Missionary Work Among the Ojebway Indians   By: Edward Francis Wilson (1844-1915)

MISSIONARY WORK

AMONG

THE OJEBWAY INDIANS.

BY THE

REV. EDWARD F. WILSON.

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

INTRODUCTION.

I. HOW IT CAME ABOUT THAT I WENT TO CANADA.

II. FIRST MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES.

III. OUR ARRIVAL AT SARNIA.

IV. KETTLE POINT.

V. INDIAN NAMES GIVEN.

VI. CHRISTMAS ON THE RESERVE.

VII. MISSION WORK AT SARNIA.

VIII. THE BISHOP'S VISIT.

IX. FIRST VISIT TO GARDEN RIVER.

X. BAPTISM OF PAGAN INDIANS.

XI. THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION.

XII. CHANGES IN PROSPECT.

XIII. ROUGHING IT.

XIV. CHIEF LITTLE PINE.

XV. OUR FIRST WINTER IN ALGOMA.

XVI. CHIEF BUHKWUJJENENE'S MISSION.

XVII. AN INDIAN CHIEF IN ENGLAND.

XVIII. A TRIAL OF FAITH.

XIX. LEARNING TO KNOW MY PEOPLE.

XX. A WEDDING AND A DEATH.

XXI. THE OPENING OF THE FIRST SHINGWAUK HOME.

XXII. FIRE! FIRE!

XXIII. AFTER THE FIRE.

XXIV. PROSPECTS OF RE BUILDING.

XXV. LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE.

XXVI. A TRIP TO BATCHENWAUNING.

XXVII. THE WINTER OF 1874 5.

XXVIII. THE NEW SHINGWAUK HOME.

XXIX. RUNAWAY BOYS.

XXX. CHARLIE AND BEN.

XXXI. A TRIP UP LAKE SUPERIOR.

XXXII. COASTING AND CAMPING.

XXXIII. UP THE NEEPIGON RIVER.

XXXIV. THIRTY YEARS WAITING FOR A MISSIONARY.

XXXV. THE PAGAN BOY NINGWINNENA.

XXXVI. BAPTIZED BURIED.

XXXVII. THE WAWANOSH HOME.

XXXVIII. A SAD WINTER.

XXXIX. WILLIAM SAHGUCHEWAY.

XL. OUR INDIAN HOMES.

XLI. A POW WOW AT GARDEN RIVER.

XLII. GLAD TIDINGS FROM NEEPIGON.

PREFACE.

A few words addressed by the Bishop of Algoma to the Provincial Synod may form a suitable preface to this little book, which aspires to no literary pretensions, but is just a simple and unvarnished narrative of Missionary experience among the Red Indians of Lake Superior, in the Algoma Diocese.

"The invaluable Institutions at Sault Ste. Marie still continue their blessed work of educating and Christianizing the rising generation of Ojebways. Founded in a spirit of faith, hope, and charity, carrying out a sound system of education, and in the past 'approved of God' by many signs and tokens, the friends of these two 'Homes' may still rally round them with unshaken confidence. Their history, like that of the Christian Church itself, has been marked by not a few fluctuations, but their record has been one of permanent and undoubted usefulness.

"Only a person deeply interested and directly engaged in the work, as the Rev. E. F. Wilson is, can understand the force of the difficulties to be encountered from the ineradicable scepticism of Indian parents as to the disinterestedness of our intentions with regard to their children; the tendency of the children to rebel against the necessary restraints imposed on their liberty; the reluctance of parents to leave their children in the 'Home' for a period sufficiently long for the formation of permanent habits of industry, and fixed principles of right; the constitutional unhealthiness of Indian children, terminating, as it has here in a few cases, in death; the all but impossibility of obtaining helpers for subordinate positions, such as teacher or servant, who regard the question of the evangelization of the Indian from any higher stand point than the financial.