Nature Bulletin No. 368-A   February 7, 1970
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:ILLINOIS a la LIETTE

Many of us have tried to imagine what Illinois was like when white men 
first saw it. The finest and most vivid description of those early times w 
as written by a young Frenchman, Pierre Liette, who arrived here in 
1687, only a few years after it was first visited by Pere Marquette, 
Joliet, LaSalle and Henry Tonty, Liette's kinsman. We have selected a 
few quotations from a translation of his fascinating memoirs about life 
among the Indians at Chicago and along the Illinois River Valley, 
published by the Lakeside Press in 1947.

"The Illinois country is undeniably the finest that is known anywhere 
between the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and that of the 
Mississippi, which are a thousand leagues apart. You begin to see its 
fertility at Chicago which is 140 leagues from Michilimackinac, at the 
end of Lake Michigan. The Chicago is a little river only two leagues 
long bordered by prairies of equal width. This is the route usually taken 
to go this country. "

"Here -- (DesPlaines River below Joliet) -- you generally begin to see 
the buffalo. As for turkeys, there are quantities of them. There is a game 
bird (prairie chickens that is abundant which is a good deal like the 
French pheasant and which is very good. . .  On one side you see 
prairies requiring only to be turned up by the plow, and on the other 
side valleys spreading half a league before reaching the hills. . .  
Sometimes you travel a league, seeing all this from your boat. 
Afterwards you find virgin forests on both sides, consisting of tender 
walnuts, ash, whitewood (linden), cottonwood, a few maples, and grass, 
taller in places than a man. More than an arpent (193 feet) in the woods 
you find marshes which in autumn and spring are full of bustards 
(geese), swans, ducks, cranes, and teals. .. Three leagues from the fork 
(junction of DesPlaines and Kankakee Rivers). . .  Flocks of parakeets 
of fifty to sixty are found. "

"There are wood rats (possum) here as big as a French cat, which have 
white fur as long as that of a marten. . .  The female has two skins under 
her belly which gives the effect of a cloak closed at the top and the 
bottom and open in the middle. They have as many as eight young, 
which they carry inside when they walk. . .  There is also a great 
abundance of stinking animals (skunk) who produce an infectious 
stench. This is their defense. The dogs, after having strangled them, are 
often like mad for a very long time. "

"From here it is two leagues to the old fort (Starved Rock). This is a 
steep rock very favorably situated, which induced the late Monsieur de 
la Salle to build a fort here in 1682 . . .  It was very easy for me, in view 
of my extreme youth, to learn the language of this nation (Illinois). . .  
This was my reason, in 1688 for beggin Monsieur de Tonty to allow me 
to accompany a village of Illinois who were going off on a buffalo hunt 
for five weeks. He recommended me to the chief of this village. "

"The next day we saw in a prairie a great herd of buffaloes. A halt was 
called and two old men harangued the young men for half an hour. . .  
They all ran at great speed, and when within gunshot they fired several 
volleys and shut off an extraordinary number of arrows. . . They killed 
120 buffaloes. . .  We remained a week in this place in order to dry all 
this meat. "

"As for me, I did not shoot. Their appearance filled me with terror, and 
I withdrew from our band when 1 saw them approach. This set all the 
savages laughing, at which I was not a little mortified. "

Pierre finally managed to shoot a little calf.