Page 232 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

228 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.
i
is called Puant, or Stinking Bay. The reason they give for it
is, not to mislead strangers, but by adopting this method they
could converse with each other concerning the Indians, in their
presence, without being understood by them; for it was re-
marked by those who first traded among them, if they men-
tioned their proper names, they instantly grew suspicious, and
concluded ,that their visitors were speaking ill of them, and
were plotting their destruction. To avoid this they gave some
other name. The. bad consequence of this practice, then intro-
duced is, that English and French geographers and travelers,
in their plans of the interior of America give different names
to the same people and places, and thereby perplex those who
have occasion to refer to them."
In confirmation of this, I will. state that the late Judge
LOCKWOOD gave the same reason to me, for tho name Court-
orielle to s lake at the head of one of the branches of the
Chippewa river, where of late a Bank has been established.
The proper name of the Lake is Ottawa, from a band of Otta-
was, found there by the first traders who visited that rrgion,
from which they were soon after driven by the Sioux back to
Michigan. These Ottawas had cut the rims of theh ears in
such a way as to make them appear short; and the traders to
avoid the suspicions of the Indians, when conversing together
about them in their own language, called them and their Lake
Courtorielle, or Short-Ears.
In 1843, LYMAN WARREN, who had then been twenty-five
years in the Fur trade, informed me that from the traditions of
the traders, he learned that the first adventurers in the trade,
purposely made false maps and gave false names t.0 tribes,
bands, and places, ~urposely to mislead, bewilder, and discour-
age those who might attempt to follow and rival them in the
trade, which, being then very lucra.tive, th& desired to monop-
olize. He further said that the Old Northwest Fur Company,
and the Hudson's Bay Company, had as correct maps of the
country as could be made, without actual and minute surveys,
for their own use, but would not suffer a stranger to see them,