ed, as they visited the
office, into the local traditions of the place.

There is a hiatus in the history of the island, extending from 1763, the
date of the massacre of the British garrison on the mainland, to about
1780, the probable date of the removal of the post from the apex of the
peninsula (Peekwutinong of the Indians) to the island.

The name of the place is pronounced Mish-i-nim-auk-in-ong, by the
Indians, The term _mishi_, as heard in _mishipishiu_, panther, and
_mishigenabik_, a gigantic serpent of fabled notoriety, signifies
_great; nim_, appears to be derived from _nimi_, to dance, and _auk_
from _autig_, tree or standing object; _ong_ is the common termination
for locality, the vowels _i_ (second and fifth syllable) being brought
into the compound word as connectives. In a language which separates all
matter, the whole creation, in fact, into two classes of nouns--deemed
animates and inanimates--the distinctions of gender are lost, so far as
the laws of syntax are involved. It is necessary only to speak of
objects as possessing and wanting vitality, to communicate to them the
property named, whether it in reality possesses it in nature or not. For
this purpose words which lack it in their penultimate syllables, take
the consonant _n_ to make their plurals for inanimates, and _g_ for
animates. By this simple method, the whole inanimate creation--woods,
trees, rocks, clouds, waters, &c.--is clothed at will with life, or the
opposite class of objects are shorn of it, which enables the speaker,
whose mind is imbued with his peculiar mythology and necromancy, to
create a spiritual world around him. In this creation it is known to all
who have investigated the subject, that the Indian mind has exercised
its ingenuity, by creating classes and species of spirits, of all
imaginable kinds, which, to his fancied eye, fill all surrounding space.
If he be skilled in the magic rites of the sacred meda, or jesukewin, it
is but to call on these spirits, and his necromantic behest is at its
highest point of energy.

In reference to this spiritual creation, the word _mish_ signifies
great, or rather big, but as adjectives are, like substantives,
transitive, the term requires a transitive objective sign, to mark the
thing or person that is big, hence the term _michi_ signifies big
spirit, or "fairy"--for it is a kind of _pukwudjininne_, and not of
_monetoes_ that are described. The terms _nim_ and _auk_, dance and
tree,