the manufacture of sugar, amidst the thick groves of the valuable maple which was to be found skirting the lakes of which they had taken possession. As a general fact the women only occupied themselves in the sugar bushes, while the men scattered about in small bands, to hunt the furred animals whose pelts at this season of the year were considered to be most valuable. When sugar-making was over and the ice and snow had once more disappeared before the warmth of a spring sun, the scattered wigwams of the different bands would once more collect at their village sites, and the time for recreation, ball-playing, racing, courtship, and war, had once more arrived. If no trader had passed the winter amongst them, many of the hunters would start off in their birch canoes to visit the trading posts on the Great Lakes, to barter their pelts for new supplies of clothing, ammunition, tobacco, and fire-water.
If any one had lately lost relatives, naturally, or at the hands of the Dakotas, now was the proper time to think of revenge; and it is generally at this season of the year that war parties of the red men prowled all over the north-western country, searching to shed each other's blood.
According to invariable custom, the Ojibway mourns for a lost relative of near kin, for the space of one year; but there are two modes by which he can, at any time, wipe the paint of mourning from his face. The first is through the medium of the Meda, or grand medicine, which, to an Indian, is a costly ordeal. The next is to go to war, and either to kill or scalp an enemy, or besmear a relic of the deceased in an enemy's blood. This custom is one of their grand stimulants to war, and the writer considers it as more fruitful of war parties, than the more commonly believed motive of satiating revenge, or the love of renown.
