ral form of Nadonaisi, which in Ojibwa means an enemy. The race is divided into seven principal bands, viz.:
1. Mdewakantonwan (Minowa Kantongs[1] or Gens du Lac), meaning "Village of the Mdewakan"—Mille Lacs or Spirit Lake. They formerly extended from Prairie du Chien to Prairie des Français, thirty-five miles up the St. Peter's River. They have now moved farther west. This tribe, which includes seven bands, is considered the bravest of the Sioux, and has even waged an internecine war with the Folles Avoines[2] or Menomenes, who are reputed the most gallant of the Ojibwas (Chippewas), and who, inhabiting a country intersected by lakes, swamps, water-courses, and impenetrable morasses, long bade defiance to all their neighbors. They have received annuities since 1838, and their number enrolled in 1850 was 2000 souls.
2. Wahpekute (Washpeconte, translated Gens de Feuillestirées, and by others the "Leaf Shooters"). Their habitation lies westward of the Des Moines, Cannon, and Blue-Earth Rivers. According to Major Pike, they were like the Bedouin Ghuzw, a band of vagabonds formed of refugees, who for some bad deed had been expelled their tribes. The meaning of their name is unknown; in 1850 they numbered 500 or 600 souls.
3. Sisitonwan (Sussitongs, or the Village of the Marsh). This band used to hunt over the vast prairies lying eastward of the Mississippi, and up that stream as high as Raven River. They now plant their corn about Lake Traverse (Lac Travers) and on the Côteau des Prairies, and numbered in 1850 about 2500 souls.
4. Wahpetonwans (Washpetongs, Gens des Feuilles, because they lived in woods), the "Village in the Leaves." They have moved from their old home about the Little Rapids of the Minnesota River to Lac qui Parle and Big Stone Lake. In 1850 they numbered 1000 to 1200 souls. They plant corn, have substituted the plow for the hoe, and, according to the missionaries,
- ↑ The first is the correct, the second is the old and incorrect form of writing the name.
- ↑ The Folles Avoines are a small tribe esteemed by the whites and respected by their own race; their hunting-grounds are the same as those of the Winnebagoes. They speak a peculiar dialect. But all understand the copious and sonorous, but difficult and complicated Algonquin or Ojibwa—the language of some of the old New England races, Pequots, Delawares, Mohicans, Abenaki, Narragansets, Penobscots, and the tribes about the Lake regions and the head-waters of the Mississippi, viz., Ottawa, Potawotomies, Menomene, Knisteneaux or Cree, Sac, Kickapoo, Maskigo, Shawnee, Miami, Kaskaskia, etc. The other great northeastern language is that of the Mohawk, spoken by the Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga, Tuscarora, Wyandotte, and Cherokee.
"Folles Avoines" is the Canadian French for the wild rice (Zizania aquatica), a tall, tubular, reedy water-plant, plentiful on the marshy margins of the northern lakes and in the plashy waters of the Upper Mississippi. Its leaves and spikes, though much larger, resemble those of oats. Millions of migrating water-fowl fatten on it before their autumnal flights to the south, while in autumn it furnishes the Northern savages and the Canadian traders and hunters with their annual supply of grain. It is used for bread by most of the tribes to the northwest.
