Cheap and tawdry enough were the commodities
bartered for these wonderful beaver and otter pelts--ribbons and
gewgaws, looking-glasses and combs, blankets and shawls of gaudy
color. But scissors and knives, gunpowder and shot, tobacco and
whiskey, went also in the traders' packs, though traffic in
fire-water was forbidden. These goods, upon arrival at Mackinac,
were sent out by canoes and bateaux to the different posts, where
they were dealt out to the savages directly or were dispatched to
the winter camps along the far-reaching waterways." Returning
home in the spring, the bucks would set their squaws and children
at making maple sugar or planting corn, watermelons, potatoes,
and squash, while they themselves either dawdled their time away
or hunted for summer furs. In the autumn, the wild rice was
garnered along the sloughs and the river mouths, and the
straggling field crops were gathered in--some of the product
being hidden in skillfully covered pits, as a reserve, and some
dried for transportation in the winter's campaign. The villagers
were now ready to depart for their hunting-grounds, often
hundreds of miles away.
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