Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/97

86 The characteristics, also of the northern section of the tribe, differ materially in some important respects from those of their southern and western brethren. Not having been opposed by enemies in the course of their northern emigration, they are consequently not warlike, and the name of Waub-ose (Rabbit), is often applied to them by their more warlike fellows, on account of their mild and harmless disposition.

At the partition of the Ojibway tribe into two divisions, at Sault Ste. Marie, the main body pressed their way gradually up along the southern shores of Lake Superior. They made a temporary stand at Grand Island, near the Pictured Rocks, again at L'Anse Bay, or as they more euphoniously name it, We-qua-dong. This grand division consisted principally of the Crane Totem family, the Bear, the Catfish, the Loon, and the allied Marten and Moose clans. These great families with their several branches, form at least eight-tenths of the whole Ojibway tribe.

The Cranes claim the honor of first having pitched their wigwams, and lighted the fire of the Ojibways, at Shaug-ah-waum-ik-ong, a sand point or peninsula lying two miles immediately opposite the Island of La Pointe. This fact is illustrated by the following highly allegorical and characteristic tradition:—

As a preliminary remark, it is necessary to state that there exists quite a variance between three or four of the principal Totems, as to which is hereditarily entitled to the chief place in the tribe.

At a council (in which the writer acted as interpreter), held some years ago at La Pointe, between the principal chiefs of the Ojibways and the United States Government Agent, the following allegory was delivered by an old chief named Tug-waug-aun-ay, in answer to the mooted question of "who was the hereditary chief of La Pointe?"

Ke-che-wash-keenh (Great Buffalo), the grandson of the