John Tanner - A narrative of the captivity and adventures of John Tanner

After this, we started to come to an island called Me-nau-zhe-taw-naun, in the Lake of the Woods, where we had concluded to plant corn, instead of our old fields at Dead River. On our way we stopped at a place to make sugar, then we went to visit the traders, leaving Ais-kaw-ba-wis with our women. It happened that the wife of Gish-kau-ko had left her kettle at the sugar camp, some distance from the place where they were to wait for our return. Some time after the men had gone, Ais-kaw-ba-wis, who lived by himself in a little lodge, pretending to be too holy to go into a common house, or to mingle with men in their ordinary pursuits, sent for the wife of Gish-kau-ko, and when she came to him, he said, “The Great Spirit is not pleased that you should abandon and lose your property. Go, therefore, and get the kettle that you have left at the sugar camp.” The woman obeyed, and he, soon after she had left the camp, took his gun, and under the pretence of going to hunt, went out in a different direction. But he had no sooner got out of sight of the lodges than he turned, and by circuitous route came upon the track of the wife of Gish-kau-ko. She, who had been before annoyed by his particular attentions, and surmised the real object he had in view in sending her for the kettle, kept a look out behind her, and when she saw him come running after her, she began to run also. Just at this time I was returning from the trading-house with the other Indians, when we descried this chase at a distance. It occasioned us much alarm when we saw first a woman, then a man, running with so much apparent earnestness. We thought nothing less than that the Sioux had come to the country, and were murdering our women and children. But when we came a little nearer, the pretended prophet gave over his pursuit of the woman, and came and sat down with us, to drink of the rum which the Indians had brought from the trading-house, and which they gave him very liberally. The woman was, however, after her arrival at home, compelled to give some account of the race, and she acknowledged that Ais-kaw-ba-wis had often sought similar opportunities to be alone with her, though such was her fear of him that she never dared make any disclosure, or offer any other resistance than an attempt to escape by flight. This discovery occasioned no disturbance, and seemed in no degree to diminish the influence of Ais-kaw-ba-wis. A large proportion of the rum we had brought from the trading-house was set apart for him, but when the principal man among us sent for him to come and receive it, he returned for answer, that he could not come. “Tell the chief,” said he, “that if he has any business with me, he can come to my lodge.” The liquor was accordingly carried to him, but its effect seemed to render his disposition somewhat more social and condescending, for about the middle of the night he came staggering into the lodge where I was without the least covering on any part of his body. To me his appearance was ludicrous in the extreme, and I did not refrain from a good deal of irreverent merriment on the occasion.

After this we came to the Lake of the Woods, where I hunted for about a month, then went back into the country I had left, all the Indians remaining behind to clear the ground where they intended planting corn at Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung. I now began to experience the inconveniences resulting from having incurred the ill will of Ais-kaw-ba-wis. He it was who prejudiced the Indians so much against me, and particularly the relatives of my wife, that my situation at Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung was uncomfortable, and I was compelled to return to Red River.

It was about this time that the Scots people, to the number of one hundred or more, arrived to settle at Red River, under the protection of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and among these I saw, for the first time in many years, since I had become a man, a white woman. Soon after my arrival, I was taken into the employment of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and Mr. Hanie, the agent, sent me, accompanied by Mr. Hess, an interpreter, and some men, to kill buffalo. The buffalo were at that time, at a great distance, and the Scots people in great distress for want of provisions. I happened to find and kill two bulls near home, and after sending back the meat, I went on to the herds.

I had hunted here a few days, when our number was increased to four clerks and about twenty men, the latter employed in bringing in the meat I killed to my lodge, whence it was carried in carts to the settlement. All of these lived in my lodge, but one of the clerks named M’Donald was very abusive to my wife and children. Mr. Hess repeatedly checked him for this conduct, but as he continued it, he complained to Mr. Hanie, who sent M’Donald to a place several miles distant where the Indians had killed about twenty buffaloes, which it was not convenient, at present, to bring out, and there he remained by himself for two months, having no other occupation or amusement than to scare the wolves away from the meat. Mr. M’Kenzie was one of the three remaining clerks who lived in my lodge, and he was so different from M’Donald, that at the end of four months, when the greater part of the people were called in to the settlement, he solicited and obtained from Mr. Hanie permission to remain longer with me, to improve himself in the Ojibbeway language, and he did not leave me until after the sugar season.

I killed, in the four months that I hunted for the Hudson’s Bay Company, about one hundred buffaloes, but as part, or all of many of these were eaten in my own lodge, I delivered only forty entire and fat ones to the company’s people, for which Mr. Hanie paid me, in the spring, three hundred and ten dollars. Those Scots labourers who were with me, were much more rough and brutal in their manners than any people I had before seen. Even when they had plenty, they ate like starved dogs, and never failed to quarrel over their meat. The clerks frequently beat and punished them, but they would still quarrel.

Mr. Hanie, and the governor for the Hudson’s Bay Company, proposed to me to build me a house, and engage me permanently in their employment, but I delayed accepting their offer, as I thought it doubtful whether their attempt at settling the country would finally succeed. Some of the Indians whom I had left at the Lake of the Woods had followed me out, spent the winter with me, and returned long ago. I was still by myself at Red River, when Wa-ge-tote came from Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung with a message from my father and mother-in-law. They had lost several of their children by death, and feeling lonely, they sent for me to come to them. This message Wa-ge-tote delivered to me in the presence of the traders, and some other persons, but afterwards he called me out by myself, and said to me, “Do not believe that your father-in-law calls you to Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung, to be at peace, or with any kind intention. When the children were sick, they called Ais-kaw-ba-wis to do something for them, and he having made a chees-suk-kon, said he had called you into his enclosure, and made you confess that you had shot bad medicine at the children, though you were at that time at Red River. He made your father-in-law believe that you had the power of life and death over his children, and he continues to believe, as do most of the Indians of the band, that it was your medicine which killed them. Be assured, therefore, that they call you thither with the design of killing you.” Notwithstanding this admonition, I started immediately, as I knew if I did not they would be but the more confirmed in their unfounded opinion of my culpability.

I had bought a shirt from some of the Scots people at Red River, which I put on as I was about to start on this journey. Probably it was from this I contracted a disease of the skin, which became so troublesome and violent that I was compelled to stop at the Be-gwi-o-nus-ko River. Here I remained for a month, being for a long time unable to move. When I first stopped I set up my lodge on the brink of the river, and after I was unable to walk, I subsisted myself and family by lying in my canoe and fishing. After being placed in my canoe, sometimes I lay there for three or four days without being moved, covering myself with a mat at night. My wife was not so severely affected, being, though very sick, still able to walk. When I began to get a little better, I tried all sorts of medicines I could procure, but none seemed to do me so much good as gun powder, moistened a little, and rubbed upon the sores, which were very large. This disorder, caught originally from the Scotch people, spread among the Indians and killed numbers of them.