THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY
ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following work from the Miami Archives should be read and
considered within the historical context in which it was composed and printed.
The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the opinions or
standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are, rather,
indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the document was
published.
Journal of a Voyage to North America
(Letter XXVIII, October 20, 1721)
Charlevoix, P. de in: Journal of a Voyage to North
America, vol. 2, London, 1761, pp. 215-228+.
LETTER XXVIII.
Voyage from Pimiteouy to Kaskasquias. Course of the River of the Illinois. Of the Copper Mines, Of the Missouri, Of the Mines of the River Marameg. Description of Fort Chartres, and of the Mission of Kaskasquias. Of the Fruit-trees of Louisiana. Description of the Mississippi above the Illinois. Different Tribes of that Nation. Some Traditions of the Indians. Their Notions about the Stars, Eclipses, and Thunder. Their Manner of calculating Time.
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Kaskasquias, October 20, 1721. |
Madam,
I must ingenuously confess to you, that at my departure from Pimiteouy, I was not quite so undaunted as I pretended to be, as well for my own honour as not entirely to dishearten those who accompanied me, some of whom had much ado to dissemble their fear. The alarm in which I found the Illinois, their mournful songs, the sight (page 216) of the dead bodies exposed upon the frames, terrible objects, which every moment represented to my imagination what I must expect, should I have the misfortune to fall into the hands of these barbarians; all this made such an impression upon me, that I had not the command of myself, and for seven or eight days I was not able to sleep with tranquillity.
I was not, indeed, apprehensive of an open attack from the enemy, because I had fourteen men with me, well armed and under a good commander; but every thing was to be dreaded from surprizes, there being no labour which the Indians will not undergo, in order to draw their enemies into the snares which they lay for them. One of the most common is to counterfeit the cry of some wild beast, or the voice of some bird, in the imitation of which they are so dexterous, that people are every day deceived by them. For instance, being encamped at the entrance of a wood, they imagine that they hear the cry of a buffalo, deer, or wild duck; two or three run thither in hopes of finding game, and frequently never return.
The distance between Pimiteouy and the Mississippi, is reckoned to be seventy leagues: I have already said, that from the rock to Pimiteouy, there is fifteen; the former of these two villages in forty one degrees, north lat. and the mouth of the river of the Illinois in forty; so that from the rock, the course of this river is westward inclining a little to the south, but with several windings or circuits. There are islands scattered up and down in it, some of which are pretty large; its banks are but low in several places. During the (page 217) spring the meadows on the right and left are for the most part under water, and afterwards are covered with very tall grass. It is pretended this river abounds every where with fish, but we had not time to catch any, nor had we any such nets as the depth of its waters would require. We would much rather have killed a buffalo or roebuck, and of these we had our choice.
On the sixth, we perceived a number of buffaloes swimming across the river, with a great deal of precipitation, which we doubted not had been pursued by some of the enemy's parties, of whom we have already spoken; this obliged us to continue our voyage all night in order to get at as great distance as possible from such dangerous neighbours. On the morrow before day break we passed by the Saguimont, a large river which comes from the south, and five or six leagues below that we left on the same side a smaller one, called the river of the Macopines; these are a large kind of root, which eaten raw is a rank poison, but which when roasted five or six hours or more before a slow fire, loses all its pernicious quality. Betwixt these two rivers, and at an equal distance from either, is a marsh called Machoutin, precisely half way between Pimiteouy and the Mississippi.
Soon after passing the river of the Macopines, we perceived the banks of the Mississippi, which are extremely high. Notwithstanding which we were above four and twenty hours, and that frequently under full sail, before we entered it; for at this place the river of the Illinois changes its course from west to south and by east. One might say, that out of regret to its being obliged to pay (page 218) the tribute of its waters to another river, it endeavours to return back to its source.
At its entrance into the Mississippi, its channel runs east-south-east. On the ninth of this month a little after two in the afternoon, we found ourselves in this river, which makes at present so great a noise in France, leaving on our right a large meadow, whence issues a small river, in which there is a great quantity of copper. Nothing can be more delightful than this whole coast. But it is quite another thing on the left, there being on that side very high mountains, interspersed with rocks, amongst which grow a few cedars; but this is only a narrow chain, and conceals behind it very fine meadows.
On the tenth about nine in the morning, after sailing five leagues on the Mississippi, we arrived at the mouth of the Missouri, which lies north-west and south-south-east. Here is the finest confluence of two rivers that, I believe, is to be met with in the whole world, each of them being about half a league in breadth; but the Missouri is by far the most rapid of the two, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, carrying its white waters unmixed across its channel quite to the opposite side; this colour it afterwards communicates to the Mississippi, which henceforth it never loses, but hurls with precipitation to the sea itself.
We lay this night in a village of the Caoquias and the Tamarouas, two Illinois tribes which have been united, and together compose no very numerous canton. This village is situated on a small river which runs from the east, and has no water but in (page 219) the spring season so that we were obliged to walk above half a league, before we could get to our cabbins. I was astonished they had pitched upon so inconvenient a situation, especially as they had so many better in their choice; but I was told that the Mississippi washed the foot of that village when it was built, that in three years it has lost half a league of its breadth, and that they were thinking of seeking out for another habitations, which is no great affair amongst the Indians.
I passed the night in the missionaries house, who are two Ecclesiasticks from the seminary of Quebeck, formerly my disciples, but they must now be my masters. M. Taumur the eldest of the two was absent; I found the youngest M. le Mercier such as he had been represented to me, rigid to himself, full of charity to others, and displaying in his own person, and amiable pattern of virtue. But he enjoyed so ill a state of health, that I am afraid he will not be able long to support that kind of life, which a missionary is obliged to lead in this country.
On the eleventh after sailing five leagues farther, I left on my right the river Marameg, where they are at present employed in searching for a silver mine. Perhaps, your Grace may not be displeased if I inform you what success may be expected from this undertaking. Here follows what I have been able to learn about this affair from a person who is well acquainted with it, and who has resided for several years on the spot. In the year 1719, the Sieur de Lochon being sent by the West-India company in quality of founder, having dug in a place which had been marked out to him, drew up a pretty large quantity of ore, a pound whereof, (page 220) which took up four days in melting, produced as they say two drams of silver; but some have suspected him of putting in this quantity himself. A few months afterwards he returned thither, and without thinking any more of the silver, he extracted from two or three thousand weight of ore, fourteen pounds of very bad lead, which stood him in fourteen hundred franks. Disgusted with a labour which was so unprofitable, he returned to France.
The company, persuaded of the truth of the indications which had been given them, and that the incapacity of the founder had been the sole cause of their bad success, sent in his room a Spaniard called Antonio, who had been taken at the siege of Pensacola, had afterwards been a galley-slave, and boasted much of his having wrought in a mine at Mexico. They gave him very considerable appointments, but he succeeded no better than had done the Sieur de Lochon. He was not discouraged himself, and other inclined to believe he had failed from his not being versed in the construction of furnaces. He gave over the search after lead, and undertook to make silver; he dug down to the rock which was found to be eight or ten feet in thickness; several pieces of it were blown up and put into a crucible, from whence it was given out, that he extracted three or four drams of silver; but many are still doubtful of the truth of this fact.
About this time arrived a company of the king's miners, under the direction of one La Renaudiere, who resolving to begin with the lead mine, was able to do nothing; because neither he himself nor any of his company were in the least acquainted (page 221) with the construction of furnaces. Nothing could be more surprizing than the facility with which the company at that time exposed themselves to great expences, and the little precaution they took to be satisfied of the capacity of those they employed. La Renaudiere and his miners not being able to produce any lead, a private company undertook the mines of Marameg, and the Sieur Renaud one of the directors, superintended them with care. In the month of June last he found a bed of lead two foot in thickness, running to a great length over a chain of mountains, where he has now set his people to work. He flatters himself that there is silver below the lead. Every body is not of his opinion, but time will discover the truth.
Yesterday I arrived at Kaskasquias about nine o'clock in the morning. The Jesuits have here a very flourishing mission, which has lately been divided into two, thinking it convenient to have two cantons of Indians instead of one. The most numerous is on the banks of the Mississippi, of which two jesuits have the spiritual direction: half a league below stands fort Chartres, about the distance of a musket-shot form the river. M. Dugu de Boisbrillard, a gentleman of Canada, commands here for the company, to whom this place belongs; the French are now beginning to settle the country between this fort and the first mission. Four leagues farther and about a league from the river, is a large village inhabited by the French, who are almost all Canadians and have a jesuit for their curate. The second village of the Illinois lies farther up the country, at the distance of two leagues from this last, and is under charge of a fourth jesuit.
The French at this place live pretty much at their ease; a Fleming, who was a domestic of the jesuits, has taught them to sow wheat which succeeds very well. They have black cattle and poultry. The Illinois on their part manure the ground after their fashion, and are very laborious. They likewise bring up poultry, which they sell to the French. Their women are very neat-handed and industrious. They spin the wool of the buffaloe, which they make as fine as that of the English sheep; nay sometimes it might even be mistaken for silk. Of this they manufacture stuffs which are dyed black, yellow, or a deep red. Of these stuffs they make robes which they sew with thread made of the sinews of the roe-buck. The manner of making this thread is very simple. After stripping the flesh from the sinews of the roe-buck, they expose them to the sun for the space of two days; after they are dry they beat them, and then without difficulty draw out a thread as white and as fine as that of Mechlin, but much stronger.
The French canton is bounded on the north by a river, the banks of which are extremely high, so that though the waters sometimes rise five and twenty feet, they seldom overflow their channel. All this country is open consisting of vast meadows to the extent of five and twenty leagues, which are interspersed with small copses of very valuable wood. White mulberries especially are very common here; but I am surprized that the inhabitants should be suffered to cut them down for a building of their houses, especially, as there is a sufficient quantity of other trees equally proper for that purpose.
The most remarkable of the fruit-trees, peculiar to this country, are the Pacane, the Acimine, and the Piakimine trees. The Pacane is a nut of the size and shape of a large acorn. The shell of some of them is very thin, while others have it harder and thicker, but the fruit is so much the less on that account. All have a very fine and delicate taste; the tree rises to a great height; in its wood, bark, smell and shape of its leaves, it seems to me great to resemble the filbert trees of Europe.
The Acimine is a fruit of the length of a man's finger, and an inch in diameter. Its pulp is tender and sweetish, and full of a see much resembling that of the water melon. The tree grows to no great height or thickness; all those I have seen being nothing but shrubs, the wool of which is very tender. Its bark is thin, its leaves long and large like those of the chestnut, but of a deeper green.
The Piakimine is in shape like a damask plum, though somewhat larger: its skin is tender, its substance watery, and colour red; and has besides a very delicate flavour. It contains seeds which differ only from those of the Acimine, in being somewhat smaller. The Indians make a paste of this fruit, which they bake into loaves of the thickness of a man's finger, and of the consistence of a dried pear. The taste seems at first somewhat disagreeable, but people are easily accustomed to it. It is very nourishing, and a sovereign remedy, as they pretend, against a looseness and bloody-flux. The tree which bears this fruit, is a very fine one, and about the size of our ordinary plum-trees. Its leaves have five points, its wood (page 224) is of a middling hardness, and its bark very rough.
The Osages, a pretty numerous nation settled on the banks of the river, bearing their own name, which runs into the Missouri about forty leagues from its confluence with the Mississippi, depute some of their people once or twice every year to sing the calumet among the Kaskasquias, and they are now actually here at present. I have just seen a Missourian woman who tell me, her nation is the first we meet with in going up the Missouri; from whence we have given it this name, on account of our not knowing its proper appellation. Their settlement is eighty leagues from the confluence of that river with the Mississippi.
A little higher we find the Cansez, then the Octotatas, called by some the Mactotatas; afterwards the Aouez, and lastly the Panis, a very numerous nation, and divided into several cantons, which have names very different from one another. This woman has confirmed to me, what I had before learned from the Sioux, that the Missouri rises from very high and bare mountains, behind which there is another large river, which probably rises from thence also and runs to the westward. This testimony is of some weight, because no Indians we know of are accustomed to travel so much as the Missouris.
All these nations of whom I have been speaking, dwell upon the western bank of the Missouri, excepting the Aouez who live on the eastern, and are neighbours to the Sioux and their allies. The most considerable rivers which fall into the Mis- (page 225) sisippi above the river of the Illinois, are in the first place, the river of Buffaloes, which is at the distance of twenty leagues from the former, and comes from the westward; a fine salt-pit has been discovered in the neighbourhood. Pits of the same kind have been found on the banks of the Marameg, twenty leagues from hence. About forty leagues farther is the Assenesipi, or river at the rock; because its mouth is directly opposite to a mountain placed in the river itself, where travellers affirm rock-chrystal is to be found.
Twenty-five leagues higher up, we find on the right hand the Ouisconsing, by which father Marquette and the Sieur Joliet entered the Missisippi, when they first discovered it. The Aouez who are settled in this place, lying in 43 deg. 30 min. north latitude, who are great travellers, and as is said march five and twenty or thirty leagues a day, when without their families, tell us that after leaving their country we should in three days arrive amongst a people called Omans, who have white skins and fair hair, especially the women. They add, that this people is continually at war with the Panis and other more remote Indians towards the west, and that they have heard them speak of a great lake very far from their country, on the banks of which are people resembling the French, with buttons on their cloths, living in cities, and using horses in hunting the Buffalo, and cloathed with the skins of that animal; but without any arms except the bow and arrow.
On the left side about fifty leagues above the river of Buffaloes, the river Moingona issues from the midst of an immense meadow, which swarms (page 226) with Buffaloes and other wild beasts: at its entrance into the Missisippi, it is very shallow as well as narrow; nevertheless, its course from north to west, is said to be two hundred and fifty leagues in length. It rises from a lake and is said to form a second, at the distance of fifty leagues from the first.
Turning to the left from this second lake we enter into Blue River, so called from its bottom, which is an earth of that colour. It discharges itself into the river of St. Peter. Going up to the Moingona, we find great plenty of pit coal, and a hundred and fifty leagues from its mouth there is a very large cape, which causes a turn in the river, in which place its waters are red and stinking. It is affirmed, that great quantities of mineral stones and some antimony have been found upon this cape.
A league above the mouth of the Moingona, there are two rapids or strong currents of a considerable length in the Missisippi, where passengers are obliged to unload and carry their pirogues: and above the second rapide, that is about twenty leagues from the Moingona, there are lead mines on both sides of the river, which were discovered some time ago, by a famous traveller of Canada called Nicholas Perrot, whose name they still bear. Ten leagues above the Ouisconsing, and on the same side is a meadow sixty leagues in length, and bounded by mountains which afford a delightful prospect; there is another on the west side, but it is not of such a length. Twenty leagues higher than the extremity of the first meadow, the river grows wider, and is here cal- (page 227) led le lac de bon Secours. This is a league over and seven leagues in circuit. Nicholas Perrot built a fort on the right side.
On leaving this lake you meet with l'isle Pele, or Bald Island, so named from its having no trees upon it; this is a very fine meadow: and the French of Canada have frequently made it the center of their commerce for the western parts, and many have even wintered there, all this country being very plentiful of game. Three leagues above Bald Island you leave on your right hand the riviere de Sainte Croix, or river of the Holy Cross, which proceeds from the neighbourhood of Lake Superior; copper is said to have been found near its mouth. Some leagues farther you leave on the left the river of St. Peter, the banks of which are inhabited by the Sioux, and its mouth is at no great distance from St. Anthony's fall. Beyond this great cascade the Missisippi is altogether unknown.
To return to the Illinois; if what I have heard asserted in several places be true, and which the Missouri woman above-mentioned has also confirmed to me, that they and the Miamis come from the banks of a very distant sea, to the westward*, it would seem that their first station after they made their descent into this country was the Moingona: at least it is certain, that one of their tribes bears that name. The rest are known under the (page 228) names of Peorias, Tamarouas, Caoquias, and Kaskasquias; these tribes are at present very much confounded, and are become very inconsiderable. There remains only a very small number of the Kaskasquias, and the two village of that name are almost entirely composed of the Tamarouas and Metchiganoias, a foreign nation adopted by the Kaskasquias, and originally settled on the banks of a small river you meet with going down the Missisippi.
This is, Madam, all I can at present inform you of with respect to Louisiana, which country I have just entered; but before I conclude this letter, I must impart to you a few circumstances which I have learned on my journey from the river St. Joseph to this place, and which will serve as a supplement to what I have already said of the Indians in general.
You might have seen in the fable of Atahentsic expelled from heaven, some
traces of the first woman driven out of the terrestrial paradise, as a
punishment of her disobedience; and of the deluge, as also of the ark in which
Noah saved himself with his family. This circumstance prevents me from agreeing
to the opinion of P. de Acosta, who alledges that this tradition does not
respect the universal deluge, but another peculiar to America. In effect, the
Algonquins and all the nations who speak their language, supposing the creation
of the first man, say that his posterity having almost entirely perished by a
general inundation, a person named Messon,
whom others call Saketchak, who
saw the
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* A Miamise woman who had been prisoner among the Sioux assured Father de St. P, at present superior of the missions of New-France, that she had been carried by the Sioux to a village of their nation, which was very near the sea.
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