Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, January 26, 1999

'Hideous monsters' greeted early Mississippi river explorers

Nicolet traveled in Oriental robes to greet the Chinese

by Jim Bradshaw

He had heard strange stories among the Indians of a people without hair or beard who came from the west to trade with a tribe beyond the Great Lakes. In 1634, at the instruction of Samuel de Champlain, he set out to find these people. As Frederic Austin Ogg reports in his essay, "The Search for the Mississippi," "Starting from Three Rivers, on the upper St Lawrence, probably about the about the first of July, 1634, Nicolet ascended the Ottawa (River), and journeyed on by way of Lake Nipissing and the Georgian Bay into the Huron country where seven Indians were secured as guides. ... After traversing the eastern and northern shores of Lake Huron, Nicolet's party ... arrived at Sault Ste. Marie at the southeastern extremity of Lake Superior, a point beyond the furthest reach of previous exploration. Turning again toward the south the travelers followed the coast of the northern peninsula of Michigan as far as the Straits of Mackinaw.

"From Mackinaw Nicolet continued to skirt the lower share of Lake Michigan until he had reached the southern extremity of Green Bay, (according to Nicolet's journal) 'the news of his coming quickly spread to places round about and there assembled four or five thousand men. Each of the chief men made a feast for him, and at one of these banquets they served at least six score of beavers.'" Ogg continues, "The Winnebagoes, being of the Dacotah (sic) stock, spoke a language unintelligible to Nicolet, but when he ascended the Fox River to the country of the Algonquin Mascotins (in the region of Green Lake County, Wisconsin), he found once more a people whose speech he understood. From them he learned many things of interest. Most important was the information that off toward the south, a three days' journey, was a 'great water' which might be reached by ascending the Fox still farther, crossing a short portage, and then descending a stream ... to the 'great water.' The manner in which the Indians spoke of the 'great water' conveyed the impression that it was a sea rather than a river, and forty years more were to elapse before the Fox-Wisconsin route was to be traversed and the real character of the 'great water' -- which was of course the Mississippi -- was made known.

"Champlain died in the year of Nicholet's return," Ogg relates, "and for a long time to come there was no man of like energy in control of French exploring enterprises in America. Had Champlain lived, Nicolet's exploration would doubtless have been followed up at once, and the Mississippi might will have been discovered within a few years. But as it was, five years elapsed before even an account of the expedition was embodied in the records of the Jesuits. Scientific interest perished for a time with Champlain. The Mississippi remained merely the rumored 'great water,' understood by the French to be nothing more or less than the sea intervening between America and the Chinese coast."

Nicolet did not find the strange people he sought and, if he had, they would not have recognized him as a Frenchman. He thought the "great water" near their home would be the Pacific Ocean and that he would be close to China. So he traveled in Oriental robes.

Indian wars erupted in the area before Nicolet or anyone else could find the great waters but, in 1658, two traders who spent the winter on Lake Superior brought back tales of the ferocious Sioux tribe and of a great western river on which they lived. Jesuits who traveled into the territory also began to hear tales of the "Messipi."

In 1673, Jesuit priest Jacques Marquette and fur trader Louis Joliet paddled down the Mississippi River as far as the mouth of the Arkansas River. According to Ogg, "The party, numbering seven in all, made its way in two canoes into Green Bay, following the same course as had Nicolet nearly forty years before. ... During the first week in June the Fox River was ascended, though not without some difficulty on account of the rocks and rapids in its upper waters. This brought the voyagers among the Mascotins, or Fire Nation. ... The sachems of the tribe were assembled, and Joliet explained his commission to discover new countries and Marquette declared his purpose to 'illumine them to the light of the gospel.' The Indians proved very hospitable, readily consenting to furnish the travelers with two guides to set them on their way toward the great water. When, however, on the 10th of the month the Frenchmen and these two guides embarked from one of the villages to continue their journey into parts unknown, the inhabitants of the place could not restrain their expressions of astonishment at the boldness of the travelers.

"The trip down the (Wisconsin) river brought to view many things of interest to the Frenchmen," Ogg reports, "a luxuriant vegetation of strange trees and plants, enormous herds of buffaloes, and beetling bluffs affording the scenery of the rarest ruggedness and beauty. Navigation was not so easy, however, because of the number of sandbars and islands covered with grape-vines. ... (On) June 17 the curiosity of a generation of Frenchmen was rewarded. On that day the little fleet of Marquette and Joliet, just a month after starting from Mackinaw, floated out upon the placid waters of the Mississippi.... We may regard this event as constituting quite certainly the real discovery of the Father of Waters by the French."

Marquette wrote a journal in which he described the scenery as they floated down the Mississippi River. "The islands are covered with fine trees," he said, "but we could not see any more roebucks, buffaloes, bustards, and swans. We met from time to time monstrous fish, which struck so violently against our canoes that at first we took them to be large trees, which threatened to upset us. We saw also a hideous monster; his head was like that of a tiger, his nose as sharp and somewhat resembled a wildcat; his beard was long, his ears stood upright, the color of his head was gray, and his neck black. He looked upon us for some time, but as we came near our oars frightened him away. When we threw our nets into the water we caught an abundance of sturgeons, and another kind of fish like our trout, except that their eyes and nose are much smaller, and they have near the nose a bone three inches broad and a foot and a half long, the end of which is flat and broad, and when it leaps out of the water the weight of it throws it upon its back.

"As we were descending the river we saw high rocks with hideous monsters painted on them, and upon which the bravest Indian dared not look. "Marquette reported. "They are as large as a calf, with head and horns like a goat; their eyes red; beard like a tigers and face like a man's. Their tails are so long that they pass over their heads and between their forelegs, under their belly, and ending in a fish's tail. They are painted red, green, and black. They are so well drawn that I believe they were drawn by Indians. And for what purpose they were made seems to me a great mystery."