Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/48

Rh opinion that the name is derived from a circumstance which forms part of the tradition.

The name does not date far back. As a race or distinct people they denominate themselves A-wish-in-aub-ay.

The name of the tribe has been most commonly spelt, Chippeway, and is thus laid down in our different treaties with them, and officially used by our Government.

Mr. Schoolcraft presents it as Od-jib-wa, which is nearer the name as pronounced by themselves. The writer, however, makes use of O-jib-way as being simpler spelled, and embodying the truest pronunciation; where it is ended with wa, as in Schoolcraft's spelling, the reader would naturally mispronounce it in the plural, which by adding the s, would spell was, whereas by ending the word with y preserves its true pronunciation both in singular and plural. These are slight reasons for the slight variance, but as the writer has made it a rigid rule to present all his Indian words and names as they themselves pronounce them, he will be obliged often to differ from many long received O-jib-way terms, which have, from time to time, been presented by standard writers and travellers.

The O-jib-ways are scattered over, and occupy a large extent of country comprising all that portion of the State of Michigan lying north of Green Bay and west of the Straits of Michilimackinac, bordering on Lake Superior, the northern half of Wisconsin and the northeastern half of Minnesota Territory. Besides this they occupy the country lying from the Lake of the Woods, over the entire north coast of Lake Superior, to the falls of St. Mary's and extending even east of this point into Upper Canada. They literally girdle the great "Father of Lakes," and the largest body of fresh water in the world may emphatically be called their own, Ke-che-gum-me, or "Great Water."