The Waupaca Chain o’ Lakes

 

INDIAN HISTORY SURVEY

 

 

The Lakes, Indian Archaeology and

History, Myths and Legends

 

 

 

By Charles Edward Brown

 

Secretary, Wisconsin Archaeology Society

 

Director, Wisconsin State Historical Society

 

Madison, Wisconsin

 

 

   

 

CHAIN  OF  LAKES,  WAUPACA,  WIS.

 

 

 

Published by

 

WAUPACA  CHAIN  O’  LAKES  ASSOCIATION

 

1931

 

E.A. Schmeltz, President

 

Thomas Hanna, Vice-President

 

J.E. Campbell, Secretary and Treasurer

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Transcriber’s Note:  This booklet is being made available to this site as of 2003 through

the courtesy of the WAUPACA  CHAIN  O’  LAKES  ASSOCIATION - Robert Kessler, Secretary)

 

 

 

 

 

NI-AQTAWA-POMI  

 

Last Menomini Indian Chief of the Chain o’ Lakes

 

 

THE WAUPACA CHAIN O’ LAKES

 

CONTENTS

 

1.       The Chain o’ Lakes – Physiography.

   2.    Place Names.

   3.    Early Maps.

4.        The Springs.

5.        The Ridges.

6.        The Menomini.

7.        Life and Industries of the Menomini.

8.        Plant Lore.

9.        Myths and Legends.

10.    The Trails.

11.    The Big Chain Lakes.

12.    The Little Chain Lakes.

13.    The Waupaca Lakes.

14.    The Survey.

THE CHAIN O’ LAKES

 

Physiography

 

            The Waupaca Chain o’ Lakes, located in the southwestern part of Waupaca County, in east central Wisconsin, is one of the most widely known groups of Wisconsin lakes. These lakes are situated about 4 miles southwest of the City of Waupaca, from which metropolis the most easterly lake of the Chain is approached by a broad concrete highway.

            These crystal and sea green lakes are located in a region once densely forested with deciduous and pine trees.  Because of their charm and beauty they have been referred to in advertising matter as “The Killarneys of America,” a not inappropriate designation.  No group of either Irish or Wisconsin lakes is fairer than these twenty-one niades of Waupaca County.

            The Chain lakes are strung out in a northeast direction their shapes and arrangement suggesting “so many flags or garments on a line, all fluttering and flapping in the summer breezes.”

            At the head of the lakes of the main or “Big Chain” is Taylor Lake, once known as Clem Lake, then following in regular order Rainbow and Sunrise, McCrossen, Round, Columbian and Long Lakes. Otter Lake, lying north of it, is attached to Taylor Lake by a stream.  Miner and Dake Lakes, twin lakes, which lie east of Columbian Lake, are connected with the Chain.  Pollys or Ottman Lake, a detached small lake, lies north of Columbian Lake.  Emmons Lake, situated a short distance southwest of Long Lake, is connected with this lake by Emmons Creek.

            In the so-called “Little Chain” there are eight pretty lakelets.  The first of these, Beasley Lake, is attached to the northwest shore of Long Lake.  Beyond it are Bass, Youngs, Orlando, Knight, Manomin (Mud), Pope and Marl lakes. The entire Chain o’ Lakes stretches out over an area 3-1/2 miles in length and a mile wide.

            Lying between the head of the Chain o’ Lakes and Waupaca are a small number of pond-lakes. Several others lie some distance north of the western lakes of the Chain.  At Rural, south of the Chain is Junction Lake.

            Dr. E.A. Birge and Chancey Juday say of the Chain o’ Lakes in their report on “The Inland Lakes of Wisconsin,” published in 1914:

            “The water flows from the northeast toward the southwest through the chain and the upper lakes are fed entirely by springs, there being no stream outlets.  The supply is barely sufficient to maintain a feeble current from Round Lake into Columbian.  Otter, Hicks (Sunrise), and Round lakes receive by far the largest amount of spring water.  Long Lake receives the waters of some springs, those of Emmons Creek, and the overflow of Beasley and Columbian lakes.

            “Six members of this chain, Otter, Beasley, and Long lakes being the exceptions, may be classed as marl lakes; marl deposits are more or less prominent in the shallow water and the bottom in the deeper water contains a large percentage of marl.  Also, the color of the water is the same as that of typical marl lakes, being a greenish blue in the shallow water and a darker green in the deep water.  The bottom deposits of Otter, Beasley, and Long lakes contain a much larger percentage of organic material and have a dark color.

            “Arbor Creek, the outlet of the entire group of lakes, has its origin at he south end of Long lake.  It is a stream of considerable size, being large enough to furnish power for a small mill.  It is a tributary of the South Fork of the Waupaca river and the latter stream is a tributary of the Wolf river.  These lakes, therefore, lie within the Michigan drainage basin.

            “The underlying rock in this lake district is Potsdam sandstone but it is covered by a rather thick layer of glacial drift.  The topography of the vicinity of the lakes is that of a pitted plain.  The pits owe their existence to the burial of blocks of ice during the glacial epoch and the subsequent melting of them.  These pits vary in size from small ones which are only a few meters in diameter to that of the largest lake.  Rising above the plain in this vicinity are a few isolated hills, some of which are 30m. (100 ft.) in height and perhaps a kilometer in length.  These hills are now well covered with drift, often carrying great boulders, and their topography suggests that they are remnants of a former upland whose surface was at or above the present level of their tops.

            “The late Wisconsin ice sheet extended about 25 km. (15 mi.) west of the lakes where the limit of its advance is marked by a terminal moraine.  It moved into this region from the northeast and its disappearance was not marked by a uniform retreat.  There are halts at certain points along the line at which smaller or recessional moraines were formed.  Such a halt was made along the east side of Rainbow and Hicks lakes, Maple Island, and the high shore along the east side of Rainbow lake.

            “The shores of all the lakes possess the usual steepness of pitted-plain basin.  Between the steep shores and the edge of the water in some of the lakes are narrow belts of grass or tamarack  swamp which serve as good illustrations of the encroachment of vegetation in lakes.  Otter lake is an excellent example of this type of shore; such conditions are shown also by Beasley, Bass and Youngs lakes, by a portion of the shore of Long lake, and by the four lakes at the head of Beasley Brook.  This abundant growth of vegetation along the shores contributes a great deal of organic material o the bottom mud, even in the deeper water.  The difference in the appearance and character of the water together with the fact that some of the lakes are still surrounded by forest, which gives them an appearance of wildness, adds very much to the beauty and attractiveness of this group of lakes.”

 

Place Names.

 

            In an address on the Indian history and remains of the Chain o’ Lakes region delivered before the Wisconsin Natural History Society at Milwaukee, in November 1900, Mr. Frank M. Benedict gave the Menomini Indian name of the Lakes as “Se-se-pe-comeow” and its significance as “sprawling water,” or “water that spreads out like an animal basking in the sun.”  This information he very likely obtained from Niyatawapomis (Ni-aqtawa-pomi), the old former chief of the Otter Lake village, whom he interviewed at Keshena.  The Potawatomi Indians of the Waupaca County villages are said to have referred to the lakes by the name of “Ba-ba-shote-et-teg-gin-bis-sen,” meaning “scattered water,” or “scattered group of lakes.”  The Chippewa also had a name for them  - “Wai-wai-ba-si-pi,” meaning “soon one after another” and referring to the manner in which one lake follows another in a chain or series.  From the nature of the several appellations we may judge that the early Indians were, like the pioneer settlers and the present summer inhabitants of the Lakes region, impressed with the interest, and perhaps beauty, of the Chain o’ Lakes.

            If not the originator of the present significant name of Chain o’ Lakes given to these lakes, and by which they are widely known, Mr. Benedict did more than anyone to advertise and to popularize it.

            The Menomini name Waupaca Mr. Benedict gives as meaning “the place of clear water.”  Henry E. Legler, in his article on Wisconsin Place Names, gives its meaning as “white sand bottom.”  Other writers interpret it as “pale water,” “white water,” or “crystal water.”  William Powell, the fur trader, states that the name means, “the dawning of the morning,” or daybreak.  He says that the French endeavored to interpret it by calling the river which bears it “To-morrow River.”  It will be noted that nearly all of the foregoing interpretations endeavor to indicate that the river was one of clear water.  One appears to compare it with the brightness of the dawn.

            John V. Satterlee, the Menomini sage, expressed the belief that the name is Wa-pa-kaw or Wa-pa-ko-ho-na-wok, “one brave young hero.”  It no doubt refers to the Indian cemetery at Marion, Waupaca County.  The local Woman’s Club erected a boulder marker over his grave in 1926.

            The Menomini names of some of the lakes of the Waupaca Chain are given elsewhere in this report.

 

Early Maps.

 

            Wisconsin maps of the years 1835 to 1850 do not show the Chain o’ Lakes.  This is singular because their presence was known to fur traders and other white men for nearly a century, and to the Indian for a much longer period of time.  The Waupaca River appears on Capt. Thomas J. Cram’s map of 1842 but the remainder of the county is a blank.  The lakes do not appear on some maps of as late as 1853 and 1854.

            I.A. Lapham’s map of the state, published at Milwaukee in 1853, locates the Chain o’ Lakes but provides no name for them.  They do not appear on his maps of 1846 to 1852, nor on Colton’s map of 1851.  They are present on the Railroad Map of Wisconsin, published by Rufus Blanchard at Chicago, 1857, but are unnamed.  They are not shown on several other maps of this year.

            On Henry Kemshall’s map, published at Milwaukee, 1857, the lakes are located but unnamed.  They appear on Farmer’s Township Map of Michigan and Wisconsin, 1857, a very detailed map.  Silas Chapman’s maps of 1854, 1856, 1860 and 1861 show the lakes, but no names for them appear.

            C.M. Foote’s Plat Book of Waupaca County, 1889, gives to Taylor, Rainbow and McCrossen Lakes the name “Chain Lakes.”  Otter and Round Lakes bear the same names which they bear today.  Long Lake is called “Big Lake,” and Miner and Dake Lakes bear the name of “Clear Lake.”  The lakes of the Little Chain are not named.

 

The Springs.

 

            Some of the old men among the Menomini, who in former days knew the Waupaca Chain o’ Lakes region, stated that one of the reasons why some of their people were pleased to camp in this country of spring-fed lakes was because of its many clear springs.  Particularly appreciated by both the natives and the pioneers were the well-known springs on the north shore of Sunrise (Hicks) Lake, others on the north and west shores of Round Lake, at Beasely Brook, on the waste shore of Long Lake, and in the vicinity of (north and west) Knight and Pope Lakes.  One of the springs the Indians believed to possess medicinal virtues.

            These Indians had some interesting beliefs and superstitions about springs.  Some are believed to be the abodes of spirit bears.  They are easily angered and sacrifices of implements, food, clothing, dogs and of other possessions were formerly made to them.  Tobacco was also cast on the surface of the water to retain the good will or to obtain the blessings of these deities.  The boiling or bubbling of a spring was considered to offer certain evidence of its being spirit inhabited.  An Indian once poked a long pole down into one of these springs and directly a great flame of fire shot upward nearly scorching the frightened offender.

            Bears were “the recipients of special reverence among the Menomini and are not killed without a ceremony and apology.  Bones of bears are scrupulously collected that they may not become food for dogs and are deposited in running water.  The skull is hung in a tree in a clean place in the woods.”  (Material Culture, 176).

            So far as known no Indian stone, bone or other implements have been recovered from any of the springs about these lakes.  This may be due to the fact that but few, if any, have ever been searched for such evidence of former Indian religious practices. Several of the “sacred” springs on the shores of Lake Poygan have yielded large numbers of bone and other implements, animal bones, etc.

            The Winnebago, former neighbors and friends of the Menomini, say that springs are doors through which animals enter the spirit world.

 

The Ridges

           

            Short distances both north and south of the Chain o’ Lakes are short ridges or hills the character of which is noted in the introductory chapter of this report.  Most of these are of an oval or elongated form.  These were formerly or are still covered with forests.  Those south of the Chain are named Fox and Cemetery Ridges, Rural Hill, Ben Lomond, and Pilot Peak.  Situated north of the lakes are Doe Hill, Seesee Foothill, and Summit Hill.  Three others are located a short distance northwest of the lakes of the “Little Chain.”

            The Menomini well knew these ridges and their hunting or scouting parties sometimes camped on some of them.  On Fox Ridge quite a number of flint arrow and spear points have been collected.  Cemetery Ridge is occupied by the farm and cemetery of the Wisconsin Veterans’ Home.  A trail from the lakes traversed or passed this ridge in its southward course to the South Branch of the Waupaca River.  This is thought to be the place where a mythical lacrosse game between the relatives of the Menomini culture here Ma-nabush and the Thunderers, or Sky People, may have once taken place.  It was a hotly contested game.

            Some hills were also believed to be sacred places, being the residences of good or evil spirits whom the old time Indians reverenced or feared.

           

 

  

MENOMINI  INDIANS

 

The Menomini.

 

            The name of this Wisconsin Indian tribe is derived from two native words, meno (mino), good, and Min, a grain or seed.  Their name for their tribe was Omano-minewak, wild rice men.  By the French they were called Folle Avoine referring to the fondness for wild rice.

            In prehistoric time these Indians migrated from their ancestral home in the St. Lawrence valley probably reaching the wild rice district in the Upper Michigan peninsula and northeastern Wisconsin before their kinsmen, the Chippewa, Potawatomi and Ottawa.  In this region they were first encountered by a white man when Jean Nicolet, a French explorer, the first to reach Wisconsin, visited them in 1634, at the mouth of the Menominee river, and was there entertained by them.  Their later territory “comprised all of the land drained by the Menominee, Wolf and Fox rivers, which all pour their waters into the Green Bay of Lake Michigan.  Their territory had an extent of about seventy leagues (210 miles) north and south, fifty by sixty (150 and 180) from east to west.

            In 1831 the Menomini ceded to the United States a large tract of land extending from the northern point of Door County southward to Milwaukee, this land being east of Green Bay, the Fox river and Lake Winnebago.  In 1836 they ceded another large tract extending along the west shore of Green Bay and the west bank of the Fox River.  In 1848 they ceded a third territory which extended from the northwest corner of their present reservation in a southwesterly direction to the Wisconsin River, just below present Stevens Point.  Here it crossed the Wisconsin and continued to the Yellow river.  It passed down this stream to the Wisconsin river and ran in a southeasterly direction to Portage.  It followed the Fox river in a northeasterly direction to Lake Poygan, then followed the Wolf river northward to the place of beginning.  Included in this cession was the region of the Waupaca lakes.

            The early neighbors of the Menomini were the Dakota (Sioux) and Chippewa, occupying the region north of them in northern Wisconsin and Michigan; the Potawatomi in Door County and along the Lake Michigan shore; the Mascouten or Prairie Potawatomi at Milwaukee, the Winnebago on the shores of Lake Winnebago, and the Fox along the Fox river.  Of these tribes the Chippewa, Potawatomi and Dakota occasionally occupied parts of the large Menomini domain, but the latter held it for two hundred years after the appearance of the first white man in Wisconsin.

            The Menomini were never a very numerous tribe.  Their number in the earliest days of their history was from 1,600 to 1,900.  In the year 1718 the number of their warriors is given as 80-100, in 1761 as 150, and in 1820 as 600.  The present number of Menomini is 1928.

            The Wild Rice People were never a very warlike tribe. They were generally on the best of terms with the French, British and Americans in Wisconsin.  Major Zebulon Pike (1810) described the Menomini men as “being straight and well made, about the middle size; their complexions generally fair for savages, their teeth good, their eyes rather large and languishing; they have a mild but independent expression of countenance that charms at first sight.”

            Major Irwin wrote of the Menomini in 1820 that in the spring they subsisted on sugar and fish, in the fall on wild rice and corn, and in the winter on fish and game.  In 1832-38 they were growing corn at all, or nearly all of their villages on the Menominee, Oconto, Fox and Wisconsin rivers.

            In 1848, previous to their moving to their present reservation, there were some twenty bands of Menomini located at Escanaba, on the Menominee, Oconto and Peshtigo rivers, on the shore of Lake Poygan, on the Wisconsin river, at Skunk Hill in Wood County, and elsewhere within their territory.

            Of these bands  the one located at he Chain o’ Lakes, under the leadership of Ni-aqtawa-pomi, were the Shakitok.

            The Powahe-kune-Tusi-niniwug (rice-gathering people) lived on the shore of Lake Poygan.  Here they had sugar camps and gathered wild rice.  Pwa-a-con-nee (Poygan) means a place for threshing wild rice.  The Wi-skos Se-peo Wini-niwuk, Wisconsin River people, lived on the banks of that stream.  From their name Wisconsin is derived.  Wi-skos or Wi-skons, means a little muskrat house.  The Noma-Kokon Se-peo Tusi-niniwug, Beaver river people, had a village near Winneconne (Wni-ka-ni, a skull).  They had other villages at Fond du Lac and Oshkosh.  On the upper waters of the Wolf river were the Muhwa-o Se-peo Winni-ni-wuk, or Wolf river people. 

            Freeman Dana Dewey mentions that Sho-nah-a-nee (Shu-nien, silver?) was the chief of the Winneconne village.

            A.J. Lawson mentions that there were a thousand Menomini Indians encamped at New London and vicinity when the first whites came to that locality.  No doubt he has greatly overestimated their number.  (3 Wi. Hist. Coll., 478).

            In early days of settlement and before groups and numbers of Menomini of all these bands and villages were always passing over the trails which lead north and south and east and west through the Chain o’ Lakes region.  Mr. John V. Satterlee states that these lakes and the region about them were always known to the members of his tribe as a good hunting ground.  They had some ponies but many traveled on foot.  They often camped about the lakes for months while engaged in fishing, trapping and hunting.

            In early settlement days the Potawatomi are also reported to have had six villages in Waupaca County, these being located near Clintonville, Symco and Big Stone.  Some of these tribesmen also knew and occasionally visited the Chain o’ Lakes region.

            In 1852 the Menomini bands removed to the reservation near Shawano provided for them by the Government, the different bands, some of them pagan and some of the Catholic, establishing themselves along its different streams.  This reservation consists of ten townships, some 360 square miles or 230,400 acres.  It is located about 35 miles northwest of Green Bay and 38 miles northeast of Waupaca.

           

 

 

 

Life and Industries of the Menomini

 

            The dress of the early Menomini was simple but interesting.  The favorite headdress of the Indian men was a broad headband consisting of a strip of otter or other fur ornamented with a few eagle or other feathers.  Roaches or crests made of dyed deer’s hair were also worn.  To these an eagle feather was attached by means of a bone or antler roach-spreader.  Shirts were of tanned deerskin, often dyed brown with butternut juice, the front ornamented with designs or figures in colored quills.  Long deerskin leggings, fringed along one edge, were tied to the waist by a thong.  Necklaces made of animal claws, shells or other materials were worn.  Moccasins were made of deerskin.  In the hot weather of summer a deerskin breechcloth, supported by a thong or strip of skin and moccasins were probably the only clothing.

            The women wore a waist, skirt, leggings and moccasins.  The waist was a tanned deerskin with a hole cut in it for the head.  It had no sleeves.  It was ornamented with quillwork.  The skirt consisted of a square piece of the same material wrapped around the body.  It was ornamented at the sides.  The skin leggings were short reaching only to the knee.  They also wore necklaces, probably made of shells, seeds, etc.

            On occasions of ceremony and mourning both men and women painted parts of their faces.

            The introduction of cloth, beads and sliver jewelry by the fur traders added greatly to the beauty of the Menomini costumes.

            The summer dwelling of these Indians was a quadrangular house with a ridged roof built of upright poles and covered with strips of elm or cedar bark.  The bark covering was held in place by poles tied across it on the outside.  The winter lodge was dome shaped affair consisting of arched poles tied at their tops with bark strips.  Horizontal poles tied to the sides added to the firmness of the structure, which was covered with cattail matting.  Both the summer and winter lodge were rain-proof.  Both had a single doorway on one side closed by a piece of deerskin, a fur hide or blanket. Cedar bark or rush matting covered the floor of the wigwam.  In the center was the fireplace, a shallow hole lined with stones.  Over this the kettle was supported on a green cross-bar supported by two crotched sticks.  The smoke from the fire escaped by a hole in the roof.  In some lodges low couches built of poles and covered with robes or blankets provided beds and seats.  Clothing, household utensils and other articles were hung from the wooden framework of the wigwam.

            The food and medicines of the Menomini are discussed in other chapters of this monograph.

            The work of the Indian women consisted of the preparation of food, the tanning of skins and making of clothing, the weaving of reed, cattail and cedar bark mats and fibre bags, the making of bark and plant fibre twine and rope, weaving of seines for fishing, making of bark dishes and other receptacles and the making of pottery vessels.  The men engaged in canoe-making (both birch bark and log canoes), making of wooden bowls, ladles and mortars, feather cases, fire-drills, traps and snares, cradle-boards, musical instruments, snowshoes, articles for games and ceremonies, pipes, and bows, arrows, clubs and spears.  They were an industrious people.  Indications are that at an earlier date the Menomini men also engaged in some copper smithing.

            Most important of the religious societies of the Menomini is the Mita-win, or Medicine Lodge.  “Admission is by purchase, often to fill a vacancy caused by death, and the initiation is the dramatization of the origin myth in which the candidate plays the leading role.  The chief feature is the pretended slaying and bringing to life of the candidate, which is the symbolic presentation of the belief that all so initiated will be reincarnated in the Hereafter.”  Other organizations are the Dreamers, the Witches’ Society, the Wa-bano Cult and the Je-sako Cult.  Among their dances are the war dance, victory dance, scalp dance, harvest dance, rain dance, begging dance, tobacco dance, Shawano dance and woman’s dance.  Their musical instruments are circular drums, water drums, tambourine drums, flutes or flageolets, whistles and gourd and other rattles.

            Among the games played by the Menomini are lacrosse, snow snake, ice arrow, shinny, rolling hoops, throwing sticks, moccasin game, jack-straws, cup-and-pin, dice, kicking game, foot racing, archery, and wrestling.  Some of these “were played for the dual purpose of honoring the gods and of curing the sick, amusement being secondary.  Such games are the perquisites of important deities, and are held only to gain their good graces.  Lacrosse is the property of the Thunderers.”

            The Menomini were a peace-loving people but when they attacked, or their country invaded, they were able to offer a stout resistance.  They assisted the French in their wars with the turbulent Fox Indians and other Wisconsin tribes in their fights with the Dakota or Sioux.  Under the leadership of the brave Charles de Langlade they participated with other Wisconsin and Michigan Indians in Braddock’s Defeat in western Pennsylvania in 1755.  When war was declared messengers were sent out over the trails to the various villages and their warriors aroused.  Before these set out on the warpath the war-bundle was unwrapped, its sacred contents displayed and a ceremony held. Attacks on the enemy were generally made before dawn.  To dispatch a foeman was to gain the right to wear an eagle feather.  Scalps were taken as trophies these being afterward stretched on a hoop.  On the return of the war party a victory or scalp dance was held.

            These Indians disposed of their dead by wrapping the body in birch bark and burying them in shallow graves.  Logs were placed on the graves to protect the bodies from wild animals.  Some bodies were placed on scaffolds or in trees.  Anciently these people also interred some of their dead in earthen mounds.  The present day pagan Menomini erect small wooden shelter houses over their graves.  In the front of these there is an opening in which food may be placed for the use of the spirit on its four-day journey to the Otherworld.  There are ceremonies at the wigwam and at the grave. The mourners blacken their faces with charcoal.  The death song is sung.  The souls of enemy warriors whom he has slain are appointed to accompany the soul of the deceased as its servants.

            Grave posts were placed at the graves.  On these were painted the totem animal (upside down) of the dead and marks indicating the war honors won by him. The dead were arrayed in their best garments.  Formerly utensils and weapons were buried with them.

 

Plant Lore

 

            The knowledge which the Menomini possess of the uses of native plants, shrubs, vines and trees for foods, medicine, dyes, perfumes, cordage, fibers and for other purposes is extensive.  Many of these plants are found in the woodlands about the Chain o’ Lakes.  The natives gathered and made use of these when residing on their shores.

            Among the plants used for food were wild rice, arrowhead, swamp milkweed, bergamot, water cress, groundnut, wild onion, wild leek, yellow water lily, marsh marigold, New Jersey tea, wild strawberry, blueberry, gooseberry, raspberry, blackberry, ground cherry, May apple, nannyberry, wild grape, elderberry, choke cherry, black cherry, hard maple (sugar), staghorn sumac (Indian lemonade), oak (acorns), hazelnut, hickory and butternut.  Those which were used as medicines were Jack-in-the-pulpit, skunk cabbage, butterfly weed, honeysuckle, fleabane daisy, sneezeweed, goldenrod, wild lettuce, wild geranium, wintergreen, pipsissewa, Solomon’s seal, bellwort, water lily, nightshade, willow herb, maidenhair fern, brake, wild rose, partridge berry, angelica, Virginia creeper, touch-me-not, pine, and witch hazel.  Dyes of various colors were obtained from sumac, alder, bloodroot, bittersweet, touch-me-not, crowfoot, butternut and sorrel.  Fiber plants were dogbane, nettle, common milkweed, cattail, bulrush, and basswood.  Native tobacco was made from sumac (leaves), bearberry (bark) and dogwood (bark).  Wood betony furnished a love charm.  There were many uses of birch bark and the barks of other trees.  Flowers, leaves, stems, roots, seeds and fruits furnished material for many children’s games and toys.  Bows and arrows were made of ash wood.  Butternut was preferred for the making of log canoes.

            “The gathering of roots and herbs for medical use is always attended by placing tobacco in the holes from which they were dug, which a song or a prayer for Earth Grandmother, whose hairs they are.”  (Material Culture 67).

 

 

 

 

Myths and Legends

 

            A Menomini myth of the origin of their tribe states that, “in the mystic past the Great Under-ground Bear and its mate came out of the earth near the mouth of the Menomini river and there assumed human guise, becoming the tribal ancestors. Later they were joined by the Thunderers, the beaver, black bear, crane, wolf, bald eagle and others,” also in human form.  From these mythical animals the members of each gens are descended.  They have come to believe that the actual animals were their fore-fathers.  (Material Culture of the Menomini, p. 46).

            “The daughter of Noko-mis, the Earth, is the mother of Ma-nabush, who is also the Fire.  The Flint grew up out of Noko-mis, and was alone.  Then Flint made a bowl and dipped it into the earth; slowly the bowlful of earth became blood, and it began to change its form.  So the blood was changed into Wabus, the Rabbit.  The Rabbit grew into human form, and in time became a man, and thus was Ma-nabush formed. Ma-nabush was angry because he was alone on the earth; and because his enemies, the ana-maq0ki-u, who dwelt beneath the earth, were constantly annoying him and trying to destroy him.”  (12 B.A.E., p. 87).

            He prepared a weapon by shaping an axe out of a piece of flint.  This he rubbed on the surface of a rock to smooth and sharpen it.  He was joined by Moquai-o, the Wolf, who became his brother.  He was drowned while hunting in crossing the ice of a lake.  Thereafter Ma-nabush built a large fire to which were guided by its light, his uncles and aunts, who were also children of Noko-mis.  Thus he was no longer alone. Ma-nabush, the culture hero of the Menomini, had many interesting adventures after that.

            Various animal and other deities came from several directions to bring Ma-nabush necessary powers to aid his uncles and their descendants.  Among these were Owa-sse, the Bear; Wabon, the Daylight; Masse-na, the Turkey; Kuku-kuu, the Great Owl; Mikek, the Otter; Keso, the Sun; the North Wind; Ina-maqki-u, the Thunderers; A-sa-nikaq-ki, the Small Eagle; Ki-tshe-Waqdose, the Eagle; Wabaq-ke, the Bald-eagle, and Maqkwa-nani-u, the Hawk.  All brought gifts which contributed to the welfare of mankind.

            The Menomini believed the earth “to be an island, floating in an illimitable ocean, separating the two halves of the universe into an upper and lower portion, regarded as the abode of the benevolent and malevolent powers, respectively.  Each portion is divided into four super-imposed tiers, inhabited by supernatural beings, the power of whom increases in ratio to their remoteness from the earth.  In the highest tier above the deity to whom all others are subordinate.  The testimony of early writers is unanimous that this being was the Sun.

            “Beneath the supreme being, in descending order, some say clustered about a cylindrical opening in the heavens, are three tiers of bird-like deities.  First, in the empyrean, come the Thunderbirds, gods of war.  Associated with these, in some manner not apparent, is the Morning Star.  Next comes the realm of the Golden or War Eagles, and the White Swan; and last, in the stratum which touches the earth, birds of all species, headed by the Bald Eagles and various hawks, kites, and swallows.  All of these birds, regardless of stratum, are servants and messengers of the Great Spirit, any existing species named being thought to be earthly representatives of the Thunderers.

            “Beneath the earth, there is, in the lowest tier, the Great White Bear with a long copper tail, who, in addition to being the chief and patron of all earthly bears and the traditional ancestor of the Menomini tribe, is the principal power for evil.  He has, as a servant, a mythical hairless bear.  Next in ascending order, is the great Underground panther, who figures extensively in the demonology of the Central Algonkian and Southern Siouan tribes.  He is represented on earth by the panther and the lynx.  Next is the White Deer.  Last of all, close to the earth, and often visible to its inhabitants, is the Horned Hairy Serpent, so generally found in North American mythology.

            “The earth itself is peopled by a myriad of fantastic hobgoblins.  Cannibal giants dwell in the icy region of the north; a malevolent living skeleton, with death dealing eves, haunts the forests after night fall.  Similar to him, but less terrible, is a mysterious person bearing a sacred bundle upon his back, who, like the Wandering Jew, is doomed to travel ceaselessly in expiation of some forgotten sin.  A race of pygmies inhabits remote rocky fastnesses.  A well-disposed elf smites people on the head with a soft war club, causing sleep.  Flying heads and skulls, of varying intentions toward the race of men, exist; and there is a mysterious man who follows and molests belated travelers.

            “Rocks, ponds, and hills have their fancied denizens.  All species of animals are ruled by supernatural chiefs, mostly dwelling underground, and these, with the Powers of the Underworld, show themselves on earth from time to time.  In swamp-holes, lakes, and rivers, under waterfalls, and in lonely hills may be found stray horned snakes, bears, panthers, and in modern times, dogs, hogs and horses.

            “Wringing their living from the reluctant earth filled with such marvelous and often dangerous beings, menaced by the imaginary forces of the Underworld, what wonder that the earliest traceable religious observances among the Menomini and their neighbors are those of propitiation and supplication of the Evil Forces!” (Material Culture of the Menomini, 29-33).

 

Oh-say-ge Invasion

 

            The following interesting tradition of the Chain o’ Lakes Country was related by old John Tomau (Wa-sa-yoh) descendant of a line of Menomini chiefs, who died at Keshena on January 17, 1931.  Long, long ago when the Menomini or a band of the tribe were peacefully occupying the Chain o’ Lakes Country at Wapa-kaw a party of Oh-say-ges (Osage) came north from their country, near the present location of Milwaukee, on a hunting expedition.  The appearance of these stranger hunters in this Menomini hunting ground led to a quarrel and a fight.  The Menomini, assisted by the power of their war bundles, and by the Thunderers, who came to aid them, worsted and drove away the intruders.

            Some years later a stronger party of Oh-say-ges entered the same region and another battle took place.  The results of this conflict were that the Menomini met defeat and left the region the Oh-say-ge warriors holding it for several years.  Then came Black Hawk and a band (of Foxes) from the Mississippi river region to take possession of this good hunting country.  Then the Menomini mustered their own warriors, and with the aid of friendly neighboring tribes, attacked and drove both of them away, and thus regained possession of one of their homeland areas.

            This tradition is interesting though there may be some doubt as to its historic reliability.  The Osage were an important Siouan people related to the Omaha, Ponca, Kansa and Quapaw. Marquette’s map of 1673 locates them “apparently on the Osage river,” in Missouri.  In 1714 they assisted the French in defeating the Fox Indians at Detroit.  They were enemies of the Illinois.  In the years 1721 to 1756 parties of Osage occasionally appeared at the villages at Kaskaskia and Cahokia.  They may have wandered much farther north.  The Menomini are reported to have conducted a raid against the Osage.

 

Corn

 

            An old Indian had some corn which he kept carefully hidden away from everyone in a corner of his lodge. That was before the Indian people knew anything of corn or of its great food value.  One day, while he was away on a hunting trip, his nephew, who was very curious to learn what this package might contain, took it from its hiding place.  Opening it he threw some of the kernels on the embers of the wigwam fire. When heated these exploded one after another with a loud noise and fell on the wigwam floor.  His uncle, who was returning, heard the noise. When he saw what had happened he was very angry. After beating the boy he threw him out of the smoke-hole in the wigwam roof.  The boy lay on the ground.  His uncle, who was a powerful medicine man, caused it to snow and storm.  It covered the boy who slept beneath the white mantle for ten days.  Then he woke up, entered the lodge and killed his uncle.  He inherited all of his uncle’s possessions.  Then he gave to all mankind for their use the previous corn.

 

Tobacco

 

            The Menomini claim never to have cultivated the native tobacco plant.  Their substitutes for tobacco were the bark of the red willow and dried sumac leaves.  This was their ki-nik-inik.  According to one of their myths tobacco was procured for the Indian people by Ma-nabus.  He instructed them to catch “great numbers of grasshoppers and cause them to spit out the tobacco they were chewing.”  This was a liquid but they kept it until it hardened.

 

The Water Monster

 

            Ma-sheno-mak was a water monster with the form of a giant fish who overturned canoes, caught unwary swimmers and fishermen and dragged his victims to the bottom of a lake or stream and there devoured them.  He was responsible for the disappearance of many Indians.  Ma-nabush was at last appealed to by his people and he determined to destroy the monster, if possible.  Locating his lair he allowed himself to be swallowed.

            In the body of the huge fish he found his brothers the Bear, the Deer, the Porcupine, the Raven and the Pine Squirrel.  All had been made captive and swallowed like himself.  Ma-nabush had his singing sticks with him and he began to sing his war song and to dance.  His brothers joined in the dance.  As they danced round and round in his body the monster began to reel.  As Ma-nabush passed his heart he thrust his knife into it once and then three times. Now the big fish began to quake and to reel more and more violently.  Ma-nabush now said, “Ma-Sheno-mak take me to my wigwam.”  Then all became unconscious.  When Ma-nabush awoke the monster was dead.  He cut a big hole in his side and through this he and his brothers escaped to their wigwams.

            Indians say that in the old days a favorite luring place of this gigantic fish was in McCrossen Lake. This water bore a bad reputation because when a wind was blowing from the east or the west through its entrance channels its negotiation by canoe was dangerous.  This some white canoeists also know.  Ma-sheno-mak was always on hand to seize the unfortunate.

 

The Wild Man of the Woods

           

            Once, years ago, when a party of Indians were camping near one of the springs at the Emmons peninsula at Long Lake a boy left his father’s wigwam and went into the woods.  He had with him a bow and arrow as he wished to try his luck at killing some small animals.  He wandered in the direction of the tamarack swamps.  In the depths of the swamp he soon became lost.  Night came on and when he did not return his parents were greatly worried.  They feared that Tshipe, the wild man or ghost of the woods had carried him away.  Search for him failed to find the boy.  They called his name but he did not hear them.  In the morning some hunters found him deep in the forest and far from camp.  He was lying behind a big rock, and frightened almost to death. All through the night he had wandered about the swamp and forest, often falling over logs and brush.  He heard the cries of the Wild One, always following his trail.  At last exhausted from his fear and exertions, he found and sought the shelter of the big stone.  He was pleased when the hunters guided him to his father’s rush covered wigwam, which he had never expected to see again.

 

The Trails

 

            Mr. Benedict has located on his very informative map of the Chain o’ Lakes region, published in 1896, the several important overland Indian trails which passed through it.

            One of these, the Wisconsin River to Lake Poygan trail, a travelway which many thousands of moccasin-clad feet have passed over in the course of several centuries, his map shows to have come from the Waupaca River about 2-3/4 miles northwest of the Lakes.  From the Waupaca River this trail to the Menomini Indian villages on the shores of Lake Poygan in Winnebago County pursued a southeasterly curse to the southern shore of Lake Ottman (Pollys Lake).  On its way it passed the eastern ends of Big Rock Ridge and Knight Hill and the eastern end of Amy Lake.

            From the south shore of Lake Ottman its course was eastward, between this lake and the north shore of Columbian Lake. At the northeastern angle of the latter it turned southward running between this lake and Limekiln Lake, crossing the water connection between these lakes at the well-known Indian Crossing. From this ford it continued southward east of the eastern shore of Columbian Lake to the western end of Dake Lake.  From this place it ran in a southeasterly direction past the western end of Rural Hill and through the location of the present village of Rural its course paralleling Arbor Creek.  Beyond the village, its direction unchanged, it forded the Creek a short distance east of the outlet of Junction Lake, its direction being thereafter toward Lake Poygan.

            A trail from Portage on the Wisconsin River to Lake Shawano near the boundary of the present Menomini Indian Reservation entered the Chain o’ Lakes region about three-fourths of a mile west of Emmons Lake. From this place it followed a general northeasterly direction crossing Big Spring Brook and Badger Brook and the north shore of Youngs Lake, and uniting with the Wisconsin River-Lake Poygan trail just west of Lake Ottman.  This trail it followed to the south side of the Indian Crossing. Here it turned eastward passing the north shore of Miner Lake and the south shore of McCrossen Lake.  From here it continued eastward to the Chain o’ Lakes to Waupaca highway.  The course of this modern concrete highway follows rather closely the course of this old trail to the location of the present city of Waupaca.

            A Wisconsin and Wolf River trail via Waupaca Falls, branches from the Wisconsin River-Lake Poygan trail a short distance south of the Waupaca River, northwest of the Lakes.  In its eastward course it passed the northern shores of Brundage and Silver Lakes, then continued on toward Otter Lake.  Northeast of this lake it followed rather closely the highway running eastward to Waupaca.

            At various places along the courses of these three Indian travelways through the Chain o’ Lakes region are places where the aborigines once had villages or camped for short periods during both prehistoric and early historic time.

            The State Land Office maps of the Chain o’ Lakes region show a trail which turned southward from the Shawano-Portage trail, already described, at about opposite the Wisconsin Veterans Home property (about midway between the centers of Sections 34 and 35 of Farmington Township) and continued southward through Sections 3 and 2 of Dayton Township to the South Fork of the Waupaca River, then continuing on in a southeasterly direction. In its southward course this trail must have passed over or around the western end of Cemetery Ridge of the Home grounds.  This map does not show the Shawano to Portage trail as continuing westward between McCrossen and Miner Lakes to the Indian Crossing.

            The State Land Office map shows two trails which left the Wisconsin to Wolf River trail at the northeastern angle of Sunrise (former Hicks) Lake.  The southerly of these trails ran westward through Sections 27 and 28 of Farmington Township and to near the center of Section 32, about one-half mile north of the “Little Chain” lakes. The northern of these two trails ran northwest for a sort distance and then turned westward through Sections 27, 28 and 29, and westward from the latter locality.  It passed just south of Silver Lake.  For a distance of nearly two miles these two trails were not more than a quarter mile apart.

            The State Land Office map does not show the trail leading from the Waupaca River to the south shore of Lake Ottman (Pollys Lake), or the trail leading from the same place in a southeasterly direction to northeast of the head of Otter Lake, both of which appear on the Benedict map.

            In addition to these trails there were minor trails or paths which followed the shores of the lakes of the “Big Chain” connecting the camp sites on their shores with each other.  Short lengths of some of these trails can still be seen in several woodlands about the lake.  One is one the E.E. Browne property (Greenwood Forest) on the shores of McCrossen and Round lakes.

            The Menomini Indians made constant use of numerous trails which crossed their extensive domain in every direction.  A trail used for ordinary travel between camping grounds or villages was called “Anan-Me-he-con.”  “Pa-pay-Me-he-con” was the name given to a trail used by hunters or hunting expeditions.  A party of men and women traveling from one camp ground to another would bear packs on their backs, the women transporting their babies on a cradle-board (tike-nagun) suspended from their shoulders.  The men carried their bows or guns, lances, a fire-steel, and their blankets and robes.  The provisions carried consisted of ground corn mixed with deer tallow and seasoned with maple sugar or wild honey.  The rate of progress was about six miles a day.  Camps were always made near springs.  Thus fresh water was readily obtained when wanted.  Wild animals came to the springs and could be killed and an addition thus made to the food supply.  Boiling springs were avoided as they were believed to be the abode of malevolent beings or animals.  When ponies came into use trail travel was easier and greater progress could be made.  When night travel was thought necessary torches made of tightly rolled sections of birch bark were carried.

            A war party on a trail was preceded by scouts (Wau-pon-no-wock).  Among these were seers or prophets. These possessed small wooden images which warned them of approaching dangers.  A partisan carrying the war bundle, which contained sacred charms and amulets designed to bring success to the party, marched ahead of the warriors.

            “While traveling at night Indians sometimes see, meet, or are followed by ghosts.  The spirits may attempt to force the Indians to accompany them as they roam about, but this can be prevented by tearing off a piece of rag, or even one’s clothes, burning it to ashes and rubbing it on the forehead.  The smell of the ashes is not obnoxious to the spirits, but makes them think any one with this odor is one of themselves, and they accordingly leave him alone.”

            “A system of blazing forest trails was once in vogue among the Menomini, but has become almost extinct.  I have seen them break over young saplings and bushes, inkling the fallen tops in the direction the party was taking for the benefit of anyone coming behind.  The condition of the leaves – fresh, wilted or dried – helps mark the elapse of time as well.” (material Culture of the Menomini, 59, 209).

            Old residents of Tustin, on the north shore of Lake Poygan, remember the coming of groups of Menomini Indians over the old trail from the Waupaca lakes to the wild rice fields and sugar bushes on the shores of that lake.

 

 

RAINBOW  LAKE

 

 

THE  BIG  CHAIN  LAKES

 

Taylor Lake

 

            Taylor Lake is the first, the most easterly lake of the Chain o’ Lakes. It is the fifth of these lakes in size, with a water area of about 50 acres.  Although not the largest of the lakes it is the most interesting both archeologically and historically.  Indian remains, both prehistoric and recent occupy nearly every foot of its shores.  The important Indian trail from Shawano Lake to Portage on the Wisconsin River passed its southern and eastern shores.

            Mr. Benedict’s map of the year 1896 names this lake Clem Lake, the name of Taylor Lake being given to another smaller lake located about a mile east of it and les than a half mile southeast of the Waupaca highway.  On the south shore of Taylor Lake evidences of former Indian occupation are at first met with at Glenwood, a lake shore subdivision extending eastward from the eastern boundary of the Wisconsin Veterans’ Home grounds to the Edmund’s boat livery.  Summer cottages occupy this entire stretch for a distance of several blocks. This flat sandy land, elevated but a few feet above the waters of the lake, was once an Indian camp ground, probably only an extension of the village site located on the Home grounds.  Telltale fireplace stones, flint and quartz rejectage, clam shell fragments, fragmentary animal bones and other Indian camp refuse may still be seen in many places on cottage lots and elsewhere in this district.

            Circular pits, probably once in use for the storage of food, occur in a woodland on the south side of the east and west street.  Here also is a remnant of a small, low round mound.  Mr. Edmunds, Sr., filled in several other Indian pits near his boat livery when he platted the surrounding land as “Mound Park.”

            Other pits occur in a woodland pasture lying on the south side of the Waupaca highway, opposite Glenwood.  Several of these we excavated.  They were found to be somewhat conical in shape, 4-1/2 to 5 feet deep, and showed indications of having been lined with bark.  They were about 3-1/2 feet in diameter at the surface of the ground and were filled with leaf mold. A few charred acorns were at the bottom of one.

            A small marshy tract at the boat livery, now partly filled in, separates the Glenwood site from a similar Indian site on the Taylor farm property east of it on the eastern shore of Taylor Lake.  This was probably the most extensive and richest Indian village site in the Chain o’ Lakes region.  In the course of years all of its interesting features have been obliterated in the cultivation of the land, the construction of the Waupaca highway, and in other ways.  Indications of this former Indian metropolis may, however, still be seen in the fields on the east shore of Taylor Lake.  Fireplace stones and flint chips and fragments are scattered over them.  Mr. Benedict informed the writer in 1903 that years ago the sites of the former wigwams, marked by fireplace stones, burned earth, charcoal and ashes, and the workshops of the aborigines by nearby areas over which the flint nodules, chips and spalls of the arrowmaker, and the stone refuse of the axemaker, were to be seen in these fields.  Broken and burned fragments of animal bones, partly decomposed clam shells, and fragments of pottery vessels indicated where the garbage dumps of the village had been.  This evidence the plow and harrow have long ago scattered and otherwise disposed of.

            Members of the Taylor family, Mr. Benedict, and others have in past years collected many Indian implements from this site.  Only a partial list of these artifacts can be given.  It includes grooved stone axes, celts, hammer stones, clubheads, balls, notched sinkers, grinding stones, smoothers, anvil stones, mullers, hoes and scrapers.  Many hundreds of arrow and spearpoints, scrapers, perforators, knives and blanks made of flint of a variety of kinds and colors of quartz, quartzite, rhyolite, and chalcedony have been found.  Other stone objects collected were pendants, gorgets, beads, a discoidal and pipes of several forms.  Articles made of native copper were not common, those found here including several spearpoints, a knife, awls, beads and a pendant.  A few shell and bone implements and ornaments were recovered.  No entire pottery vessel was obtained but pottery fragments were common.

            In Mr. Austin Taylor’s small collection, made in recent years, there were nearly 150 flint, quartz, and quartzite arrow and spearpoints, scrapers and perforators, and in his son, Mr. Floyd Taylor’s collection, about 25 specimens of the same kind and a leaf shaped copper knife or blade.

            Mr. Carl Brunn of Waupaca recently possessed a hoe blade made of grayish-white flint from this site.  This was 5-1/4 inches long and its blade 3 inches wide.  Both surfaces of this implement were polished probably through use.  Mr. John J. Knudsen has a string of the rather large porcelain beads obtained by the Indians from white traders and called “pony beads.”

            The cut banks of the highway in front of the Burgoyne cottage, at the southern extremity of this village site, yielded chips and flakes of white, gray and pink flint, clam shell valves and pieces of reddish brown rock-tempered, cord-marked pottery.  On the opposite (south side) of the highway this site extends into a cultivated camp refuse similar to that on the Taylor farm. The potsherds collected are similar to those obtained near the Burgoyne cottage.

 

The Mounds

 

            On and near the east shore of Taylor Lake there were a large number of Indian mounds, 45 in all, these being on the Taylor and former Benedict and Lee properties, most of them on or near the village site, described.  These earthworks Mr. Benedict locates on his map.  He briefly describes them in an article printed in “A Standard History of Waupaca County,” published by the Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, in 1917.

            “Here on the level tract of land comprising the farms of Mort Taylor, Hans Erickson and F.M. Benedict, lying at the head of the celebrated Chain of Lakes, we find indications of a once populous city.  There are altar mounds, mounds for cremation, burial mounds, where dead were almost hermetically sealed in a small mound made of cement made of marl and sand before the earth was piled above all, and which have done their work of preservation so well that an entire skeleton was disinterred from one, mounds and pits that formed the foundation of dwellings; and monuments of earth of various forms erected, probably, to the memory of some persons or events of importance.

            “One of these lies with head and arms in Mound Grove near Mr. D. Taylor’s house, the body extended E.N.E. for sixty rods.  Still others, round or oval form, have head, tail, and four arms or legs.  There is a series of oblong form; here, a row of pits.”

            In a paper read by him at a meeting of the Wisconsin Natural History Society, at Milwaukee, on November 10, 1900, Mr. Benedict said:

            “There are in the vicinity seven oblong mounds, the largest being forty feet in length.  Others are 16 and 20 feet long. Their direction is east northeast and west southwest.  They extend in a more or less continuous line from the north bank of a marsh lying to the east of a bluff upon which were the mounds with the enthroned burials.  This marsh of a few acres connects with a chain of lakes, and no doubt was itself a lake when the mounds were built.

            “At the east end of a long mound was unearthed the skeleton of a woman.  The burial was in a fold position.  The teeth, except those in front, were gone, the jaw, perfectly smooth where the molars had been.  The most interesting mound was a “man” mound.  It was 400 feet in length, 16 feet in general width, and 6 feet in height.  The arms had a spread of 48 feet.  This mound had been partly reduced by cultivation.  Its direction was east northeast heading west southwest  parallel with the old trail, now Home street or highway.  This mound connected by its length the mounds on the bluff and marsh with those along the southeast bank of Clem or Taylor Lake.” (Milwaukee Sentinel, November 11, 1900).

            Another mound he described as stratified, or constructed of several layers of earth.  Ashy layers were among these.  In another mound a “crematory altar” was found.  This probably was a rude heap of stones showing evidence of fire and surrounded by charcoal and ashes.  Such “altars” in mounds are evidence of a fire (probably sacrificial) ceremony which took place at the time when a burial was made, and not of a human cremation.

            These Taylor Lake mounds were at short distances from each other, and, for convenience of description, may be considered as three distinct mound groups.  Mr. Benedict provided the names for these – “Mound Grove Group,” “Highway Group” and “Xerxes Hill Group.”  The Mounds Grove group, originally consisting of fifteen mounds, followed the curve of the Taylor Lake bank on the Taylor property, known as Mound Groves. Of this once fine group of prehistoric Indian monuments seven mounds remain.  The group consisted of eleven round and oval mounds and four linear mounds. The round mounds were from 20 to 40 feet in diameter.  The highest were about 7 feet high. The linear mounds were 25, 36, 90 and 96 feet in length and from 14 to 30 feet in width.  The catfish effigy on this property is considered to be a member of the Highway group rather than of this group.

            One of the mounds in the Mound Grove group Mr. Benedict described as having contained a “cyst burial.”  The skeleton was seated on the original surface of the ground, facing the lake.  It was surrounded by a “cement” composed of marl or carbonate of lime from the bed of the lake, mixed with sand.  Over this interment was erected a round mound 7 feet high at the time of its excavation, in 1881.  On its top stood a gnarled black oak or pin oak.  A few broken flint points were within the outer mound.

            The Highway group, located a short distance east of the Mound Grove group, consisted of 24 mounds.  Of this number 13 were round mounds, 8 were linear and 3 turtle effigies.  Of these only one of the latter, a catfish type effigy, remains.  These mounds stretched along the highway for a considerable distance, some being on either side of the road or partly in it.  Most of these mounds were destroyed when the Waupaca Electric Railway line to the Lakes was constructed.

            These turtle effigies had a body provided with a more or less distinct head, four projections (two on either side of the body) to represent legs, and a long or short tapering tail.  They occur in various mound regions in southern Wisconsin, being once particularly common in the Rock River valley.   As a matter of fact only two mounds in the Highway group were of this type, the other effigy being a catfish type effigy.  This catfish effigy has a horn on either side of its head. It has no limbs.  It has a long tapering tail (widest where it joins the body and tapering to a point).  This mound was 250 feet long, the distance between the points of its long curved horns was 50 feet, and the width of its body just back of its horns was 29 feet.  The lengths of the curved horns are 15 and 18 feet.  A part (about half) of the tail of this effigy has been destroyed in the adjoining cultivated field.

            This mound, located within a few feet of the edge of the highway, was marked with a bronze tablet mounted on a native boulder, by the Monday Night Club of Waupaca, during the Home Coming, in August 1913.  Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, secretary of the State Historical Society, delivered the unveiling address.

            Located on the top of a hill, a short distance south of the Waupaca highway and of the Highway mound group was the group of 6 effigy mounds which Mr. Benedict named the Xerxes Hill group.  Of these mounds 3 were animal shaped mounds representing quadrupeds and 3 were of the turtle form.  This knoll has long been in operation as a gravel pit and every vestige of the mounds has been long destroyed.  It is a great pity that prehistoric works of such significance and public interest could not have been spared.  Were they present today they might be set aside in a county preserve.  They would be visited, no doubt, by hundreds of visitor to the Waupaca lakes.

            Mr. Benedict stated that these turtle and quadruped effigies contained “enthroned” burials.  “A step was cut in the brow of the bank and the burial seated facing the west. A small mound was erected over the body and an “altar fire” burned on the mound.  A large turtle mound was built over this structure.  The earth employed was different from the surrounding earth and must have been brought from a distance.”  (Paper published in the Milwaukee Sentinel, November 11, 1900).

            No plat of this mound group appears to have been made.  The location was a prominent one, overlooking the ancient Chain o’ Lakes trail.  The effigies were deities.  The turtle played a not unimportant part in the Menomini mythology. Turtle figures formerly appeared on grave posts, on woven bags, on bark receptacles and on other Indian articles.  These earthen shrines were probably believed to provide protection to the inhabitants of the nearby village against the Evil Ones.

            We excavated one of the mounds located by the side of the Waupaca highway, at a distance of about 32 feet west of the Burgoyne cottage.  The Messrs. John Knudsen, Floyd Taylor and Clare Taylor assisted in the work of exploration.

            This mound was 34 feet in diameter and 5 feet high.  It was constructed of sandy surface soil so compacted as to make its digging quite hard.  At a distance of 18 1-3 feet from its western edge, at the base of the mound, a small mound of blackened sandy soil was encountered.  This mound was 36 inches in diameter and about 6 inches in depth at its middle. This proved to be a firebed.  In the burned and blackened compacted sand composing it were ashes and charcoal and among these many burned fragments of human bones, small fragments of a cord-marked pottery vessel (also showing the effects of fire), and a single rudely fashioned notched arrowpoint made of white flint.  Pieces of a skull were with the bones.

            It was evident that we had encountered a cremated burial, such as have been found by Mr. Benedict and others in past years in excavating other mounds in this vicinity.  The particular interest of this example of aboriginal cremation is the fact that this was evidently a cremation of a bundle re-burial bone burial rather than of an incineration of a body in the flesh.

            We learned that in the removal in recent years of two conical mounds located a few feet west of our mound the bones of seven burials were found at the base of one.  The other mound contained no burials.

            On the north shore of Taylor Lake on the Wrolstead property, once known as the “Camp Ground,” there is a group of six round and oval mounds.  Four of these mounds extend in an irregular east and west line.  These are in the rear of a group of cottages, being 60 or more feet back from the lake bank.

            The mound at the western end of the line, a round mound, is 17 feet in diameter.  About 60 feet east of it is an oval mound with diameters of 30 and 17 feet.  Nine feet beyond this is another oval mound with diameters of 32 and 16 feet, and 8 feet east of this a third oval mound with diameters of 30 by 18 feet.  About 60 feet southeast of this mound there is a small round mound 12 feet in diameter.  None of these mounds are very prominent.  They are from 2 to 3-1/2 feet high.  An oak tree about 2 feet in diameter is growing on the middle of the round mound at the western end of the line of mounds. Pine trees of good size are on the oval mounds.  About two hundred feet east of the oval mound, at the east end of the line of mounds, a remnant of a badly mutilated round or oval mound is found by the side of a garage.

            These mounds are located on an Indian camp site.  The finding of flint and quartz chips and flakes, of fireplace stones, and several pieces of ornamented pottery fragments, in the road and in bare spots among the cottages clearly indicate this.  A few flint points have been found.  There are also several circular pits in the pine grove in their rear.  Mr. Benedict stated that there were in this vicinity “two pits five feet deep and sixteen to twenty feet across.  They may have been used for house foundations.”  These pits were in 1903 15 feet in diameter and 3 feet deep.

            This resort is approached by a road along the shore of Taylor Lake.  On its east side is the lake swamp with a variety of trees, large ferns and other marshland growth.  Ice ramparts border the road.  The eastern boundary of the resort is the outlet of Otter Lake.

 

Lake Nymphaea

 

            In the rear of the Taylor farm buildings a tract of low, swampy land with a growth of young pine and other trees stretches northward to the shores of a pond to which Mr. Benedict gave the name of Lake Nymphaea.  In a gravel pit on his own farm, near the shore of this “lake,” which he excavated in 1899, Mr. Benedict found a chipped flint celt and a number of fragments of a pottery vessel.  No burial was found near these.  This pit was on the edge of a marsh later partly filled in.  Lake Nymphaea drains into a bay on the north shore of Taylor Lake and to which Mr. Benedict has given the name of “Calla Bay” on his map.  A few flint implements have been found in the fields near Lake Nymphaea.

 

Otter Lake

 

            This is a long, narrow lake lying in a northeast and southwest direction, its southern extremity being connected by a stream with the north shore of Taylor Lake. Its water area is only 14 acres and its greatest depth is 40 feet.

            Its Menomini name is mikek (otter).  This animal was venerated by the Indians of this tribe because of his supposed supernatural powers.  According to one of their myths the mink, otter and muskrat played prominent parts in rescuing the earth from the depths of the sea during a great flood.  On ceremonial and other occasions the most valued headdresses worn by the men are fillets or bands of otter fur.  These are ornamented with hawk feathers.  The otter has an important connection with the rites of the Medicine Lodge.

            Otter Lake, more or less completely surrounded by woodlands and marshes, has always been a favorite lake for fishermen and hunters.  It was a favorite lake of the Indians, who, in pioneer days and before, erected their wigwams about its shores.  On the north shore of the lake there is a marshy area 40 or more feet in width.  About the same distance to the north of the lake is a sandy cultivated field of the Affeldt farm, this being elevated at least 30 feet above the marshland.  Here the hearthstones and other debris of a former camp site are scattered about.

            A narrow strip of woodland separates this site from the richer Indian village site located east of it in the cultivated fields of the former F.M. Benedict farm and to which he gave the name of “Aurenymphae,” and which appears on his map.  In a description of this village site he says:

            “Near the clear springs of Otter Lake seems to have been the residence center.  Here the earth is full of pottery, variously ornamented.  Sixty different varieties have been preserved from this locality, while all around were implements of flint, polished stone and copper.”  (Standard History of Waupaca County).

            He himself collected from this former Indian camp ground numerous flint, quartz and quartzite arrow and spearpoints, knives, scrapers, perforators and blanks, also axes and celts, hand hammers and other of the heavier types of stone implements, bone awls, and a large number of ornamented potsherds.  Some iron axes, spearpoints, harpoon points, awls and glass beads and other materials obtained by the natives from white traders or storekeepers were also recovered.

            A recent visit to this site found scattered fireplace stones still very numerous here.  The greatest concentration of these was on a small point of land adjoining a swampy kettle hole on the northern edge of the site.  Some of these burned angular stones were as large as a human head.  Although this site has been greatly disturbed by cultivation, chips and fragments of flint and quartz may still be collected.  The flint is of gray and pink colors.  We obtained here a barbed white flint point, a broken flint blank and a hammerstone.  Mr. Carl Brunn formerly had a collection of flint points, scrapers and drills collected here.  Some of the points were made of light brown quartzite.

            Mr. Benedict reported the presence on this site of eight refuse heaps, these being located along its eastern and northern edges.  In his address given to the members of the Wisconsin Natural History Society at Milwaukee, in November 1900, he said of these:

            “This refuse was in some cases of sufficient amount to slightly raise the surface.  The materials composing these heaps consisted of bones, ash and charcoal.  Mingled with these were potsherds and fire-cracked stones.”

            Doubtless these were pits or refuse dumps filled to overflowing with the camp kitchen refuse of the village.  Scattered tracers of these (bits of unio shell and bone fragments) remain.

            He also stated that:

            “At two points on this village site were common grave burials. In one was found a “marble” of quartzite, a few flint arrowpoints, and a bone knife 8 inches long and ¾ of an inch wide.  The other graves also contained “ordinary” burials.  The right parietal plate of one skull was broken, as if by a club or stone.  Its owner had evidently survived this blow as bony matter had filled and knit and bulged around the break.”

            This village had a planting ground or grounds, as one might expect.  Mr. Benedict said:

            “Corn hills were located on the plain in the southwest quarter of Section 36.  These were on the east side of Otter Lake near the village site.  The hills were broad and flat.  On this planting ground stand giant oaks 150 years old.  The previous forest was of Norway pines.”

            Some of these garden beds remain.  They are in a pasture field on the edge of a cultivated field.  Three beds are here, the others having been destroyed in the farm land.  Their general direction is north and south.  The largest of these beds is 125 feet in length.  All are from 3-1/2 to 4 feet in width and from 6 to 8 inches high.  The paths between them are from 2 to 2-1/2 feet wide.

            At a distance of about 350 feet west of this planting ground, on the edge of the Otter Lake marsh, there is a wigwam site on a small point of land recently under cultivation. Here were found white quartz chips, spalls and broken nodules where some early Indian had engaged in arrow making while encamped here.  White quartz was a favorite material of the Menomini for arrow making.  In the forest which separates this site from the planting ground there are some large pine trees, survivors of the original pine forest which stood here in Indian days.

            We possess no information concerning the identity of the earliest inhabitants of the Otter Lake village.  The character of their pottery and of some of the implements which they left behind indicates that they were Algonquins, like the Menomini. They may have been Chippewa Indians, but it is more likely that they were members of some early Menomini band.

            There was a Menomini Indian village here when the first white settlers came to the Waupaca region, in 1849.  It had been there, according to Indian information, for years, or for many years before.

            Ni-aqtawa-pomi (Nyawopomy or Niyatawopomis) was the head chief of this Otter Lake village.  Mr. Benedict obtained this information from him at Kenshena, on the Menomini Reservation, where he died in 1898.  Dr. W.J. Hoffman says that he was in 1896 the second chief, or war chief, of the Menomini tribe, Niopet Oshkosh being the head chief.  He was, with Niopet and Chickeny (Ma-tshi-kineu), a member of the Indian court.  He describes him as “a man of steady habits and influence, and one in whom the tribe had every confidence.”  He was then also the acting leader of Sha-kitosks band, one of eleven divisions or bands of the tribe.  (14 Ann. Rep. Bu. Am. Ethno.)  A portrait of him appears in this report.  (p. 50 [of original book])  When a resident of the Chain o’ Lakes region Ni-aptawa-pomi was the chief, or had jurisdiction over the Menomini who camped at the Falls of the Waupaca in present Waupaca.  The older Menomini speak of him as a leader of distinction.

            The number of Indian inhabitants of the Otter Lake village, in the late forties, varied in different years from a few families to a hundred or more people.  Other members o this Waupaca band camped in other places about the lakes, returning to this site from time to time.

            John V. Satterlee interprets Ni-aqtawa-pomi’s name as meaning, “a brave man, a hero.”

 

Durant Place

 

            An early Indian camp site was located on the Ed. Durant farm on the north shore road a short distance northeast of the Ayrenymphae site near Otter Lake.  The owner of this farm has collected numbers of flint arrowpoints and several stone celts from the field son both sides of the highway. Those on the south side of the highway border on a marshy area which probably once provided good muskrat trapping.  Fireplace stones are scattered over the fields.  The old northshore trail to Waupaca passed over these lands.

 

Rainbow Lake

 

            On the west shore of this largest of the Chain o’ Lakes from the Caws cottage southward to Hill Crest cottage there is a forest of young oak and other trees.  The lake banks are high rising 25 feet above the water in some places.  Near the Caws cottage a few flint points have been found and a few fireplace stones occur in the nearby fields.  No doubt other indications of former Indian occupation will be found when the woodland soil is disturbed. At Point Comfort and Oak Park, the most southern points on the west shore of this lake, are a number of pretty summer homes.  The southern bay of Rainbow Lake Mr. Benedict designated on his map as Nessling Lake.

            At Grand View, a large summer resort hotel property on the south shore the traces of a former Indian camp ground are almost totally obliterated by the presence of the hotel buildings.  However, a few hearthstones and flint, quartz and quartzite rejectage may still be seen in gardens, paths and other places free of sod.  This location is a prominent bluff, the top being elevated at least 35 feet above the water. Along the shore and bank are a cluster of tall pines that add to the present attractiveness of this locality.  Three Pines Point extends into the lake at the western limits of this property.

            The extensive and beautiful grounds of the Wisconsin Veterans’ Home occupy the southeast shore of Rainbow Lake and a portion of the south shore of Taylor Lake.  On these grounds Mr. Benedict and other archeologists found indications of a former Indian village site. Where the Home buildings and cottages now stand and elsewhere on these grounds collectors of Indian implements have in past years picked up stone axes, handhammers, slate ornaments, copper points, and flint implements.  Some of these were in the Benedict collection.  Dr. E.J.W. Notz found a notched pebble sinker during a visit some years ago.  Not all traces of this Indian occupation have vanished.  We found in several bare spots on the lake bank, about h