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Show i8oo] EASTERN INDIANS i S i The mouth and lips are not as coarse as in the northwest, nor even on the plains, and the general v facial effect is somewhat finer than in those regions. The skin is brown, with a very slight coppery tone. The Algonquians were, as a rule, woodland people, with the culture, life, and craft which such residence brings about; but the wide differences in latitude between the seats of the northern and southern branches of the eastern Algonquians naturally brought about differences in their manner of life, Taking the largest tribe of the stock, the Ojibwa. as a type of the northern group, we find that they paid but little attention to agriculture and were essentially a hunting and fishing people, adding to the provision thus obtained such wild vegetable food as their country afforded.\ The wild rice was and is of such overwhelming importance to the Ojibwa that its annual harvest might be considered the central interest in their industrial life. 1 They also understood how to make sugar from the sap of the maple, and had knowledge of many edible fruits and seeds. The tendency to organize secret societies, which has been noticed in the stocks previously discussed, has found its expression among the Ojibwa in the Mid6 society, 2 a religious organization of elaborate rules and ritual which practically 1 Jenks, " Wild- Rice Gatherers of the Upper Lakes M ( Bureau of Ethnology, Nineteenth Annual Report). 1 Hoffman, " The Midewiwen of the Ojibwa" ( Bureau of Ethnology, Seventh Annual Report). |