Glenn

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.

Jesuit Relation 1656-58,

Vol. 44, 245-251

Father Gabriel Dreuillettes, from whom we have obtained the greater part of what is contained in this Chapter, conferred the name of Saint Michel upon the first Village which he mentions. Its inhabitants are called, in Algonquin, Oupouteouatamik. In this Village there are computed to be about seven hundred men: that is to say, three thousand souls, since to one man there are at least three or four other persons, namely, women and children. They have for neighbors the Kiskacoueiak and the Negaouichiriniouek. There are in this Village about a hundred men of he Tobacco Nation, who took refuge there to escape the cruelty of the Iroquois.

The second Nation is composed of the Nouek, Ouiniwipegouek, and Meloouminek. These people are but a very short distance from the Village of Saint Michel, or from the Oupouteouatamik. They reap, /80/ without sowing it, a kind of rye which grows wild in their meadows, and is considered superior to Indian corn. About two hundred Algonquins, who used to dwell on the Northern shores of the great Lake or the Fresh-Water sea of the Hurons, have taken refuge in this place.

The third Nation is distant about three days' journey inland, by water, from the Village of St. Michel. It is composed of the Makoutensak and Outitchakouk. The two frenchmen who have made the journey to those regions say that these people are of a very gentle disposition.

The fourth Nation has a Village of a thousand men, distant three days' journey from the Village of St. Michel, its total population being four or five thousand souls.

The Fifth Nation, called the Aliniouek, is larger; it is computed at fully 20,000 men and sixty Villages, making about a hundred thousand souls in all. It is seven days' journey Westward from St. Michel.

The sixth Nation, whose people are called Oumamik, is distant /81/ sixty leagues, or thereabout, from St. Michel. It has fully eight thousand men, or more than twenty-four thousand souls.

The seventh, called the Poulak, or "Warriors," contains thirty Villages, situated West by North from St. Michel.

The eighth lies to the Northwest, ten days Journey from St. Michel, and has fully 40 Villages, inhabited by the Nadouechiouek and Mantouek.

The ninth, situated beyond the Nadouechiouek, thirty-five leagues or thereabout from lake Alimibeg, is called the Nation of the Assinipoualak, or "Warriors of the rock."

The tenth Nation is that of the Kilistinons, who comprise four Nations of tribes. Those of the first are called the Alimibegouek Kilistinons; of the second, the Kilistinons of the Ataouabouscatouek Bay; of the third, the Kilistinons of the Nipisininiens, because the Nipisininiens discovered their country, whither they resort to trade or barter goods. They comprise /82/ only about six hundred men, that is, two thousand five hundred souls, and are not very stationary. They are of a very approachable disposition.

The people of the fourth tribe are called Nisbourounik Kilistinons.

The fourteenth Nation has thirty Villages, inhabited by the Atsistagherronnons, and is six or seven days; journey Southwest by South from St. Michel. The Onnontagueronnons have recently declared war against them.

The Father speaks also of learning from a Nipisirinien captain that he had seen at one place two thousand Algonquins tilling the soil; and that the other Villages of the same country were still more populous. This Captain asserted that toward the South and Southeast there were more than thirty Nations, all stationary, all speaking the Abnaquiois tongue, and all more populous than were the Hurons of old, who numbered as many as thiry or thiry-five thousand souls within the limits of seventeen leagues.

/83/ "I do not speak," says the Father, "of the Nations that have long been known." Indeed, he says nothing of the Kichesipiiriniouek, the Kinonchepiirinik, the Ounountchatarounongak, the Mataouchkairinik, the Ouasaouanik, the Ouraouakmikoug, the Oukiskimanitouk, the Maskasnik, the Nikikouek, the Michesaking, the Pagoutik, people of the great Sault, and the Kichkankoueisk. All these Nations, several of whom have been maltreated by the Iroquois, use the Algonquin tongue.

/21/ In this survey of the Northwestern tribes, the central point of view is a Pottawattomie village called by the Jesuits St. Michen, although it is not recorded that they had a residence therein. It is impossible to locate this place accurately, but it was apparently at some point on the west shore of Lake Michigan. Here one of the numerous Pottawattomie bands was sojourning, together with some of the Petun (Tobacco) Hurons, who had fled from the rage of the Iroquois. Their nearest neighbors were the Kiskakons, and Ottawa tribe; and the Negawichi, a band of Illinois. This last "nation" is mentioned in the text as the Aliniwek, the most populous of all; they then occupied S. W. Wisconsin and the greater part of Illinois. North of these Pottawattomies dwelt the Winnebagoes, around the south end of Green Bay; The Menomonees, on the west shore of the bay, as far down as the river which bears their name; and, beyond, the Noukek, or Nouquets (cf. Roquai, vol. xviii., p. 231), who have given name to Bay de Noquet in Delta county, Mich. The Menomonees were known to the French as Folles Avoines, "the people of the wild oats,"--the wild rice, a grain (Zisania aquatica) mentioned in this paragraph, for the first time in the Relations.

Inland from St. Michel were the Mascoutens, Gamies or Foxes (Fr. Renards), --the former along the Upper Fox River, the latter northward along the Wolf. "The two frenchmen" mentioned as visiting these tribes were Radisson and Groseilliers. The Ouamis, or Miamis were located in a nearly opposite direction, across the lake, in S. W. Michigan.

The Poualak (vol. xii., note 12) must have been at this time in Eastern Minnesota, along the west shore of the Mississippi; their relatives, the Assinipouelak, dwelt west of Lake Nipigon (Alimibeg), and N. W. of Lake Superior. Between these tribes lay the villages of the (Eastern) Sioux (Nadouechi). The Mantoue (Mandans?) can hardly be those mentioned in 1640 as living in the Northern peninsula of Michigan (vol. xviii., p. 231).

The great Cree nation (Kilistinons; vol. xviii., note 15) is here divided according to locality; first, those about Lake Nipigon; next, probably those west of James bay; then those between Lake Nipigon and Moose River, a region easy of access to the Nippissing Indians. The Nisibourounik tribe were probably the dwellers on the East Main River (see preceding note).

The last nation mentioned in the text -- apparently overlooked in the enumeration of Southern tribes --is the Atsistagherronnons (vol. xx., note 7), or Mascoutens. Evidently the Mascoutens on the Upper Fox (v. supra were a band who had migrated northward from the rest of their tribe.


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