The History of Genesee, MI, Chapter II, Swag-o-no

SWAG-O-NO--THE-PEOPLE-WHO-WENT-OUT-OF-THE-LAND.

There lingers in the traditions of the Senecas a story of a band of their own race who once lived on the St. Lawrence, but who in very early times became dissatisfied with their own country and determined upon a general exodus in hopes of finding the Utopia of their desires. They gathered together their meager holdings and, like a stream, went out of the land. It should be remembered that the Indians had no domestic animals except the dog, consequently no beast of burden. They were their own means of transportation, except when their route followed a waterway, when the canoe furnished a means of transportation, but this also required hard labor. The name of the emigrants was a compound built up of Indian words: "Swageh; pronounced gutturally, meant flowage, like the water of a stream, and it takes but little imagination to see in this word the imitation of the noise of swirling waters of a swift stream lime our word "swash," a name that Southey might have used in his description of the waters at Ladore had he been acquainted with the dialect of the leaguemen. Akin to this is the Chippewa word "See-be,: which, according to Copway, means a stream and is also an imitation of flowing waters. If we add to this word the Indian word, "O-No." meaning people, we have "Swageh-o-no," meaning the-people-who-went-out-of-the-land. If the Indian referred to the place, or country of this people, he appended the location, "Ga," and the word becomes Swageh-o-no-ga, literally translated as the place-of-people-who-went-out-of-the-land. This Iroquois name is now preserved in the geographic "Saginaw<" and the "Saguenay," of Cartier's record; while the first part is the name of the "Sauks," "Saukies," or "Sacs," an Indian tribe which in more recent historic times lived in Wisconsin, but who traditional homeland was the Saginaw country. Here we come into touch without own locality, for out county of Genesee was part of this Saginaw country, and so the-people-who-went-out-of-the-land were our predecessors in occupancy of this our present homeland.

Of the maps of the eighteenth century, the English maps generally include this portion of Michigan as territory of the Iroquois of the league. On maps of Hudson's bay, etc., in 1755, and on later editions in 1772, we see the eastern portion of this peninsula as belonging to the "Six Nations," but they place a village of the Ottawas on our river not far from Taymouth, Saginaw county. These maps also place a village of the Messisauges on the east bank of the St. Clair river just above the lake of St. Clair. "Accurate Map of North America," by Ewan Bowen, Geographer to His majesty, and John Gibson, Engineer, 1763, gives the eastern portion of lower Michigan as occupied by the Iroquois, and also marks the Ottawa village and that of the Messisauges the same as in the Hudson's Bay map above. It is to be noted that the Senex Map (English) of 1710, shows no name of occupants of this region, and the folding map of Colden's "history of the Five nations," published in 1747, shows no name of the Indian inhabitants of this portion of Michigan except a village of the Ouwaes down toward Detroit. The French maps of this period do not give to the Iroquois the possession of this region. The map of 1746 auspices of Monsigneur Le Duc D'Orleans, shows the Ottawas in the lower Saginaw valley, but no Iroquois. The French map of Sr. Robert DeVangondy fils, dedicated to Le Conte D'Argenson, secretary of state, in 1753, shows a village of "Ouontonnais" at the head of Saginaw bay.

Were there no such story as given above of the people-who-went-out-of-the-land, were all the evidences given by the writers and map-makers and all history from the Indians themselves utterly lost, there would still be indisputable proof that the Saginaw country, or the valley of the present Saginaw river, with the flint, Shiawasseem Cass, Tittebawassee and their affluents, was once and for a long period occupied by a branch of the great Huron-Iroquois family of tribes.

The written record may be uncertain, the traditional one vague, but the evidence furnished by the implements and other relics tell a tale that convinces. In the careful exploration under the supervision of Mr. Doyle, of Toronto, of the educational department of the province, we have data as to the kind and character of the things made of stone, and sometimes less endurable materials, that once entered into the domestic economy of the former inhabitants. Many of these things are of ethnic value, that is, they are of form or function peculiar to some tribe, used perhaps in some rite or ceremony which was not observed by any other tribe. All over the portion of Ontario, from Lake Huron eastward to Toronto, and even farther, which was the ancient home of the Huron-Iroquois, are found these stone implements of peace and of war, ornaments, and things used in the rites of sepulture, and these are almost monotonous in their similarity. North, south, and east we find a different condition. The testimony of these stone witnesses from the ancient days bears witness of a different people, whose habits differed, who had a different religion. There we fail to find the butterfly amulet of banded slate, common throughout the Huron country. The little stone effigy of a bird, also of the Huron slate, which the women of the early day wore in their hair to announce pregnancy and claim its privileges, is not be found; but in the most of this Canadian land and extending over into Michigan, we find the same conditions. The tell-tale stone bird, with the base drilled at each end to receive the thong that tied it upon the head of the squaw, the butterfly stone, and even the etched picture of the clan totem--all these have been found in profusion here in Genesee country, thus proclaiming that the same people who occupied the parts of Ontario above referred to also occupied the eastern part of Michigan, including Genesee county. Were these relics found but rarely, or in isolated instances, the deduction would not be justified; but such is not the case. They are found all over this and adjacent counties, scattered here and there in great numbers, especially along the streams where the Indians naturally built their hamlets.

It is probable that the Iroquois people-who-went-out-of-the-land, and who gave us the name Saginaw, were not limited to a single migration, but that many such streams of migrants, following one after an other, for many years, came to Michigan and that the ties that bound the Hurons of Michigan to those of Canada were close and intimate.

Of these former possessors of Genesee county, one alone has survived and preserved its tribal identity--the Sacs--from their traditions we have the facts that they came from Canada to the Saginaw country, thence were driven out and went on to Wisconsin, where they settled and became closely connected with the Foxes, or, to use the Indian name, "Outagamies." So closely united were these two in country and policy that, in history, the Sacs and Foxes are generally mentioned together as forming one political entity.

This occupancy of our county by the Huron-Iroquois people is the earliest off which we have an knowledge either from the traditions of the Indians or from the deductions of the ethnologists. All the remains--whether in the form of mounds, places of sepulchre, arrow points, stone implements--point to these people as the earliest occupants, and also show that their occupancy was one of long duration. Probably they were a hundred years or more before Columbus came, and continued until the dispersion of the Hurons in Canada about 1638, or until what may be termed the volkwandering of the Algonquins and the unconfederated Huron-Iroquois of this region.