Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/103

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92
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

person standing on a hill which stood in its centre, could not see the limits of it.

"This tribe, whose name was Mun-dua, were fierce and warlike; their hand was against every other tribe, and the captives whom they took in war were burned with fire as offerings to their spirits.

"All the surrounding tribes lived in great fear of them, till their Ojibway brothers called them to council, and sent the wampum and warclub, to collect the warriors of all the tribes with whom they were related. A war party was thus raised, whose line of warriors reached, as they marched in single file, as far as the eye could see. They proceeded against the great town of their common enemy, to put out their fire forever. They surrounded and attacked them from all quarters where their town was not bounded by the lake shore, and though overwhelming in their numbers, yet the Mun-dua had such confidence in their own force and prowess, that on the first day, they sent only their boys to repel the attack. The boys being defeated and driven back, on the second day the young men turned out to beat back their assailants. Still the Ojibways and their allies stood their ground and gradually drove them in, till on the eve of the second day, they found themselves in possession of half the great town. The Mun-duas now became awake to their danger, and on the third day, beginning to consider it a serious business, their old and tried warriors, 'mighty men of valor,' sang their war songs, and putting on their paints and ornaments of battle, they turned out to repel their invaders.

"The fight this day was hand to hand. There is nothing in their traditionary accounts, to equal the fierceness of the struggle described in this battle. The bravest men, probably, in America, had met—one party fighting for vengeance, glory, and renown; and the other for everything dear to man, home, family, for very existence itself!