Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/136

126 had been needed to cover the nakedness of the wild Indian, or their meat required to satisfy his hunger.

In the early part of the seventeenth century the Ojibways had already commenced the custom of yearly visiting Quebec, and afterwards Montreal, taking with them packs of beaver skins, and returning with the fire-arms, blankets, trinkets, and firewater of the whites. This custom they kept up for many years, gradually curtailing the length of their journeys as the whites advanced toward them step by step, locating their trading posts, first at Detroit, then at Mackinaw, then at Sault Ste. Marie, till at last the smoke of their cabins arose from the island of La Pointe itself, when these periodical journeys came comparatively to an end.

It was many years before the first French traders located a permanent trading post among the Ojibways of Shag-a-waum-ik-ong, and in the mean time, as this tribe became supplied with fire-arms, and killed off the beaver in the vicinity of their ancient seat, they radiated in bands inland, westward and southward towards the beautiful lakes and streams which form the tributaries of the Wisconsin, Chippeway, and St. Croix rivers, and along the south coast of the Great Lake to its utmost extremity, and from thence even inland unto the headwaters of the Mississippi. All this was the country of the Dakotas and Foxes, and bravely did they battle to beat back the encroaching Ojibways from their best hunting grounds, but in vain; for the invaders, besides having increased in numbers, had become possessed of fearful weapons, against which they feared to battle with their primitive bow and arrow.

For a number of years the Ojibways continued to consider the bay of Shag-a-waum-ik-ong as their common home, and their hunting parties returned thither at different seasons of the year. Here also, and only here, were their grand medicine rites performed, and their war-parties col-