While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Mascouten ('little prairie people,'
from muskuta (Fox) or mashcodé,
(Chippewa),
prairie'; ens, diminutive ending. By the Hurons they were called
Assistaeronon,
'Fire people,' and by the French 'Nation do Fen.' These last names seem to
have arisen front a mistranslation of the Algonquian term. In the Chippewa
dialect 'fire' is ishkote, and might easily be substituted for
mashkodé, 'prairie' ). A term used
by some early writers in a collective and indefinite sense to designate
the Algonquian tribes living on the prairies of Wisconsin and Illinois;
LaSalle even includes some bands of Sioux under the name. The name (Mashkótens)
is at present applied by the Potawatomi
to that part of the tribe officially known as the "Prairie band" and
formerly residing on the prairies of northern Illinois. The modern
Foxes use the term Muskutáwa
to designate themselves, the Wea,
Piankashaw, Peoria, and
Kaskaskia, on account of their
former residence on the prairies of Illinois and Indiana. Gallatin was not
inclined to consider them a distinct tribe, and Schoolcraft was of the
opinion that they, together with the
Kickapoo, were parts of one
tribe. It is asserted by the Jesuit Allouez that the Kickapoo and
Kitchigani spoke the same Algonquian dialect as the Mascoutens. Gallatin
says the Sauk, Foxes, and Kickapoo
"speak precisely the same language." Their close association with the
Kickapoo would indicate an ethnic relation. According to an Ottawa
tradition recorded by Schoolcraft there was at an early day a tribe known
as Assegun, or Bone Indians, residing in the
vicinity of Michilimackinac. These, after a severe contest, were driven by
the Ottawa into the southern peninsula of Michigan as far as Grand river.
During this war on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan the Ottawa and
Chippewa, who had confederated with them, became involved in a quarrel
with a people known as Mushkodainsug (or Mascoutens). From this period,
according to the tradition, the Assegun and Mascoutens were confederates,
and were driven still farther southward in the peninsula, after which they
are lost to the tradition, except that it attributes to them the well
known "garden beds" of southwestern Michigan. Although this tradition
stands to a large extent alone, it is possibly not wholly unsupported. The
chief items which seem to accord with it are the close relations between
the Mascoutens and the Sauk, who are known to have resided at an early
period in the lower Michigan peninsula, whence they passed into Wisconsin,
where the two tribes were found closely associated; and the statement by
Denonville (N. Y. Doc. Col. Hist., ix, 378) that Chaniplain, in 1612,
found (heard of) the people of this tribe residing at Sakinan, or Saginaw
bay. To the same locality have the Sauk been traced. Although the evidence
is not entirely satisfactory, it is probable that this tribe entered
Wisconsin from southern Michigan, passing around the southern end of Lake
Michigan.
The first mention of the Mascoutens is by Champlain, in
1616, under the name Asistagueroüon (CEuvres,
iv, 58, 1870); on his map (v, 1384) he locates them, under the. name
Assistagueronons, beyond and south of Lake Huron, Lake Michigan being
unknown to him. He says the Ottawa were then at war with them. Sagard
(1636) places them nine or ten days journey west of the south end of
Georgian bay (Hist. duCanada, 194, 1866). According to the Jesuit Relation
for 1640 they were then at war with the Neuters, who were allies of the
Ottawa. The first actual contact of the French with the Mascoutens of
which there is any record was the visit of Perrot to their village near
Fox river Wis., previous to 1669. Winsor (Cartier to Frontenac, 152) says
Nicolet visited their village in 1634. That he passed up Fox river,
probably to the portage, is doubtless true, but that he visited the
Mascoutens is not positively known, as it is stated in the Jesuit Relation
for 1646 that up to that time they had seen no European, and that the name
of God had not reached them. They were visited in 1670 by Allouez and in
1673 by Marquette, both finding, then in their village near the portage
between Fox and Wisconsin rivers, living in close, relation with the Miami
and the Kickapoo. After the visit by Marquette they are mentioned by
Hennepin, who places them in 1680 on Lake Winnebago; though Membré
at the same date locates at least a part of the tribe and some of the
Foxes on Milwaukee river. Marest, writing in 1712, says that a short time
previous thereto they had formed a settlement on the Ohio at the mouth of
the Wabash, or more likely at Old Fort Massac, whose occupants had
suffered greatly from contagious disorders. In the same year the upper
Mascoutens and the Kickapoo joined the Foxes against the French. In the
same year the Potawatomi and other northern tribes made a combined attack
on the Mascoutens and Foxes at the siege of Detroit, killing and taking
prisoners together nearly a thousand of both sexes. In 1718 the Mascoutens
and Kickapoo were living together in a single village on Rock river, Ill.,
and were estimated together at 200 men. In 1736 the Mascoutens are
mentioned as numbering 60 warriors, living with the Kickapoo on Fox river,
Wis., and having the wolf and deer totems. These are among the existing
gentes of the Sank and Foxes. They are last mentioned as living in
Wisconsin in the list of tribes furnished to James Buchanan (Sketches N.
A. Inds., i, 139) by Heckewelder, which relates to the period between 1770
and 1780. The last definite notice of them is in Dodge's list of 1779,
which refers to those on the Wabash in connection with the Piankashaw and
Vermilion (Kickapoo). After this the Mascoutens disappear from
history, the northern group having probably been absorbed by the Sank and
Fox confederacy, and the southern group by the Kickapoo.
Notwithstanding some commendatory expressions by one or
two of the early missionaries, the Mascoutens, like the Kickapoo, bore a
reputation for treachery and deceit, but, like the Foxes, appear to have
been warlike and restless. According to the missionaries, they worshiped
the sun and thunder, but were not much given to religious rites and
ceremonies, and did not honor as large a variety of minor deities as many
other tribes; but such early statements regarding any tribe must be taken
with allowance. Their petitions to their deities were usually accompanied
by a gift of powdered tobacco.
The missions established among the Mascoutens were St
Francis Xavier and St James.
