it sacred, they used it only for medicinal rites, and for ornament on the occasion of a grand Me-da-we.
They are not therefore, the people whose ancient tools and marks are now being discovered daily by the miners on Lake Superior; or, if they are those people, it must have been during a former period of their ancient history; but their preserving no traditional account of their ancestors ever having worked these copper mines, would most conclusively prove that they are not the race whose signs of a former partial civilized state, are being daily dug up about the shores of the Great Lake.
During this era in their history, some of their old men affirm that there was maintained in their central town, on the Island of La Pointe, a continual fire as a symbol of their nationality. They maintained also, a regular system of civil polity, which, however, was much mixed with their religious and medicinal practices. The Crane and Aw-ause Totem families were first in council, and the brave and unflinching warriors of the Bear family, defended them from the inroads of their numerous and powerful enemies.
to return; they told me they had seen an ingot of copper, all refined, which was on the coast, and weighed more than eight hundred pounds, according to their estimate. They said that the savages, in passing it made a fire on it, after which they cut off pieces with their axes."
Isle Royale abounds in pits containing ashes, coals, stone hammers, and chips of copper, and in some places the scales of the fishes, which had been eaten by the ancient miners. The vein rock appears to have been heated by fire, and the water dashed thereon, by which the rock was fractured, and the exposed copper softened.
Talon, Intendant of Justice in Canada, visited France, taking a voyageur with him, and while in Paris on the 26th of February, 1669, wrote to Colbert, Minister of the Colonial Department, "that this voyageur had penetrated among the Western natives farther than any other man, and had seen the copper mine on Lake Huron," and on the 2d of November, 1671, Talon writes from Quebec: "The copper which I sent from Lake Superior and the river Nantaouagan [Ontonagon], proves that there is a mine on the border of some stream. More than twenty Frenchmen have seen one lump at the lake which they estimate weighs more than eight hundred pounds." Alexander Henry also alludes to copper working on Lake Superior.—E. D. N.
