose of our peltries at Mackinac. We had still the large
sunjegwun at Rainy Lake, the contents of which, added to all we now had,
would have been sufficient to make us wealthy. It will be recollected,
that in a former season, Net-no-kwa had made a deposit of valuable furs
near the trader’s house on Rainy Lake, not having confidence enough in
the honesty of the trader to leave them in his care. When we returned to
this spot, we found the sunjegwun had been broken up and not a pack or a
skin left in it. We saw a pack in the trader’s house, which we believed
to be one of our own; but we could never ascertain whether they or some
Indians had taken them. The old woman was much irritated, and did not
hesitate to ascribe the theft to the trader.
When we reached the small house at the other side of the Grand Portage
to Lake Superior, the people belonging to the traders urged us to put
our packs in the wagons and have them carried across. But the old
woman knowing if they were once in the hands of the traders it would
be difficult, if not impossible, for her to get them again, refused
to comply with this request. It took us several days to carry all our
packs across, as the old woman would not suffer them to be carried in
the trader’s road. Notwithstanding all this caution, when we came to
this side the portage, Mr. McGilveray and Mr. Shabboyea, by treating
her with much attention, and giving her some wine, induced her to place
all her packs in a room, which they gave her to occupy. At first, they
endeavoured, by friendly solicitation, to induce her to sell her furs;
but finding she was determined not to part with them, they threatened
her; and at length, a young man, the son of Mr. Shabboyea, attempted to
take them by force; but the old man interfered, and ordering his son to
desist, reproved him for his violence. Thus Net-no-kwa was enabled, for
the present, to keep possession of her property, and might have done
so, perhaps, until we should have reached Mackinac had it not been for
the obstinacy of one of her own family. We had not been many days at
the Portage, before there arrived a man called Bit-te-gish-sho, (the
crooked lightning,) who lived at Middle Lake,[16] accompanied by his
small band. With these people Wa-me-gon-a-biew became intimate, and
though none of us, at that time, knew it, he formed an attachment for
one of the daughters of the Crooked Lightning. When we had made all our
preparations to start for the Saut of St. Marie, and the baggage was
in the canoe, Wa-me-gon-a-biew was not to be found. We sought in every
direction for him and it was not until after some days that we heard by
a Frenchman that he was on the other side of the Portage with the family
of Bit-te-gish-sho. I was sent for him but could by no means induce
him to return with me. Knowing his obstinacy, the old woman began to
cry. “If I had but two children,” said she, “I could be willing to lose
this one; but as I have no other, I must go with him.” She gave to the
widow, her sister’s daughter, but who had lived with her from a child,
five packs of beaver, one of which was for her own use; the remaining
four packs, together with sixty otter skins, she told her to take to
Mackinac, and deliver them according to her direction. She came down in
the trader’s canoe, and delivered them to Mr. Lapomboise, of the North
West Company, and took his due bill, as she was told it was, for the
amount. But this paper was subsequently lost by the burning of our lodge,
and from that day to this, Net-no-kwa, or any of her family, have not
received the value of a cent for those skins. The old woman, being much
dissatisfied at the misconduct of her son, the disappointment of her
hopes of returning to Lake Huron, and other misfortunes, began to drink.
_In the course of a single day, she sold one hundred and twenty beaver
skins, with a large quantity of buffalo robes, dressed and smoked skins,
and other articles, for rum._ It was her habit, whenever she drank, to
make drunk all the Indians about her, at least as far as her means would
extend. Of all our large load of peltries, the produce of so many days
of toil, of so many long and difficult journeys, one blanket, and three
kegs of rum only remained, beside the poor and almost worn-out clothing
on our bodies. I did not, on this or any other occasion, witness the
needless and wanton waste of our peltries and other property with that
indifference which the Indians seemed always to feel.
Our return being determined on, we started with Bit-te-gish-sho and some
other Indians for the Lake of the Woods. They assisted us in making a
canoe, crossing portages, etc. At the Lake of the Woods we were overtaken
by cold weather, and Net-no-kwa determined to remain, though most of the
others went on. Here it was found that the attachment of Wa-me-gon-a-biew
to the daughter of Bit-te-gish-sho, was not too strong to be broken; and,
indeed, it is somewhat doubtful whether the anxiety of the traders at the
Grand Portage, to possess themselves of our packs, had not as much to do
in occasioning our return, as any thing on the part of this young man.
After these people had left us, we found our condition too desolate and
hopeless to remain by ourselves, illy provided as we were for the coming
winter. So we repaired to Rainy Lake trading-house, where we obtained a
credit to the amount of one hundred and twenty beaver skins, and thus
furnished ourselves with some blankets, clothing, and other things
necessary for the winter. Here a man joined us, called Waw-be-be-nais-sa,
who proposed to hunt for us, and assist us through the winter. We acceded
cheerfully to his proposal; but soon found he was but a poor hunter, as I
was always able to kill more than he did.