CHAPTER XII.
A pic-nic party at the foot of Lake Superior--Canoe--Scenery--Descent of St. Mary's Falls--Etymology of the Indian names of Sault Ste. Marie, and Lake Superior--The wild rice plant--Indian trade--American Fur Company--Distribution of presents--Death of Sassaba--Epitaph--Indian capacity to count--Oral literature--Research--Self-reliance.
1822. August 20th. I Went with a pic-nic to Gross Cape, a romantic promontory at the foot of Lake Superior. This elevation stands on the north shore of the straits, and consequently in Canada. It overlooks a noble expanse of waters and islands, constituting one of the most magnificent series of views of American scenery. Immediately opposite stands the scarcely less elevated, and not less celebrated promontory of Point Iroquois, the Na-do-wa-we-gon-ing, or Place of Iroquois Bones, of the Chippewas. These two promontories stand like the pillars of Hercules which guard the entrance into the Mediterranean, and their office is to mark the foot of the mighty Superior, a lake which may not, inaptly, be deemed another Mediterranean Sea. The morning chosen to visit this scene was fine; the means of conveyance chosen was the novel and fairy-like barque of the Chippewas, which they denominate Che-maun, but which we, from a corruption of a Charib term as old as the days of Columbus, call Canoe. It is made of the rind of the betula papyracea, or white birch, sewed together with the fine fibrous roots of the cedaror spruce, and is made water-tight by covering the seams with boiled pine rosin, the whole being distended over and supported by very thin ribs and cross-bars of cedar, curiously carved and framed together. It is turned up, at either end, like a gondola, and the sides and gunwales fancifully painted. The whole structure is light, and was easily carried by two men on their shoulders; yet will bear a weight of more than a ton on the water. It is moved with cedar paddles, and the Canadians who managed it, kept time in their strokes, and regulated them to the sonorous cadence of some of their simple boat songs. Our party consisted of several ladies and gentlemen. We carried the elements of a pic-nic. We moved rapidly. The views on all sides were novel and delightful. The water in which the men struck their paddles was pure as crystal. The air was perfectly exhilarating from its purity. The distance about three leagues. We landed a few moments at Point aux Pins, to range along the clean sandy shore, and sandy plains, now abounding in fine whortleberries. Directly on putting out from this, the broad view of the entrance into the lake burst upon us. It is magnificent. A line of blue water stretched like a thread on the horizon, between cape and cape, say five miles. Beyond it is what the Chippewas call Bub-eesh-ko-be, meaning the far off, indistinct prospect of a water scene, till the reality, in the feeble power of human vision, loses itself in the clouds and sky. The two prominences of Point Iroquois and Gross Cape are very different in character. The former is a bold eminence covered with trees, and having all the appearance of youth and verdure. The latter is but the end, so to say, of a towering ridge of dark primary rocks with a few stunted cedars. The first exhibits, on inspection, a formation of sandstone and reproduced rocks, piled stratum super stratum, and covered with boulder drifts and alluvion. The second is a massive mountain ridge of the northern sienite, abounding in black crystaline hornblende, and flanked at lower altitudes, in front, in some places, by a sort of trachyte. We clambered up and over the bold undulations of the latter, till we were fatigued. We stood on the highest pinnacle, and gazed on the "blue profound" of Superior, the great water or Gitchegomee of the Indians. We looked down far below at the clean ridges of pebbles, and the transparent water. After gazing, and looking, and reveling in the wild magnificence of views, we picked our way, crag by crag, to the shore, and sat down on the shining banks of black, white, and mottled pebbles, and did ample justice to the contents of our baskets of good things. This always restores one's spirits. We forget the toil in the present enjoyment. And having done this, and giving our last looks at what has been poetically called the Father of Lakes, we put out, with paddles and song, and every heart beating in unison with the scene, for our starting-point at Bá-wa-teeg, or Pa-wa-teeg, alias Sault Ste. Marie. But the half of my story would not be told, if I did not add that, as we gained the brink of the rapids, and began to feel the suction of the wide current that leaps, jump after jump, over that foaming bed, our inclinations and our courage rose together to go down the formidable pass; and having full faith in the long-tried pilotage of our guide, Tom Shaw, down we went, rushing at times like a thunderbolt, then turned by a dab of the pole of our guide, on a rock, shooting off in eschelon, and then careering down another schute, or water bolt, till we thus dodged every rock, and came out below with a full roaring chorus of our Canadians, who, as they cleared the last danger, hoisted our starry flag at the same moment that they struck up one of their wild and joyous, songs.
22d. I have questioned the Indians closely for the names of Sault Ste. Marie and Lake Superior. They are destined to hold an important rank in our future geography. But the result is not agreeable to preconceived poetic notions. When the French first came to these falls, they found the Chippewas, the falls signifying, descriptively, Shallow water pitching over rocks, or by a prepositional form of the term, at the place of shallow water, pitching over rocks. Such is the meaning of the words Pa-wa-teeg and Pa-wa-ting. The terms cover more precisely the idea which we express by the word cascade. The French call a cascade a Leap or Sault; but Sault alone would not be distinctive, as they had already applied the term to some striking passes on the St. Lawrence and other places. They therefore, in conformity with their general usage, added the name of a patron saint to the term by calling it Sault de Ste. Marie, i.e. Leap of Saint Mary, to distinguish it from other Leaps, or Saults. Now as the word Sainte, as here used, is feminine, it must, in its abbreviated form, be written Ste. The preposition de (the) is usually dropped. Use has further now dropped the sound of the letter l from Sault. But as, in the reforms of the French dictionary, the ancient geographical names of places remain unaffected, the true phraseology is SAULT STE. MARIE.
Having named the falls a Sault, they went a step further, and called the Odjibwa Indians who lived at it, Saulteurs, or People of the Sault. Hence this has ever remained the French name for Chippewas.
In the term Gitchegomee, the name for Superior, we have a specimen of their mode of making compounds. Gitche signifies something great, or possessing the property of positive magnitude. Gomee is itself a compound phrase, denoting, when so conjoined, a large body of water. It is the objective member of their term for the sea; but is governed by its antecedent, and may be used in describing other and minor, even the most minute liquid bodies, as we hear it, in the compound term mushkuagomee, i.e. strong drink. Under the government of the term gitchee, it appears to express simply the sense of great water, but conveys the idea, to the Indian mind, of sea-water. I have cast about, to find a sonorous form of elision, in which it may come into popular use, but find nothing more eligible than I-go-mee, or Igoma. A more practical word, in the shape of a new compound, may be made in Algoma, a term in which the first syllable of the generic name of this tribe of the Algonquin stock, harmonizes very well with the Indian idea of goma (sea), giving us, Sea of the Algonquins. The term may be objected to, as the result of a grammatical abbreviation, but if not adopted practically, it may do as a poetical synonym for this great lake. Such is, at least, the result of a full discussion of these names, with the very best speakers of the language.
30th. The Wild Rice Plant.--Having received a request for some of this native grain to send abroad, and knowing that the smoked rice, such as the Indians usually bring in, will not germinate, I this day dispatched my interpreter in a canoe, with some Indians, to the northern shores of the straits to gather some of it for seed; the result was successful. This plant may be deemed a precious gift of nature to the natives, who spread over many degrees of northern latitude. They call it mon-ó-min, a compound descriptive phrase, which differs only from their name for the zea maize in putting an o--the third syllable--for the imperative future in dau.
Sept. 1st. Indian Trade.--Congress has provided a code of laws to regulate this, the object of which is a good one, and the provisions of the various enactments appear to be founded on the highest principles of justice and benevolence. It is still a question, it appears to me, whether