14 NAMES OF THE AMERICAN LAKES. When this nation, with their confederates, the Algonquins, or Adirondaks, as the Iroquois called them, were overthrown in several decisive battles on the St. Lawrence, between Montreal and Quebec, and compelled to fly west; they at first took shelter in this lake, and thus transferred their name to it. With them, or at least, at the same general era, came some others of the tribes who made a part of the people called by the French, Algonquins, or Nipercineans, and who thus constituted the several tribes, speaking a closely cognate language, whose descendants are regarded by philologists, as the modern Lake-Algonquins. The French sometimes called this lake Mer douce, or the Placid sea. The Odjibwas and some other northern tribes of that stock, call it Ottowa lake. No term has been found for it in the Iroquois language, unless it be that by which they distinguished its principal seat of trade, negociation and early rendezvous, the island of Michilimackinac, which they called Tiedonderaghie. Michigan is a derivative from two Odjibwa-Algonquin words, signifying large, i. e. large in relation to masses in the inorganic kingdom, and a lake. The French called it, generally, during the earlier periods of their transactions, the lake of the Illinese, or Illinois. Superior, the most northwesterly, and the largest of the series, is a term which appears to have come into general use, at a comparatively early era, after the planting of the English colonies. The French bestowed upon it, unsuccessfully, one or two names, the last of which was Traci, after the French minister of this name. By the Odjibwa-Algonquins, who at the period of the French discovery, and who still occupy its borders, it is called Gitch-Igomee, or The Big Sea-water; from Gitchee, great, and guma, a generic term for bodies of water. The term IGOMA, is an abbreviated form of this, suggested for adoption. The poetry of the Indians, is the poetry of naked thought. They have neither ryhme, nor metre to adorn it. Tales and traditions occupy the place of books, with the Red Race.— They make up a kind of oral literature, which is resorted to, on long winter evenings, for the amusement of the lodge. The love of independence is so great with these tribes, that they have never been willing to load their political system with the forms of a regular government, for fear it might prove oppressive. To be governed and to be enslaved, are ideas which have been confounded by the Indians. ODJIBWA SONG. THE following song, taken from the oral traditions of the north, is connected with a historical incident, of note, in the Indian wars of Canada. In 1759, great exertions were made by the French Indian department, under Gen. Montcalm, to bring a body of Indians into the valley of the lower St. Lawrence, and invitations, for this purpose reached the utmost shores of Lake Superior. In one of the canoes from that quarter, which was left on their way down, at the lake of Two Mountains, near the mouth of the Utawas, while the warriors proceeded farther, was a Chippewa girl called Paig-wain-e-osh-e, or the White Eagle, driven by the wind. While the party awaited there, the result of events at Quebec, she formed an attachment for a young Algonquin belonging to the French mission of the Two Mountains. This attachment was mutual, and gave origin to the song, of which the original words, with a literal prose translation, are subjoined: I. Ia indenaindum Ia indenaindum Ma kow we yah Nin denaindum we. Ah me! when I think of him-when I think of him-my sweetheart, · Algonquin. II. Pah bo je aun Ne be nau be koning Nene mooshain we Odishquagumee. As I embarked to return, he put the white wampum around my neck -a pledge of truth, my sweetheart, my Algonquin. III. Keguh wejewin Ain dah nuk ke yun Ningee egobun Nene mooshain we Odishquagumee. I shall go with you, he said, to your native country-I shall go with you, my sweetheart-my Algonquin. IV. Nia! nin de nah dush Aindahnuk ke yaun Ke yau ninemooshai wee Odishquagumee. Alas! I replied-my native country is far, far away-my sweetheart; my Algonquin. When I looked back again-where we parted, he was still looking after me, my sweetheart; my Algonquin. VI. Apee nay we ne bow Aungwash agushing Ne ne mooshai we Odishquagumee. He was still standing on a fallen tree-that had fallen into the water, my sweetheart; my Algonquin. VII. Nia! indenaindum Nia in denaindum Ma kow we yuh Nin de nain dum we Odishquagumee. Alas! when I think of him-when I think of him-It is when I think of him; my Algonquin. Eloquence on the part of the speakers, is not so much the result of superior force of thought, as of the strong and clear positions of right, in which they have been placed by circumstances. It is the force of truth, by which we are charmed. An Indian war song, sung in public, by the assembled warriors on the outbreak of hostilities, is a declaration of war. SHINGABA-WOSSINS, OR IMAGE STONES. THE native tribes who occupy the borders of the great lakes, are very ingenious in converting to the uses of superstition, such masses of loose rock, or boulder.stones, as have been fretted by the action of water into shapes resembling the trunks of human bodies, or other organic forms. There appears, at all times, to have been a ready disposition to turn such masses of rude natural sculpture, so to call them, to an idolatrous use; as well as a most ingenious tact, in aiding the effect of the natural resemblance, by dots or dabs of paint, to denote eyes, and other features, or by rings of red ochre, around their circumference, by way of orna ment. In the following figures, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, some of these masses are represented. Number 3. was brought to the office of the Indian Agent at Michilimackinac in 1839, and placed among objects of analagous interest to visiters. It consisted of a portion of a vein or mass of gneiss or granite, from which both mica and feldspar were nearly absent, existing only in trace, while the quartzy portion predominated, and had, by its superior hardness, resisted the elemental action. The mode of the formation of such masses is very well known to geologists, resulting, in almost every case, from the unequal degree of hardness of various parts of a mass, submitted to an equal force of attrition, such as is ordinarily given by the upheaving and rolling force of waves on a lake, or ocean beach. To the natives, who are not prone to reason from cause to effect, such productions appear wonderful. All that is past comprehension, or wonderful, is attributed by them to the supernatural agency of spirits. The hunter or warrior, who is travelling along the coast, and finds one of these selfsculptured stones, is not sure that it is not a direct interposition of his God, or guardian Manito, in his favour. He is habitually a believer in the most subtle forms of mysterious power, which he acknowledges to be often delegated to the native priests, or necromancers. He is not staggered by the most extraordinary stretch of fancy, in the theory of the change or transformation of animate into inanimate objects, and vice All things," in heaven and earth," he believes to be subject to this subtle power of metamorphosis. But, whatever be the precise operating cause of the respect he pays to the imitative rolled stones, which he calls Shingaba-wossins, and also by the general phrase of Muz-in-ina-wun, or images, he is not at liberty to pass them without hazarding something, in his opinion, of his chance of success in life, or the fortune of the enterprize in hand. versa. If the image be small, it is generally taken with him and secreted in the neighborhood of his lodge. If large and too heavy for this purpose, it is set up on the shore, generally in some obscure nook, where an offer. ing of tobacco, or something else of less value, may be made to it, or rather through it, to the spirit. In 1820 one of these stones (No. 2.) was met by an expedition of the government sent north, that year, for the purpose of interior discovery and observation, at the inner Thunder Bay island, in Lake Huron. It was a massy stone, rounded, with a comparatively broad base and entablature, but not otherwise remarkable. It was set up, under a tree on the island, which was small, with the wide and clear expanse of the lake in plain view. The island was one of those which were regarded as desert, and was probably but seldom stopped at. It was, indeed, little more than a few acres of boulders and pebbles, accumulated on a limestone reef, and bearing a few stunted trees and shrubs. The water of the lake must, in high storms, have thrown its spray over this imaged stone. It was, in fine, one of those private places which an Indian might be supposed to have selected for his secret worship. In No. 3. is figured an object of this kind, which was found in 1832, in the final ascent to the source of the Mississippi, on the right cape, in ascending this stream into lac Traverse-at the distance of about 1000 miles above the falls of St. Anthony. I landed at the point to see it, having heard, from my interpreter, that such an object was set up and dedicated to some unknown Manito there. It was a pleasant level point of land shaded with trees, and bearing luxuriant grass and wild shrubbery and flowers. In the middle of this natural parterre the stone was placed, and was overtopped by this growth, and thus concealed by it. A ring of red paint encircled it, at the first narrowed point of its circumference, to give it the resemblance of a human neck; and there were some rude dabs to denote other features. The Indian is not precise in the matter of |