Page:The Name of Ottawa.djvu/3

 those whose hair is tied up on the top of the head, those who expose their ears, by contrast with other races wearing long floating hair covering the neck, the ears and part of the cheeks.

The final sound ouais: Outaouais, is the result of pure ignorance, and is not more than eighty years old.

The form Ottawa did not exist during the French regime; it was created by the English evidently from Outaoua.

As to the history of those people we have so often seen modern maps and books which place them in our valley that it seems impossible to remove that belief from the minds of of readers.

They were principally located in Manitoulin Island when Champlain met some of them at the mouth of French River in 1615. Afterwards they took refuge in Wisconsin for fear of the Iroquois. In 1654 they opened a trade with Montreal by the route of Lake Nipissing and the Grand River, then a perfect wilderness without any Indians on its shores. Gradually the Grand River became known as the passage of the Outaouas, the Outaoua. This application of the name of a far away nation to a Canadian River can be followed in the manuscripts covering the period of 1670–1700.

In the localities where the Outaouas emigrated two hundred years ago there are now ten or twelve towns, villages, railway stations and counties called "Ottawa." This is only right, although somewhat overdone.

The books and maps published in our century caused the Canadians to consider the "valley of the Ottawa" as the ancient residence of the Outaouas, and that name was imposed in good faith upon young Bytown. It is the consecration of an error. The Capital of Canada stands before us under a foreign name.