e Indian band
occupying it was formerly numerous. There are many stories still current
of their former prowess and traits of hospitality and generosity, and of
the skill of their old seers, and divining-men, _i.e. Jossakeeds_. Its
present Indian population is reduced to forty-six souls, of whom ten are
men, sixteen women, and twenty children. Of the men, nine are married,
one of whom has two wives, and there are two widows.

Of this band the Star family, so called, have long possessed the
chieftainship, and are remarkable on several accounts. There are eleven
children of them now living, five of whom are males, all by one mother,
who is still living. Sabboo is the principal man. The South Bird, his
elder, and the ruling chief, has removed to Bay de Nocquet. At this
island, story says, formerly lived the noted warrior and meta, Sagima;
and it was also, according to Indian mythology, the residence of
Mishosha, who owned a magic canoe, that would shoot through the water by
uttering a charmed word.

_22d_. I have heard much of the ancient Chippewa capital of La Pointe,
as the French call it, or Chegoimegon, in Lake Superior, situated near
its west end, or head. The Chippewas and their friends, the old traders
and _Boisbrules_, and Canadians, are never tired of telling of it. All
their great men of old times are located there. It was there that their
Mudjekewis, king or chief ruler, lived, and, as some relate, that an
eternal fire was kept up with a sort of rude temple service. At that
place lived, in comparatively modern times, Wabojeeg and Andaigweos, and
there still lives one of their descendants in Gitchee Waishkee, the
Great First-born, or, as he is familiarly called, Pezhickee, or the
Buffalo, a chief decorated with British insignia. His band is estimated
at one hundred and eighteen souls, of whom thirty-four are adult males,
forty-one females, and forty-three children. Mizi, the Catfish, one of
the heads of families of this band, who has figured about here this
summer, is not a chief, but a speaker, which gives him some _eclat_. He
is a sort of petty trader too, being credited with little adventures of
goods by a dealer on the opposite, or British shores.

_23d_. There are few animals which the Indians reject as food. On this
subject they literally fulfil the declaration of Paul, "that every
creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused;" but I fear the poor
creatures, in these straits, do anything but show the