Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/324

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314
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

jumped in, despatched a warrior with his knife, and had taken two women captive, before the remainder of his party had fairly arrived to his help. This action is related by the Ojibways as one of great courage, as they seldom, in their warfare, come to a hand to hand conflict.

At a peace-making, following soon after this last event, the two captives of Le-bud-ee were returned to the Dakotas.

Many more instances similar in nature to these which have been related in this chapter, might be given to swell the annual record of bloodshed in which the division of the Ojibway tribe under our present consideration were engaged in, during this period of their history, but it is deemed that enough have been presented to illustrate their mode of living, and warfare, and the dangers which daily assailed them in becoming possessed of the country over which their children now claim unquestioned right, over any other tribe of their fellow red men.

In this chapter we have brought down the annals, or history of this section of the Ojibways, to within a half century of the present time.

The grand or principal villages at Lac Coutereille and Lac du Flambeau, had commenced to shoot forth now branches or communities, who located their wigwams on some of the many beautiful lakes and streams which swell the waters of the Chippeway and Wisconsin. Lac Shatac early became a separate village. So also, Ke-che-puk-wa-i-wah, a reservoir or lake through which the Chippeway River passes.

From Lac du Flambeau, a large community branched off down the Wisconsin, who sometimes came in deadly contact with the Winnebagoes, who occupied the country about the Fox River, and who sometimes joined the war parties of their relatives, the Dakotas, against the Ojibways. This custom they followed but seldom, and never openly, as being literally surrounded by tribes of the Algic stock,