Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/188

178 of the first Ojibway village about the head-waters of the Mississippi.

It is from this point that the war parties proceeded, who eventually caused the Dakotas to evacuate their favorite seats at Leech, Winnepeg, Cass, and Red Lakes, and also from Gull Lake, Crow Wing, and the vicinity of Mille Lacs, as will be hereafter related in the regular course of our narrative.

It will not be amiss in this chapter to say a few words respecting the mounds which are everywhere to be met with throughout the entire region of country covered by sources of the Mississippi.

Having read the conflicting opinions of men who have casually passed through the country, and seen these apparent remains of the works of a former race, my attention was early drawn to this subject, and my inquiries among the more aged and intelligent men of the Ojibways have been most minute, and to my mind, satisfactorily answered.

Esh-ke-bug-e-coshe, whom I have already mentioned as the truth-telling and respected chief of the Pillagers, still living, and now in his seventy-eighth year, informs me that in the course of his lifetime he has made numerous war parties and peace visits to different tribes who live on the banks of the Upper Missouri River. He states, that a tribe who are known to the Ojibways by the name of Gi-aucth-in-in-e-wug, signify "men of the olden time," and named by the French, Gros Ventres, claim to have been formerly possessors of the country from which the Mississippi takes its rise. Their old men relate they were forced or driven from this country by the powerful Dakotas, who have in turn given way to the Ojibways, now its present possessors.

The Gros Ventres further stated to the Pillager chief, that their fathers lived in earthen wigwams, and the small remnant who have escaped the scourge of the scalping