eart.
"Brothers, this is all I have to say."
* * * * *
APPENDIX G.
Page 213.--_"... and aimed a knife at his throat"_
The period at which these events are said to have occurred was some
sixty or eighty years ago, according to the imperfect chronology of my
informant. At first, I hesitated to believe that such horrible deeds as
those recorded could have taken place almost within the memory of men.
My Indian narrator replied--"Indians, no Christians in those days, do
worse than that very few years ago,--do as bad now in far-west."
The conversion of the Rice Lake Indians, and the gathering them together
in villages, took place, I think, in the year 1825, or thereabouts.
The conversion was effected by the preaching of missionaries from
the Wesleyan Methodist Church; the village was under the patronage of
Captain Anderson, whose descendants inherit much land on the north shore
on and about Anderson's Point, the renowned site of the great battle.
The war-weapon and bones of the enemies the Ojebwas are still to be
found in this vicinity.
* * * * *
APPENDIX H.
Page 232.--_"This place she called Spooke Island"_
Spooke Island. A singular and barren island in the Rice Lake, seventh
from the head of the lake, on which the Indians used formerly to bury
their dead, for many years held as a sacred spot, and only approached
with reverence. Now famous for two things, _picnics_ and _poison ivy,
rhus toxicodendron,_--many persons having suffered for their temerity in
landing upon it and making it the scene of their rural festivities.
APPENDIX I.
Page 253.--_"and nothing but fire."_
The Indians call the Rice Lake, in allusion to the rapidity with
which fires run over the dry herbage, the Lake of the Burning Plains.
Certainly, there is much poetical fitness and beauty in many of the
Indian names, approximating very closely to the figurative imagery of
the language of the East; such is "Mad-wa-osh," the music of the winds.
APPENDIX K.
Page 272.--_"but it was not so in the days whereof I have spoken."_
_From George Copway's Life._
Converted Indians are thus described in the "Life" of their literary
countryman, George Copway:--
_Chippewas of the River Credit._--These Indians are the remnant of a
tribe which formerly possessed a considerable portion of the Elome and
Gore Districts, of which, in 1818, they surrendered the greater part for
|