independent spirit, and esteemed by the whites as their friends and protectors.
When in the country I have heard their chief assert, in council with the Sioux and
Chippeways, that although they were reduced to a few in number, yet they could
say—we never were slaves.”*
Their bravery is so much respected by the Chippeways, that the latter permit
the Menominees to hunt on their grounds on the Mississippi and Lake Superior.!
“ Their language, though of the Algonkin stock, is less similar to that of the
Chippeways, their immediate neighbors, than almost any dialect of the same stock.
As no other tribe speaks it, and they generally speak Chippeway, it is almost
impossible to find good interpreters. It is probably owing to that circumstance
that they were for a long time supposed to have a distinct language, belonging to
another stock than the Algonkin.”!
PLATE XXIX.
MENOMINEE.
By the kindness of Dr. Satterlee, of the United States Army, and J. A.
Lapham, Esq., I have received a series of Menominee skulls, embracing eight
specimens. They are something larger than the average of Indian crania; and
although for the most part they present a rather oval shape, they are all marked
by a gently flattened occiput.
The annexed plate was drawn from the cranium of a young Menominee
woman, probably not more than twenty years of age. The symmetry of this
skull, and its equal proportions, are more remarkable than in any other Indian
* Pike, Exped. p. 53, 89.
t Warden, United States, III, p. 540.—Beltrami, Trav. II, p, 175.
% Gallatin, Archaeolog. Amer. II, p. 60.