Chippewas

a tribe of American Indians allied to the Delawares, Shawnees, and Blackfeet. They occupied a large territory surrounding Lake Superior. Numerous small bands are still found in this region. Nominally they live on reservations, but they are to be seen paddling up and down the rivers and lakes almost anywhere. They are preeminently children of the forest. They are skillful in the construction and use of birch bark canoes, and are great hunters, trappers, and fishers. Enmity existed between them and the Sioux for generations. The border line between the two tribes in Minnesota, as elsewhere, appears to have been the edge of the evergreen belt. Each made murderous forays into the territory of the other. The traveler by rail in the wooded region of Wisconsin and Minnesota not infrequently catches a glimpse of an Indian lodge on the shore of a river or lake. A canoe is likely to be moored near by. Old clothes hang on the bushes. Dogs and papooses are in evidence. If the lodge be low and rounded, it is that of a Chippewa; if conical and pointed, it is that of a Sioux. Longfellow's Hiawatha is the hero of the Chippewa or Ojibway nation. Chippewa is a favorite geographical name in the upper peninsula of Michigan, in Wisconsin, and in Minnesota. See Indian