Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/409

Rh been the object of a great many suppositions. Some say it was given on account of the form of their plaited shoes, teibwa, plaited, but this interpretation is not admissible, for the word does not contain the least allusion to shoes. Others say that it comes from the form the mouth assumes in pronouncing certain words, wishing always to hold on to the adjective, teibwa; this is not more satisfactory. I would venture, then, to say that the word Odjibwek comes from shibwe in order to make a proper name. Oshibwek, in the plural, the pronouncing slowly of shib (root), to draw out; that is to say, to lengthen out a word by the slow pronunciation of its syllables; the particle we signifying articulate, pronounce; the k is an animated plural, which here can only be applied to men. In truth the pronunciation of the Saulteuse characterizes them in an eminent manner."

The "Men of the Shallow Cataract" lived where the "noise of many waters" sounded like a voice or hoarse murmur, and as the discharge from Lake Superior was contracted, into the narrow shallow channel, the waters became ruffled or puckered. Gov. Ramsey, of Minnesota, in 1850, in a report to the United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs writes as to the word Ojibway: "As there is no discernible pucker in their voice, or mode of speaking, a more natural genesis of the word could probably be derived from a circumstance in their past history. Upwards of two centuries ago they were driven by the Iroquois, or Six Nations of New York, into the strait of Mackinaw, where Lake Huron, Michigan, and Superior, are "puckered" into a small channel or narrow compass."

Stephen Brulé, one of the reckless and enterprising voyageurs under Champlain, in A.D. 1618, appears to have