The Handwritten Newspapers Project

Publication History:

Place of Publication:  Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

Frequency:  Weekly

Volume and Issue Data:  The Muz-ze-ni-e-gun, or Literary Voyager (No. 4, Jan. 12, 1827-No. 11, ? 1827); The Muz-ze-ni-e-gun and Literary Voyager (No. 12, March 2, 1827); The Literary Voyager (No. 13, March 10, 1827-No. 14, April 11, 1827); The Muzzinyegun or Literary Voyager (No. 16, April 28, 1827)

Size and Format:  Averaged 23 pages per issue

Editor/Publisher:  Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1826-1827)

Title Changes and Continuation:  The Muz-ze-ni-e-gun, or Literary Voyager (1827); The Muz-ze-ni-e-gun and Literary Voyager (1827); The Literary Voyager (1827); The Muzzinyegun or Literary Voyager (1827); also cited as Schoolcraft’s First Literary Magazine

General Description and Notes:

According to Littlefield and Parins, The Muzzinyegun or Literary Voyager was a manuscript magazine devoted to the life, history, customs, tribal news of the Ojibwa Indians, as well as poetry, essays and information on western living and Mexican civilization.  This was the second of editor Schoolcraft’s three handwritten publications, the first being a literary magazine published from 1809 to 1818, and the third being The Bow and Arrow (1833).  The magazine circulated in Sault Ste. Marie, Detroit, New York and elsewhere.

Articles and other content were usually written by Schoolcraft and his wife.  Objiwa lore content was supplied by Mrs. Schoolcraft’s brother George Johnston and their mother, the daughter of Waub Ojeeg, a Ojibwa leader.  The reports published in The Muzzinyegun provided a basis for Schoolcraft’s later ethnological studies printed in Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Conditions, and Prospects of the indian Tribes of the United States (6 vols.; Philadelphia:  Lippincott, Grambo and Co., 1851-1857).

Information Sources:

Bibliography:  Vernon Kinietz, “Schoolcraft’s Manuscript Magazines,”  Bibliographical Society of America Papers, 35 (April-June, 1941), 151-154; Philip P. Mason, “Introduction” and Notes, The Literary Voyager or Muzzeniegun (East Lansing:  Michigan State University Press, 1962); Philip P. Mason, ed., The Literary Voyager or Muzzeniegun (East Lansing:  Michigan State University Press, 1962); David F. Littlefield, Jr. and James W. Parins,  American Indian and Alaska Native Newspapers and Periodicals, 1826-1924 (Westport, Conn.:  Greenwood Press, 1984), 265-266

Locations:  DLC; Danky and Hady; Reprint:  Philip P. Mason, ed., The Literary Voyager or Muzzeniegun (East Lansing:  Michigan State University Press, 1962)