Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/63

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52
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

their journey. They entirely filled the long lodge; and when every one had left it but themselves, and while they were busy feasting on the good things that had been placed before them, the doors at each end were suddenly closed and fastened on them. A chief of the Marten Totem then addressed them in a loud voice, repeating over all the acts of blood and wickedness which they had enacted, and informing them that for these things the national council had decreed to sweep them from the face of the earth which they polluted. The lodge was surrounded by the warriors of the Marten, who acted as executioners; torches were applied to the thick and dry covering of grass, and, struggling in the flames unable to escape, the men of the Moose Totem were dispatched with barbed arrows shot through the narrow openings between the lodge-poles that confined them. In this fearful manner were the men of this wicked clan destroyed. Their women and children were captured by the Marten family, and adopted into their clan. In this manner the close consanguinity of these two Totems commenced, and at this day they are considered as one family."

The Reindeer family, which is a branch of the Mous-o-neeg, are few in number, and they reside mostly on the north coast of Lake Superior. The celebrated Ojibway war-leader Waub-o-jeeg (White Fisher), whom Mr. Schoolcraft has noticed in his writings at some length, was a member of this family, descended from a branch who emigrated from the Grand Portage near the mouth of Pigeon River to La Pointe, Shag-a-waum-ik-ong, where he and his father, Ma-moug-e-se-do (Big-foot), flourished nearly a century ago as war-leaders and chiefs of their people.

The other badges or totemic symbols which I have enumerated, form inconsiderable families, and are but branches of the principal clans whom I have noticed in the foregoing pages.