Mascouten ('little prairie people,' from
musk,(GI (Fox or tooslwode (Chippewa),
rrrairi(';ens,) liminutiveending. By the Hurons they were called
Assistaeronon;
`Fire people,' and by the French `Nation du Fen.' These last names seem to
have arisen from a mistranslation of the Algonquian term. In
the Chippewa dialect `fire' is istkole, and might easily be substituted for
nulshkodee, 'prairie'). A term used by some early writers in, collective and indefinite sense to designate the Algonquian tribes living on the prairies
of Wisconsin and Illinois; LaSalle even includes some bands of Sioux under
the name. The name (Mascpitens) is at present applied by the Potawatomi
to that part of the tribe officially known as the "Prairie band" and
formerly residing on the prairies of x. Illinois. The modern Foxes use the
term Muskutawa to designate themselves, the Wea, Piankashaw, Peoria, and
Kaskaskia, on account of their former residence on the prairies of
Illinois and Indiana. Gallatin was not inclined to consider them a
distinct tribe, and Schoolcraft was of the opinion that they, together
with the Kickapoo, were parts of one tribe. It is asserted by the Jesuit
Allouez that the Kickapoo and Kitchigami spoke the same Algonquian dialect
as the Mascoutens. Gallatin says the Sauk, Foxes, and Kickapoo "speak
precisely the same language.'' Their close association with the Kickapoo
would indicate an ethnic relation. According to an Ottawa tradition
recorded by Schoolcraft there was at an early day a tribe known as Assegun
(q. v.), or Bone Indians, residing in the vicinity of Michilimackinac.
These, after a severe contest, were driven bathe Ottawa into the southern
peninsula of Michigan as far as Grand r. During this war on the eastern
shore of L. Michigan the Ottawa and Chippewa, who had confederated with
them, became involved in a quarrel with a people known as Mushkodaiusug
(or Mascoutens). From this period, according to the tradition, the Assegun
and Mascoutens were confederates, and were driven still farther southward
in the peninsula, after which they are lost to the tradition, except that
it attributes to them the well known "garden beds" of southwestern
Michigan. Although this tradition Stands to a large extent alone, it is
possibly not wholly unsupported. The chief items which seen to accord with
it are the close relations between the Mascoutens and the Sauk, who are
known to have resided at an early period in the lower Michigan peninsula,
whence they passed into Wisconsin, where the two tribes were found closely
associated; and the statement by Denonville (N.Y. Do(-. Col. Hist., ix,
378) that Chanplain, in 1612, found (heard of) the people of this tribe
residing at Sakinan, or Saginaw bay. To the salve locality have the Sank
been traced. Although the evidence is not entirely satisfactory. it is
probable that this tribe entered Wisconsin from southern Michigan, passing
around the southern end of L. Michigan.
The first mention of the Mascouteris is by Champlain, in 1610, tinder the
name Asistagueroiion ((Euvres, iv, 58, 1870); on his map (v, 1384) he
locates them, under the. name Assistagueronons, beyond and south of L. Huron,
L. Michigan being unknown to hint. He says the Ottawa were then at war
with them. Sagard (1636) places them nine or ten days journey w. of the s.
end of Georgian bay (Hist. duCanada, 194,1866). According to the Jesuit
Relation for 1640 they were then at war with the Neuters, who were allies
of the Ottawa. The first actual contact of the French with the Mascoutens
of which there is any record was the visit of l'errot to their village
near Fox r. Wis., previous to 1669. Winsor (Cartier to Frontenac, 152)
says Nicolet visited their village in 1634. That he passed up Fox r.,
probably to the portage, is doubtless true, but that lie visited the
Mascoutens is not positively known, as it is stated in the Jesuit Relation
for 1646 that tip to that time they had seen no European, and that the
name of God had not reached them. They were visited in 1670 by Allouez and
in 1673 by Marquette, both finding them in their village near the portage
between Fox and Wisconsin rs., living in close relation with the Miami and
the Kickapoo. After the visit by Marquette they are mentioned by Hennepin,
who places them in 1680 on L. Winnebago; though Membre at the same date
locates at least a part of the tribe and some of the Foxes on Milwaukee r.
Marest, writing in 1712, says that a short time previous thereto they had
formed a settlement on the Ohio at the mouth of the Wabash, or more
likely at Old Fort Massac, whose occupants had suffered greatly from
contagious disorders. In the same year the upper Mascoutens and the
Kickapoo joined the Foxes against the French. In the same year the
Potawatomi and other northern tribes made a combined attack on the
Mascoutens and Foxes at the siege of Detroit, killing and taking prisoners
together nearly a thousand of both sexes. In 1718 the Mascoutens and Kickapoo were living together in a single village on Rock r., I11., and were
estimated together at 200 men. In 1736 the Mascoutens are mentioned as
numbering 60 warriors, living with the Kickapoo on Fox r., Wis., and
having the wolf and (leer totems. These are among the existing gentes of
the Sauk and Foxes. They are last mentioned as living in Wisconsin in the
list of tribes furnished to James Buchanan (Sketches N. A. Inds., 1, 139)
by Heckewelder, which relates to the period between 1770 and last definite notice of them is in Dodge's list of 1779,
which refers to those on the Wabash in connection with the Pinkashaw and
Vern ii lb IDS (Kickapoo). After this the Mascoutens disappear front
history, the northern group having probably been absorbed by the Sauk and
Fox confederacy, and the southern group by the
Kickapoo.
Notwithstanding some commendatory expressions by one or two of the early
missionaries, the Mascoutens, like the Kickapoo, bore a reputation for
treachery and deceit, but, like the Foxes, appear to have been warlike and
restless. According to the missionaries, they worshiped the sun and
thunder, but were not much given to religious rites and ceremonies, and
did not honor as large a variety of minor deities as many other tribes; but
such early states ments regarding any tribe must be taken with allowance.
Their petitions to their deities were usually accompanied by a gift of
powdered tobacco.
The missions established among the Mascoutens were St Francis Xavier and
St James.
