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Though still young, Waub-O-Jeeg's health was failing, due in part to battle wounds and also consumption (TB) that had taken hold. He died in 1793 at age forty-five in his native village at Chequamegon Bay. Before he died he wrote his own death song and asked that his body be placed, according to custom, on a scaffold, and not in the cold ground. His personal items were placed with his body on the burial platform, but daughter Susan kept his war club as a reminder of her father and the childhood at Chequamegon Bay. The war club is preserved in the collections of the Sault Ste. Marie Historical Society. | |||
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My friends when my spirit is fled - is fled, My friends when my spirit is fled, Ah, put me not bound, in the dark and cold ground, Where light shall no longer be shed - be shed. But Lay me up scaffolded high - all high, Chiefs lay me up scaffolded high, Where my tribe shall still say, as they point to my clay, He ne'er from the foe sought to fly - to fly, he ne'er from the foe sought to fly. And children, who play on the shore - the shore, And children who play on the shore, As the war dance they beat, my name shall repeat, And the fate of their chieftain deplore - deplore, And the fate of their chieftain deplore. (From Schoolcraft, 1853) | ||||
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