Submitted by scott on

Kennekuk derives its name from a chief of the Kickapoos, in whose reservation we now are. This tribe, in the days of the Baron la Hontan (1689), a great traveler, but “aiblins,” as Sir Walter Scott said of his grandmither, “a prodigious story-teller,” then lived on the Riviére des Puants, or Fox River, upon the brink of a little lake supposed to be the Winnebago, near the Sakis (Osaki, Sawkis, Sauks, or Sacs),[See The Iowas, and Sacs and Fox] and the Pouteoustamies (Potawotomies). They are still in the neighborhood of their dreaded foes, the Sacs and Foxes,*[See The Ottagamies] who are described as stalwart and handsome bands, and they have been accompanied in their southern migration from the waters westward of the Mississippi, through Illinois, to their present southern seats by other allies of the Winnebagoes, [See the Winnebagoes] the Iowas, Nez Percés, Ottoes, Omahas, Kansas, and Osages. Like the great nations of.the Indian Territory, the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, they form intermediate social links in the chain of civilization between the outer white settlements and the wild nomadic tribes to the west, the Dakotahs and Arapahoes, the Snakes and Cheyennes. They cultivate the soil, and rarely spend the winter in hunting buffalo upon the plains. Their reservation is twelve miles by twenty-four; as usual with land set apart for the savages, it 1s well watered and timbered, rich and fertile; it lies across the path and in the vicinity of civilization; consequently, the people are ‘greatly demoralized. The men are addicted to intoxication, and the women to unchastity; both sexes and all ages are inveterate beggars, whose principal industry is horse-stealing. Those Scottish clans were the most savage that vexed the Lowlands; it is the case here: the tribes nearest the settlers are best described by Colonel B ’s phrase, “great liars and dirty dogs.” ‘They have well-nigh cast off the Indian attire, and rejoice in the splendors of boiled and ruffled shirts, after the fashion of the whites. According to our host, a stalwart son of that soil which for generations has sent out her best blood westward, Kain-tuk-ee, the Land of the Cane, the Kickapoos number about 300 souls, of whom one fifth are braves. .He quoted a specimen of their facetiousness: when they first saw a crinoline, they pointed to the wearer and cried, “There walks a wigwam.” Our “vertugardin” of the 19th century has run the gauntlet of the world’s jests, from the refined impertinence of Mr. Punch to the rude grumble of the American Indian and the Kaffir of the Cape.