 
Pronouns are buried, if we may so say, in the structure of the verb. In tracing them back to their primitive forms, through the almost infinite variety of modifications which they assume, in connexion with the verb, substantive and adjective, it will facilitate analysis, to group them into preformative and subformative, which include the pronominal prefixes and suffixes, and which admit of the further distinction of separable and inseparable. By separable is intended those forms, which have a meaning by themselves, and are thus distinguished from the inflective and subformative pronouns, and pronominal particles significant only, in connection with another word. 1. Of the first class, are the personal pronouns Neen (I,) Keen (thou,) and Ween or O (he or she.) They are declined to form the plural persons in the following manner:
Here the plural persons are formed by a numerical inflection of the singular. The double plural of the first person, of which both the rule and examples have been incidentally given in the remarks on the substantive, is one of those peculiarities of the language, which may, perhaps, serve to aid in a comparison of it, with other dialects, kindred and foreign. As a mere conventional agreement, for denoting whether the person addressed, be included, or excluded, it may be regarded as an advantage to the language. It enables the speaker, by the change of a single consonant, to make a full and clear discrimination, and relieves the narration In practice, however, the question is cut short, by those persons who have embraced Christianity. It has seemed to them, that by the use of either of the foregoing terms, the Deity would be thrown into too remote a relation to them, and I have observed, that, in prayer, they invariably address Him, by the term used by children for the father of a family, that is, Nosa, my father. The other personal pronouns undergo some peculiar changes, when employed as preformatives before nouns and verbs, which it is important to remark. Thus neen, is sometimes rendered ne or nin, and sometimes nim. Keen, is rendered ke or kin. In compound words the mere signs of the first and second pronouns, N and K, are employed. The use of ween is limited; and the third person, singular and plural, is generally indicated by the sign, O. The particle suh added to the complete forms of the disjunctive pronouns, imparts a verbal sense to them; and appears in this instance, to be a succedaneum for the substantive verb. Thus Neen, I, becomes Neensuh, it is I. Keen, thou, becomes Keensuh, it is thou, and Ween, he or she, Weensuh, it is he or she. This particle may also be added to the plural forms.
If the word aittah be substituted for suh, a set of adverbial phrases are formed.
In like manner nittum first, and ishkwaudj last, give rise to the following arrangement of the pronoun:
The disjunctive forms of the pronoun are also sometimes preserved before verbs and adjectives. To give these expressions a verbal form, the substantive verb, with its pronominal modifications, must be superadded. For instance, I am alone, &c., is thus rendered:
In the subjoined examples the noun ow, body, is changed to a verb, by
In the translation of these expressions "man" is used as synonymous with person. If the specific term inine, had been introduced in the original, the meaning thereby conveyed would be, in this particular connexion, I am a man with respect to courage &c., in opposition to effeminacy. It would not be simply declarative of corporeal existence, but of existence in a particular state or condition. In the following phrases, the modified forms, or the signs only, of the pronouns are used:
These examples are cited as exhibiting the manner in which the prefixed and preformative pronouns are employed, both in their full and contracted forms. To denote possession, nouns specifying the things possessed, are required; and, what would not be anticipated, had not full examples of this species of declension been given in another place, the purposes of distinction are not effected by a simple change of the pronoun, as I to mine, &c., but by a subformative inflection of the noun, which is thus made to have a reflective operation upon the pronoun-speaker. It is believed that sufficient examples of this rule, in all the modifications of inflection, have been given under the head of the substantive. But as the substantives employed to elicit these modifications were exclusively specific in their meaning, it may be proper here, in further illustration of an important principle, to present a generic substantive under their compound forms. I have selected for this purpose one of the primitives. Ie-aÚ, is the abstract term for existing matter. It is in the animate form and declarative. Its inanimate correspondent is IE-EÉ. These are two important roots. And they are
In these forms the noun is singular throughout. To render it plural, as well as the pronoun, the appropriate general plurals ug and un or ig and in, must be superadded. But it must be borne in mind, in making these additions, "that the plural inflection to inanimate nouns (which have no objective case,) forms the objective case to animates, which have no number in the third person," [p. 30.] The particle un, therefore, which is the appropriate plural for the inanimate nouns in these examples, is only the objective mark of the animate. The plural of I, is naun, the plural of thou and he, wau. But as these inflections would not coalesce smoothly with the possessive inflections, the connective vowels i. and e. are prefixed, making the plural of I, inaun, and of thou, &c., ewau. If we strike from these declensions the root IE, leaving its animate and inanimate forms AU, and EE, and adding the plural of the noun, we shall then,—taking the animate declension as an instance, have the following formula of the pronominal declensions.
To render this formula of general use, six variations, (five in addition Having thus indicated the mode of distinguishing the person, number, relation, and gender—or what is deemed its technical equivalent, the mutation words undergo, not to mark the distinctions of sex, but the presence or absence of vitality, I shall now advert to the inflections which the pronouns take for tense, or rather, to form the auxiliary verbs, have, had, shall, will, may, &c. A very curious and important principle, and one, which clearly demonstrates that no part of speech has escaped the transforming genius of the language. Not only are the three great modifications of time accurately marked in the verbal forms of the Chippewas, but by the inflection of the pronoun they are enabled to indicate some of the oblique tenses, and thereby to conjugate their verbs with accuracy and precision. The particle gee added to the first, second, and third persons singular of the present tense, changes them to the perfect past, rendering I, thou, He, I did—have—or had. Thou didst,—hast—or hadst, He, or she did—have, or had. If gah, be substituted for gee, the first future tense is formed, and the perfect past added to the first future, forms the conditional future. As the eye may prove an auxiliary in the comprehension of forms, which are not familiar, the following tabular arrangement of them, is presented.
The present and imperfect tense of the potential mood, is formed by dau, and the perfect by gee, suffixed as in other instances.
In conjugating the verbs through the plural persons, the singular terms for the pronoun remain, and they are rendered plural by a retrospective action of the pronominal inflections of the verb. In this manner the pronoun-verb auxiliary, has a general application, and the necessity of double forms is avoided. The preceding observations are confined to the formative or prefixed pronouns. The inseparable suffixed or subformative are as follows—
These pronouns are exclusively employed as suffixes,—and as suffixes to the descriptive compound substantives, adjectives and verbs. Both the rule and examples have been stated under the head of the substantive, p. 43. and adjective, p. 81. Their application to the verb will be shown, as we proceed. 2. Relative Pronouns. In a language which provides for the distinctions of person by particles prefixed or suffixed to the verb, it will scarcely be expected, that separate and independent relative pronouns should exist, or if such are to be found, their use, as separate parts of speech, must, it will have been anticipated, be quite limited—limited to simple interrogatory forms of expression, and not applicable to the indicative, or declaratory. Such will be found to be the fact in the language under review; and it will be perceived, from the subjoined examples, that in all instances, requiring the relative pronoun who, other than the simple interrogatory forms, this relation is indicated by the inflections of the verb, or adjective, &c. Nor does there appear to be any declension of the separate pronoun, corresponding to whose, and whom. The word Ahwaynain, may be said to be uniformly employed in the sense of who, under the limitations we have mentioned. For instance.
Not the slightest variation is made in these phrases, between who, whose, and whom. Should we wish to change the interrogative, and to say, he who is there; he who spoke; he who told you, &c., the separable personal pronoun ween (he) must be used in lieu of the relative, and the following forms will be elicited.
If we object that, that in these forms, there is no longer the relative pronoun who, the sense being simply, he sent you, he spoke, &c., it is replied that if it be intended only to say, he sent you, &c., and not he who sent you, &c., the following forms are used.
We reply, to this answer of the native speaker, that the particle kau prefixed to a verb denotes the past tense,—that in the former series of terms, in which this particle appears, the verbs are in the perfect indicative,—and in the latter, they are in the present indicative, marking the difference only between sent and send, spoke and speak, &c. And that there is absolutely no relative pronoun, in either series of terms. We further observe, that the personal pronoun ween, prefixed to the first set of terms, may be prefixed with equal propriety, to the second set, and that its use or disuse, is perfectly optional with the speaker, as he may wish to give additional energy or emphasis to the expression. To these positions, after reflection, discussion and examination, we receive an assent, and thus the uncertainty is terminated. We now wish to apply the principle thus elicited to verbs causative, and other compound terms—to the adjective verbs, for instance—and to the other verbal compound expressions, in which the objective and the nominative persons, are incorporated as a part of the verb, and are not prefixes to it. This may be shown in the causative verb, To make Happy.
And so the forms might be continued, throughout all the objective persons.—
The basis of these compounds is minno, good, and aindum, the mind. Hence minwaindum, he happy. The adjective in this connexion, cannot be translated "good," but its effect upon the noun, is to denote that state of the mind, which is at rest with itself. The first change from this simple compound, is to give the adjective a verbal form; and this is effected by a permutation of the vowels of the first syllable—a rule of very extensive application—and by which, in the present instance, the phrase he happy, is changed to he makes happy, (mainwaindum.) The next step is to add the suffix personal pronouns, id, ik, aud, &c., rendering the expressions, he makes me happy, &c. But in adding these increments, the vowel e, is thrown between the adjective-verb, and the pronoun suffixed, making the expression, not mainwaindum-yun, but mainwaindumËyun. Generally the vowel e in this situation, is a connective, or introduced merely for the sake of euphony. And those who maintain that it is here employed as a personal pronoun, and that the relative who, is implied by the final inflection; overlook the inevitable inference, that if the marked e, stands for me in the first phrase, it must stand for thee in the second, he in the third, us in the fourth, &c. As to the meaning and office of the final inflections id, ik, &c.—whatever they may, in an involuted sense imply, it is quite clear, by turning to the list of suffixed personal pronouns and animate plurals, that they mark the persons, I, thou, he, &c., we, ye, they, &c. Take for example, minwaindumËigowaud. He (who) makes them happy. Of this compound, minwaindum, as before shown, signifies he makes happy. But as the verb is in the singular number, it implies that but one person is made happy, and the suffixed personal pronouns singular, mark the distinctions between me, thee, and he, or him. Minwaindum-e-ig is the verb plural, and implies that several per The equivalent for what, is Waygonain.
The use of this pronoun, like the preceding, appears to be confined to simple interrogative forms. The word auneen, which sometimes supplies its place, or is used for want of the pronoun which, is an adverb, and has considerable latitude of meaning. Most commonly it may be considered as the equivalent for how, in what manner, or at what time.
By adding to this word, the particle de, it is converted into an adverb of place, and may be rendered where.
[Transcriber's Note: See note at end of text re original typesetting for this section of the text.] becomes quite necessary in writing the language. And in the following sentences, the substantive is properly employed after the pronoun.
In some of these expressions, the pronoun combines with an adjective, as in the compound words, ineuwaidde, and igeuwaidde, those yonder, (in.) and those yonder (an.) Compounds which exhibit the full pronoun in coalescence with the word Ewaidde yonder. CHRONOLOGY. Columbus discovered the West Indies, Oct. 12, 1492. THE ERA OF THE ARRIVAL OF THE FRENCH IN THE UPPER LAKES.Ke-wa-kons, a chief of the straits of St. Mary's, told me, during an interview, in 1827, that but seven generations of red men had passed away, since the French first appeared on those straits. If we take the date of Cartier's first visit to the St. Lawrence, as the era of their acquaintance with this nation, A.D. 1534, we should have 56 years as the period of an Indian generation. Should we take, instead of this, the time of La Salle's first arrival on the upper lakes, 1778, there would, on the contrary, be but a fraction over 22 years for a generation. But neither of these periods, can be truly said to coincide with the probable era of the chief's historical reminiscences. The first is too early, the last too late. An average of the two, which is required to apply the observation properly, gives 38 years as the Indian generation. This nearly assimilates it to the results among Europeans, leaving 8 years excess. Further data would probably reduce this; but it is a department in which we have so little material, that we must leave it till these be accumulated. It may be supposed that the period of Indian longevity, before the introduction of ardent spirits, was equal, perhaps, a little superior, to that of the European; but it did not exceed it, we think, by 8 years. Ke-wa-kons, whom I knew very well, was a man of shrewd sense, and respectable powers of observation. He stated, at the same interview, that his tribe, who were of the Odjibwa type of the Algonquins, laid aside their Akeeks, or clay cooking-vessels, at that time, and adopted in lieu of them, the light brass kettle, which was more portable and permanent. And from that time, their skill in pottery declined, until, in our day, it is entirely lost. It is curious to reflect, that within the brief period of 150 years, a living branch of coarse manufacture among them, has thus been transferred into an object of antiquarian research. This fact, should make historians cautious in assigning very remote periods of antiquity to the monumental evidences of by-gone generations. It is by such considerations that we get a glimpse of some of the general principles which attended the early periods of discovery and settlement, in all parts of the continent. Adventurers came to find gold, or furs, to amass wealth, get power, or to perform mere exploits. Nobody cared much for the native race, beyond the fact of their being the medium to lead to these It is not the intention by any means, to assert, that there were not antiquities of a far higher era, and nobler caste, but merely to impress upon inquirers, the necessity of discriminating the different eras in the chronology of our antiquities. All Indian pottery, north of the capes of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, is of, or preceding the era of the discovery; but there is found in graves, a species of pottery, and vitrified ware, which was introduced, in the early stages of traffic, by Europeans. Of this transition era between the dying away of the Indian arts, and the introduction of the European, are the rude pastes, enamel and glass beads, and short clay pipes of coarse texture, found in Indian cemeteries, but not in the tumuli. In place of these, our ancient Indians used wrought and unwrought sea shells of various species, and pipes carved out of steatites and other soft materials. Mr. Anderson remarks in his biography of Catharine Brown, that "the Cherokees are said to possess a language, which is more precise and powerful than any into which learning has poured richness of thought, or genius breathed the enchantments of fancy and eloquence." David Brown, in one of his letters, in the same volume, terms his people the Tsallakee, of which we must therefore take "Cherokee," to be a corruption. It is seen by the Cherokee alphabet, that the sound of r does not occur in that language. FAITH. When Chusco was converted to Christianity at the mission of Michilimackinac, he had planted a field of potatoes on one of the neighbouring islands in lake Huron. In the fall he went over in his canoe, with his aged wife, to dig them—a labour which the old woman set unceremoniously about, as soon as they got into the field. "Stop!" cried the little old man, who had a small tenor voice and was bent nearly double by age,—"dare you begin to dig, till we have thanked the Lord for their growth." They then both knelt down in the field, while he lifted up his voice, in his native language, in thanks. SHINGABA-WOSSINS, OR IMAGE STONES.The native tribes who occupy the borders of the great lakes, are very ingenious in converting to the uses of superstition, such masses of loose rock, or boulder stones, as have been fretted by the action of water into shapes resembling the trunks of human bodies, or other organic forms. There appears, at all times, to have been a ready disposition to turn such masses of rude natural sculpture, so to call them, to an idolatrous use; as well as a most ingenious tact, in aiding the effect of the natural resemblance, by dots or dabs of paint, to denote eyes, and other features, or by rings of red ochre, around their circumference, by way of ornament. In the following figures, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, some of these masses are represented. IMAGE STONES IMAGE STONES Number 3. was brought to the office of the Indian Agent at Michilimackinac in 1839, and placed among objects of analogous interest to visiters. It consisted of a portion of a vein or mass of gneiss or granite, from which both mica and feldspar were nearly absent, existing only in trace, while the quartzy portion predominated, and had, by its superior hardness, resisted the elemental action. The mode of the formation of such masses is very well known to geologists, resulting, in almost every case, from the unequal degree of hardness of various parts of a mass, submitted to an equal force of attrition, such as is ordinarily given by the upheaving and rolling force of waves on a lake, or ocean beach. To the natives, who are not prone to reason from cause to effect, such productions appear wonderful. All that is past comprehension, or wonderful, is attributed by them to the supernatural agency of spirits. The hunter or If the image be small, it is generally taken with him and secreted in the neighborhood of his lodge. If large and too heavy for this purpose, it is set up on the shore, generally in some obscure nook, where an offering of tobacco, or something else of less value, may be made to it, or rather through it, to the spirit. In 1820 one of these stones (No. 2.) was met by an expedition of the government sent north, that year, for the purpose of interior discovery and observation, at the inner Thunder Bay island, in Lake Huron. It was a massy stone, rounded, with a comparatively broad base and entablature but not otherwise remarkable. It was set up, under a tree on the island, which was small, with the wide and clear expanse of the lake in plain view. The island was one of those which were regarded as desert, and was probably but seldom stopped at. It was, indeed, little more than a few acres of boulders and pebbles, accumulated on a limestone reef, and bearing a few stunted trees and shrubs. The water of the lake must, in high storms, have thrown its spray over this imaged stone. It was, in fine, one of those private places which an Indian might be supposed to have selected for his secret worship. In No. 3. is figured an object of this kind, which was found in 1832, in the final ascent to the source of the Mississippi, on the right cape, in ascending this stream into lac Traverse—at the distance of about 1000 miles above the falls of St. Anthony. I landed at the point to see it, having heard, from my interpreter, that such an object was set up and dedicated to some unknown Manito there. It was a pleasant level point of land shaded with trees, and bearing luxuriant grass and wild shrubbery and flowers. In the middle of this natural parterre the stone was placed, and was overtopped by this growth, and thus concealed by it. A ring of red paint encircled it, at the first narrowed point of its circumference, to give it the resemblance of a human neck; and there were some rude dabs to denote other features. The Indian is not precise in the matter of MNEMONIC SYMBOLS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.CHAPTER I.
The practice of the North American tribes, of drawing figures and pictures on skins, trees, and various other substances, has been noticed by travellers and writers from the earliest times. Among the more northerly tribes, these figures are often observed on that common substitute for the ancient papyrus, among these nations, the bark of the betula papyracea, or white birch: a substance possessing a smooth surface, easily impressed, very flexible, and capable of being preserved in rolls. Often these devices are cut, or drawn in colours on the trunks of trees, more rarely on rocks or boulders. According to Colden and Lafitou records of this rude character were formerly to be seen on the blazed surface of trees, along some of the ancient paths and portages leading from the sources of the Atlantic rivers into the interior, or in the valley of the St. Lawrence; but these, after satisfying a transient curiosity, have long since yielded to the general fate of these simple and unenduring monuments. Pictures and symbols of this kind are now to be found only on the unreclaimed borders of the great area west of the Alleghanies and the Lakes, in the wide prairies of the west, or along the Missouri and the upper Mississippi. It is known that such devices were in use, to some extent, at the era of the discovery, among most of the tribes, situated between the latitudes of the capes of Florida, and Hudson's Bay, although they have been considered as more particularly characteristic of the tribes of the Algonquin type. In a few instances, these pictorial inscriptions have been found to be painted or stained on the faces of rocks, or on loose boulders, and still more rarely, devices were scratched or pecked into the surface, as is found to be the case still at Dighton and Venango. Those who are intent Colden, in his history of the Five Nations, A single element in the system attracted early notice. I allude to the institution of the Totem, which has been well known among the Algonquin tribes from the settlement of Canada. By this device, the early missionaries observed, that the natives marked their division of a tribe into clans, and of a clan into families, and the distinction was thus very clearly preserved. Affinities were denoted and kept up, long after tradi It has not been suspected in any notices to which I have had access, that there was a pictorial alphabet, or a series of homophonous figures, in which, by the juxtaposition of symbols representing acts, as well as objects of action, and by the introduction of simple adjunct signs, a series of disjunctive, yet generally connected ideas, were denoted; or that the most prominent incidents of life and death could be recorded so as to be transmitted from one generation to another, as long at least as the monument and the people endured. Above all, it was not anticipated that there should have been found, as will be observed in the subsequent details, a system of symbolic notation for the songs and incantations of the Indian metas and priests, making an appeal to the memory for the preservation of language. Persons familiar with the state of the western tribes of this continent, particularly in the higher northern latitudes, have long been aware that the songs of the Indian priesthood, and wabenoes, were sung from a kind of pictorial notation, made on bark. It is a fact which has often come to the observation of military officers performing duties on those frontiers, and of persons exercising occasional duties in civil life, who have passed through their territories. But there is no class of persons to whom the fact of such notations being made, is so well known, as the class of Indian traders and interpreters who visit or reside a part of the season at the Indian villages. I have never conversed with any of this latter class of persons to whom the fact of such inscriptions, made in various ways, was not so familiar as in their view to excite no surprise or even demand remark. My attention was first called to the subject in 1820. In the summer of that year I was on an exploring journey through the lake country. At the mouth of the small river Huron, on the banks of Lake Superior, there was an Indian grave fenced around with saplings, and protected with much care. At its head stood a post, or tabular stick, upon which was drawn the figure of the animal which was the symbol of the clan to which the deceased chief belonged. Strokes of red paint were added to denote, either the number of war parties in which he had been engaged, or the number of scalps which he had actually taken from the enemy. The interpreter who accompanied us, and who was himself tinctured with Indian blood, gave the latter, as the true import of these marks. On quitting the river St. Louis, which flows into the head of the lake at the Fond du Lac, to cross the summit dividing its waters from those of The party consisted of sixteen persons, with two Indian guides; but the latter, with all their adroitness in threading the maze, were completely at fault for nearly an entire day. At night we lay down on ground elevated but a few inches above the level of the swamp. The next morning as we prepared to leave the camp, a small sheet of birch bark containing devices was observed elevated on the top of a sapling, some 8 or 10 feet high. One end of this pole was thrust firmly into the ground leaning in the direction we were to go. On going up to this object, it was found, with the aid of the interpreter, to be a symbolic record of the circumstances of our crossing this summit, and of the night's encampment at this spot. Each person was appropriately depicted, distinguishing the soldiers from the officer in command, and the latter from the scavans of the party. The Indians themselves were depicted without hats, this being, as we noticed, the general symbol for a white man or European. The entire record, of which a figure is annexed, accurately symbolized the circumstances, and they were so clearly drawn, according to their conventional rules, that the intelligence would be communicated thereby to any of their people who might chance to travel or wander this way. This was the object of the inscription. PICTURE WRITING PICTURE WRITING Fig. No. 1. represents the subaltern officer in command of the party of the U.S. troops. He is drawn with a sword to denote his official The group of figures marked 9 represents eight infantry soldiers, each of whom, as shown in group No. 10, was armed with a musket. No. 15 denotes that they had a separate fire, and constituted a separate mess. Figures 7 and 8 are the two Chippewa guides, the principal of whom, called Chamees, or the Pouncing-hawk, led the way over this dreary summit. These are the only human figures on this unique bark letter, who are drawn without a hat. This was the characteristic seized on, by them, and generally employed by the tribes, to distinguish the Red from the white race. Figures 11 and 12 represent a prairie hen, and a green tortoise, which constituted the sum of the preceding day's chase, and were eaten at the encampment. The inclination of the pole, was designed to show the course pursued from that particular spot: there were three hacks in it, below the scroll of bark, to indicate the estimated length of this part of the journey, computing from water to water, that is to say, from the head of the portage Aux Couteaux on the St. Louis river, to the open shores of Sandy lake, the Ka-ma-ton-go-gom-ag of the Odjibwas. The story was thus briefly and simply told; and this memorial was set up by the guides, to advertise any of their countrymen, who might chance to wander in that direction, of the adventure—for it was evident, both from this token, and from the dubiousness which had marked the prior day's wanderings, that they regarded the passage in this light, and were willing to take some credit for the successful execution of it. Before we had penetrated quite to this summit, we came to another evidence of their skill in this species of knowledge, consisting of one of those contrivances which they denominate Man-i-to-wa-teg, or Manito Poles. On reaching this our guides shouted, whether from a superstitious impulse, or the joy of having found a spot they certainly could recognize, we could not tell. We judged the latter. It consisted of eight poles, of equal length, shaved smooth and round, painted with yellow ochre, and set so as to enclose a square area. It appeared to have been one of those rude temples, or places of incantation or worship, known to the metas, or priests, where certain rites and ceremonies are performed. But it was not an ordinary medicine lodge. There had been far more care in its construction. On reaching the village of Sandy lake, on the upper Mississippi, the figures of animals, birds, and other devices were found, on the rude coffins, or wrappings of their dead, which were scaffolded around the precincts of the fort, and upon the open shores of the lake. Similar devices were also observed, here, as at other points in this region, upon their In the descent of the Mississippi, we observed such devices painted on a rock, below and near the mouth of Elk river, and at a rocky island in the river, at the Little Falls. In the course of our descent to the Falls at St. Anthony, we observed another bark letter, as the party now began to call these inscriptions, suspended on a high pole, on an elevated bank of the river, on its west shore. At this spot, where we encamped for the night, and which is just opposite a point of highly crystalized hornblende rock, called the Peace Rock, rising up through the prairie, there were left standing the poles or skeletons of a great number of Sioux lodges. It is near and a little west of the territorial boundary of the Sioux nation; and on inspecting this scroll of bark, we found it had reference to a negotiation for bringing about a permanent peace between the Sioux and Chippewas. A large party of the former, from St. Peter's, headed by their chief, had proceeded thus far, in the hope of meeting the Chippewa hunters, on their summer hunt. They had been countenanced, or directed in this step, by Col. Leavenworth, the commanding officer of the new post, just then about to be erected. The inscription, which was read off at once, by the Chippewa Chief Babesacundabee, who was with us, told all this; it gave the name of the Chief who had led the party, and the number of his followers, and gave that chief the first assurance he had, that his mission for the same purpose, would be favourably received. After our arrival at St. Anthony's Falls, it was found that this system of picture writing was as familiar to the Dacotah, as we had found it among the Algonquin race. At Prairie du Chien, and at Green Bay, the same evidences were observed among the Monomonees, and the Winnebagoes, at Chicago among the Pottowottomies, and at Michilimakinac, among the Chippewas and Ottawas who resort, in such numbers, to that Island. While at the latter place, on my return, I went to visit the grave of a noted chief of the Monomonee tribe, who had been known by his French name of Toma, i.e. Thomas. He had been buried on the hill west of the village; and on looking at his Ad-je-da-tig or grave post, it bore a pictorial inscription, commemorating some of the prominent achievements of his life. These hints served to direct my attention to the subject when I returned to the country in 1822. The figures of a deer, a bear, a turtle, and a crane, according to this system, stand respectively for the names of men, and preserve the language very well, by yielding to the person conversant with it, the corresponding words, of Addick, Muckwa, Mickenock, and Adjeejauk. Marks, circles, or dots, of various kinds, may symbolize the number of warlike deeds. Adjunct devices may typify or explain adjunct acts. If the system went no farther, the record would yield a kind of information both gratifying and useful to one of his countrymen who had All the figures thus employed, as the initiatory points of study, related exclusively to either the medicine dance, or the wabeno dance; and each section of figures, related exclusively to one or the other. There was no intermixture or commingling of characters, although the class of subjects were sometimes common to each. It was perceived, subsequently, that this classification of symbols extended to the songs devoted to war, to hunting, and to other specific topics. The entire inscriptive system, reaching from its first rudimental characters, in the ad-je-da-tig, or grave board, to the extended roll of bark covered with the inscriptions of their magicians and prophets, derived a new interest from this feature. It was easy to perceive that much comparative precision was imparted to interpretations in the hands of the initiated, which before, or to others, had very little. An interest was thus cast over it distinct from its novelty. And in truth, the entire pictorial system was thus invested with the character of a subject of accurate investigation, which promised both interest and instruction. It has been thought that a simple statement of these circumstances, would best answer the end in view, and might well occupy the place of a more formal or profound introduction. In bringing forward the elements Picture writing is indeed the literature of the Indians. It cannot be interpreted, however rudely, without letting one know what the Red man thinks and believes. It shadows forth the Indian intellect, it stands in the place of letters for the Unishinaba. [Transcriber's Note: Text ends abruptly here in the original publication.] GRAVE CREEK MOUND.This gigantic tumulus, the largest in the Ohio valley, was opened some four or five years ago, and found to contain some articles of high antiquarian value, in addition to the ordinary discoveries of human bones, &c. A rotunda was built under its centre, walled with brick, and roofed over, and having a long gallery leading into it, at the base of the mound. Around this circular wall, in the centre of this heavy and damp mass of earth, with its atmosphere of peculiar and pungent character, the skeletons and other disinterred articles, are hung up for the gratification of visiters, the whole lighted up with candles, which have the effect to give a strikingly sepulchral air to the whole scene. But what adds most to this effect, is a kind of exuded flaky matter, very white and soft, and rendered brilliant by dependent drops of water, which hangs in rude festoons from the ceiling. To this rotunda, it is said, a delegation of Indians paid a visit a year or two since. In the "Wheeling Times and Advertiser" of the 30th August 1843, the following communication, respecting this visit, introducing a short dramatic poem, was published. "An aged Cherokee chief who, on his way to the west, visited the rotunda excavated in this gigantic tumulus, with its skeletons and other relics arranged around the walls, became so indignant at the desecration and display of sepulchral secrets to the white race, that his companions and interpreter found it difficult to restrain him from assassinating the guide. His language assumed the tone of fury, and he brandished his knife, as they forced him out of the passage. Soon after, he was found prostrated, with his senses steeped in the influence of alcohol. "'Tis not enough! that hated race Should hunt us out, from grove and place And consecrated shore—where long Our fathers raised the lance and song— 'Tis not enough!—that we must go Where streams and rushing fountains flow Whose murmurs, heard amid our fears, Fall only on a stranger's ears— 'Tis not enough!—that with a wand, They sweep away our pleasant land, And bid us, as some giant-foe, Or willing, or unwilling go! But they must ope our very graves To tell the dead—they too, are slaves." NAMES OF THE AMERICAN LAKES.Ontario, is a word from the Wyandot, or, as called by the Iroquois, Quatoghie language. This tribe, prior to the outbreak of the war against them, by their kindred the Iroquois, lived on a bay, near Kingston, which was the ancient point of embarkation and debarkation, or, in other words, at once the commencement and the terminus of the portage, according to the point of destination for all, who passed into or out of the lake. From such a point it was natural that a term so euphonous, should prevail among Europeans, over the other Indian names in use. The Mohawks and their confederates, generally, called it Cadaracqui—which was also their name for the St. Lawrence. The Onondagas, it is believed, knew it, in early times, by the name of Oswego. Erie is the name of a tribe conquered or extinguished by the Iroquois. We cannot stop to inquire into this fact historically, farther than to say, that it was the policy of this people to adopt into their different tribes of the confederacy, the remnants of nations whom they conquered, and that it was not probable, therefore, that the Eries were annihilated. Nor is it probable that they were a people very remote in kindred and language from the ancient Sinondowans, or Senecas, who, it may be supposed, by crushing them, destroyed and exterminated their name only, while they strengthened their numbers by this inter-adoption. In many old maps, this lake bears the name of Erie or "Oskwago." Huron, is the nom de guerre of the French, for the "Yendats," as they are called in some old authors, or the Wyandots. Charlevoix tells us that it is a term derived from the French word hure, [a wild boar,] and was applied to this nation from the mode of wearing their hair. "Quelles Hures!" said the first visiters, when they saw them, and hence, according to this respectable author, the word Huron. The French sometimes called this lake Mer douce, or the Placid sea. The Odjibwas and some other northern tribes of that stock, call it Ottowa lake. No term has been found for it in the Iroquois language, unless it be that by which they distinguished its principal seat of trade, negociation and early rendezvous, the island of Michilimackinac, which they called Tiedonderaghie. Michigan is a derivative from two Odjibwa-Algonquin words, signifying large, i.e. large in relation to masses in the inorganic kingdom, and a lake. The French called it, generally, during the earlier periods of their transactions, the lake of the Illinese, or Illinois. Superior, the most northwesterly, and the largest of the series, is a term which appears to have come into general use, at a comparatively early era, after the planting of the English colonies. The French bestowed upon it, unsuccessfully, one or two names, the last of which was Traci, after the French minister of this name. By the Odjibwa-Algonquins, who at the period of the French discovery, and who still occupy its borders, it is called Gitch-Igomee, or The Big Sea-water; from Gitchee, great, and guma, a generic term for bodies of water. The term IGOMA, is an abbreviated form of this, suggested for adoption. The poetry of the Indians, is the poetry of naked thought. They have neither rhyme, nor metre to adorn it. Tales and traditions occupy the place of books, with the Red Race.—They make up a kind of oral literature, which is resorted to, on long winter evenings, for the amusement of the lodge. The love of independence is so great with these tribes, that they have never been willing to load their political system with the forms of a regular government, for fear it might prove oppressive. To be governed and to be enslaved, are ideas which have been confounded by the Indians. GEOGRAPHICAL TERMINOLOGY OF THE U. STATES,DERIVED FROM THE INDIAN LANGUAGE. These Extracts are made from "CyclopÆdia Indiaensis" a MS. work in preparation. No. I. Hudson River.—By the tribes who inhabited the area of the present County of Dutchess, and other portions of its eastern banks, as low down as Tappan, this river was called Shatemuc—which is believed to be a derivative from Shata, a pelican. The Minisi, who inhabited the west banks, below the point denoted, extending indeed over all the east half of New Jersey, to the falls of the Raritan, where they joined their kindred the Lenni Lenape, or Delawares proper, called it Mohicanittuck—that is to say, River of the Mohicans. The Mohawks, and probably the other branches of the Iroquois, called it Cahohatatea—a term of which the interpreters who have furnished the word, do not give an explanation. The prefixed term Caho, it may be observed, is their name for the lower and principal falls of the Mohawk. Sometimes this prefix was doubled, with the particle ha, thrown in between. Hatatea is clearly one of those descriptive and affirmative phrases representing objects in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, which admitted as we see, in other instances of their compounds, a very wide range. By some of the more westerly Iroquois, the river was called Sanataty. Albany.—The name by which this place was known to the Iroquois, at an early day, was Schenectady, a term which, as recently pronounced by a daughter of Brant, yet living in Canada, has the still harsher sound of Skoh-nek-ta-ti, with a stress on the first, and the accent strongly on the second syllable, the third and fourth being pronounced rapidly and short. The transference of this name, to its present location, by the English, on the bestowal on the place by Col. Nichols, of a new name, derived from the Duke of York's Scottish title, is well known, and is stated, with some connected traditions, by Judge Benson, in his eccentric memoir before the New York Historical Society. The meaning of this name, as derived from the authority above quoted, is Beyond the Pines, having been applied exclusively in ancient times, to the southern end of the ancient portage path, from the Mohawk to the Hudson. By the Minci, who did not live here, but extended, however, on the west shore above Coxackie, and even Coeymans, it appears to have been called Gaishtinic. The Mohegans, who long continued to occupy the present area of Rensselaer and Columbia counties, called it Pempotawuthut, that is to say, the City or Place of the Council Fire. None of these terms appear to have Niagara.—It is not in unison, perhaps, with general expectation, to find that the exact translation of this name does not entirely fulfil poetic preconception. By the term O-ne-aw-ga-ra, the Mohawks and their co-tribes described on the return of their war excursions, the neck of water which connects lake Erie with Ontario. The term is derived from their name for the human neck. Whether this term was designed to have, as many of their names do, a symbolic import, and to denote the importance of this communication in geography, as connecting the head and heart of the country, can only be conjectured. Nor is it, in this instance, probable. When Europeans came to see the gigantic falls which marked the strait, it was natural that they should have supposed the name descriptive of that particular feature, rather than the entire river and portage. We have been assured, however, that it is not their original name for the water-fall, although with them, as with us, it may have absorbed this meaning. Buffalo.—The name of this place in the Seneca, is Te-ho-sa-ro-ro. Its import is not stated. Detroit.—By the Wyandots, this place is called Teuchsagrondie; by the Lake tribes of the Algic type, Wa-we-Á-tun-ong: both terms signify the Place of the turning or Turned Channel. It has been remarked by visiters who reach this place at night, or in dark weather, or are otherwise inattentive to the courses, that owing to the extraordinary involutions of the current the sun appears to rise in the wrong place. Chicago.—This name, in the Lake Algonquin dialects, to preserve the same mode of orthography, is derived from Chicagowunzh, the wild onion or leek. The orthography is French, as they were the discoverers and early settlers of this part of the west. Kaug, in these dialects is a porcupine, and She kaug a polecat. The analogies in these words are apparent, but whether the onion was named before or after the animal, must be judged if the age of the derivation be sought for. Tuscaloosa, a river of Alabama. From the Chacta words tushka, a warrior, and lusa black.—[Gallatin.] Aragiske, the Iroquois name for Virginia. Assarigoa, the name of the Six Nations for the Governor of Virginia. Owenagungas, a general name of the Iroquois for the New England Indians. Oteseonteo, a spring which is the head of the river Delaware. Chuah-nah-whah-hah, or Valley of the Mountains. A new pass in the Rocky Mountains, discovered within a few years. It is supposed to be in N. latitude about 40°. The western end of the valley gap is 30 miles wide, which narrows to 20 at its eastern termination, it then turns oblique to the north, and the opposing sides appear to close the pass, yet there is a narrow way quite to the foot of the mountain. On the summit there is a large beaver pond, which has outlets both ways, but the eastern stream dries early in the season, while there is a continuous flow of water west. In its course, it has several beautiful, but low cascades, and terminates in a placid and delightful stream. This pass is now used by emigrants. Aquidneck.—The Narragansett name for Rhode Island. Roger Williams observes, that he could never obtain the meaning of it from the natives. The Dutch, as appears by a map of Novi Belgii published at Amsterdam in 1659, called it Roode Eylant, or Red Island, from the autumnal colour of its foliage. The present term, as is noticed, in Vol. III. of the Collections of the R.I. Hist. Soc. is derived from this. Incapatchow, a beautiful lake in the mountains at the sources of the river Hudson.—[Charles F. Hoffman, Esq.] Housatonic, a river originating in the south-western part of Massachusetts, and flowing through the State of Connecticut into Long Island Sound, at Stratford. It is a term of Mohegan origin. This tribe on retiring eastward from the banks of the Hudson, passed over the High-lands, into this inviting valley. We have no transmitted etymology of the term, and must rely on the general principles of their vocabulary. It appears to have been called the valley of the stream beyond the Mountains, from ou, the notarial sign of wudjo, a mountain, atun, a generic phrase for stream or channel, and ic, the inflection for locality. Wea-nud-nec.—The Indian name, as furnished by Mr. O'Sullivan, [D. Rev.] for Saddle Mountain, Massachusetts. It appears to be a derivative from Wa-we-a, round, i. e. any thing round or crooked, in the inanimate creation. Ma-hai-we.—The Mohegan term, as given by Mr. Bryant [N.Y.E.P.] for Great Barrington, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Ta-ha-wus, a very commanding elevation, several thousand feet above the sea, which has of late years, been discovered at the sources of the Hudson, and named Mount Marcy. It signifies, he splits the sky.—[Charles F. Hoffman, Esq.] Mong, the name of a distinguished chief of New England, as it appears to be recorded in the ancient pictorial inscription on the Dighton Rock, in Massachusetts, who flourished before the country was colonized by the English. He was both a war captain, and a prophet, and employed the arts of the latter office, to increase his power and influence, in the former. By patient application of his ceremonial arts, he secured the confidence of a large body of men, who were led on, in the attack on his enemies, by a man named Piz-hu. In this onset, it is claimed that he killed forty men, and lost three. To the warrior who should be successful, in this enterprize, he had promised his younger sister. [Such are the leading events symbolized by this inscription, of which extracts giving full details, as interpreted by an Indian chief, now living, and read before the Am. Ethnological Society, in 1843, will be furnished, in a subsequent number.] Tioga.—A stream, and a county of the State of New-York. From Teoga, a swift current, exciting admiration. Dionderoga, an ancient name of the Mohawk tribe, for the site at the mouth of the Schoharie creek, where Fort Hunter was afterwards built [Col. W.L. Stone.] Almouchico, a generic name of the Indians for New England, as printed Irocoisia, a name bestowed in the map, above quoted, on that portion of the present state of Vermont, which lies west of the Green Mountains, stretching along the eastern bank of Lake Champlain. By the application of the word, it is perceived that the French were not alone in the use they made of the apparently derivative term "Iroquois," which they gave to the (then) Five Nations. NAMES OF THE SEASONS. The following are the names of the four seasons, in the Odjibwa tongue:
By adding the letter g to these terms, they are placed in the relation of verbs in the future tense, but a limited future, and the terms then denote next winter, &c. Years, in their account of time, are counted by winters. There is no other term, but pe-boan, for a year. The year consists of twelve lunar months, or moons. A moon is called GeÉzis, or when spoken of in contradistinction to the sun, Dibik GeÉzis, or night-sun. The cardinal points are as follows.
a. Kewadin is a compound derived from Ke-wa, to return, or come home, and nodin, the wind. b. Oshauw is, from a root not apparent, but which produces also ozau, yellow, &c. c. Waban is from ab, or wab, light. d. Kabeun, is the name of a mythological person, who is spoken of, in their fictions, as the father of the winds. The inflection ung, or oong, in each term, denotes course, place, or locality. LETTERS ON THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE WESTERN COUNTRY,THE LATE WILLIAM L. STONE, EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER. I. Wheeling (Va.), August 19th, 1843. I have just accomplished the passage of the Alleghany mountains, in the direction from Baltimore to this place, and must say, that aside from the necessary fatigue of night riding, the pass from the Cumberland mountains and Laurel Hill is one of the easiest and most free from danger of any known to me in this vast range. An excellent railroad now extends from Baltimore, by Frederick and Harper's Ferry, up the Potomac valley and its north branch quite to Cumberland, which is seated just under the mountains, whose peaks would seem to bar all farther approach. The national road finds its way, however, through a gorge, and winds about where "Alps on Alps arise," till the whole vast and broad-backed elevation is passed, and we descend west, over a smooth, well constructed macadamized road, with a velocity which is some compensation for the toil of winding our way up. Uniontown is the first principal place west. The Monongahela is crossed at Brownsville, some forty miles above Pittsburgh, whence the road, which is every where well made and secured with fine stone bridges, culverts and viaducts, winds around a succession of most enchanting hills, till it enters a valley, winds up a few more hills, and brings the travellers out, on the banks of the Ohio, at this town. I did not see any evidence of that wave-like or undulatory structure, which was brought forward as a theory last year, in an able paper forwarded by Professor Rogers, and read at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Manchester. No organic remains are, of course, visible, in this particular section, at least until we strike the coal and iron-stone formation of Pittsburgh. But I have been renewedly impressed with the opinion, so very opposite to the present geological theory, that less than seven thousand years is sufficient, on scientific principles, to account for all the phenomena of fossil plants, shells, bones and organic remains, as well as the displacements, disruptions, subsidences and rising of strata, and other evidences of extensive physical changes and disturbances on the earth's surface. And I hope to live to see some American geologist build up a theory on just philosophical and scientific principles, which shall bear the test of truth. But you will, perhaps, be ready to think that I have felt more interest in the impressions of plants in stone, than is to be found in the field of waving corn before the eye. I have, however, by no means neglected the latter; and can assure you that the crops of corn, wheat and other grains, throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania and Western Virginia, are excellent. Even the highest valleys in the Alleghanies are covered with crops of corn, or fields of stacked wheat and other grains. Generally, the soil west of the mountains is more fertile. The influence of the great western limestones, as one of its original materials, and of the oxide of iron, is clearly denoted in heavier and more thrifty cornfields along the Monongahela and Ohio valleys. Of the Ohio River itself, one who had seen it in its full flow, in April and May, would hardly recognize it now. Shrunk in a volume far below its noble banks, with long spits of sand and gravel running almost Truly yours, I have devoted several days to the examination of the antiquities of this place and its vicinity, and find them to be of even more interest than was anticipated. The most prominent object of curiosity is the great tumulus, of which notices have appeared in western papers; but this heavy structure of earth is not isolated. It is but one of a series of mounds and other evidences of ancient occupation at this point, of more than ordinary interest. I have visited and examined seven mounds, situated within a short distance of each other. They occupy the summit level of a rich alluvial plain, stretching on the left or Virginia bank of the Ohio, between the junctions of Big and Little Grave Creeks with that stream. They appear to have been connected by low earthen entrenchments, of which plain traces are still visible on some parts of the commons. They included a well, stoned up in the usual manner, which is now filled with rubbish. The summit of this plain is probably seventy-five feet above the present summer level of the Ohio. It constitutes the second bench, or rise of land, above the water. It is on this summit, and on one of the most elevated parts of it, that the great tumulus stands. It is in the shape of a broad cone, cut off at the apex, where it is some fifty feet across. This area is quite level, and commands a view of the entire plain, and of the river above and below, and the west shores of the Ohio in front. Any public transaction on this area would be visible to multitudes around it, and it has, in this respect, all the advantages of the Mexican and Yucatanese teocalli. The circumference of the base has been stated at a little under nine hundred feet; the height is sixty-nine feet. The most interesting object of antiquarian inquiry is a small flat stone, inscribed with antique alphabetic characters, which was disclosed on the opening of the large mound. These characters are in the ancient rock alphabet of sixteen right and acute angled single stokes, used by the Pelasgi and other early Mediterranean nations, and which is the parent The existence of this ancient art here could hardly be admitted, otherwise than as an insulated fact, without some corroborative evidence, in habits and customs, which it would be reasonable to look for in the existing ruins of ancient occupancy. It is thought some such testimony has been found. I rode out yesterday three miles back to the range of high hills which encompass this sub-valley, to see a rude tower of stone standing on an elevated point, called Parr's point, which commands a view of the whole plain, and which appears to have been constructed as a watch-tower, or look-out, from which to descry an approaching enemy. It is much dilapidated. About six or seven feet of the work is still entire. It is circular, and composed of rough stones, laid without mortar, or the mark of a hammer. A heavy mass of fallen wall lies around, covering an area of some forty feet in diameter. Two similar points of observation, occupied by dilapidated towers, are represented to exist, one at the prominent summit of the Ohio and Grave Creek hills, and another on the promontory on the opposite side of the Ohio, in Belmont county, Ohio. It is known to all acquainted with the warlike habits of our Indians, that they never have evinced the foresight to post a regular sentry, and these rude towers may be regarded as of cotemporaneous age with the interment of the inscription. Several polished tubes of stone have been found, in one of the lesser mounds, the use of which is not very apparent. One of these, now on my table, is 12 inches long, 1-1/4 wide at one end, and 1-1/2 at the other. It is made of a fine, compact, lead blue steatite, mottled, and has been constructed by boring, in the manner of a gun barrel. This boring is continued to within about three-eighths of an inch of the larger end, through which but a small aperture is left. If this small aperture be looked through, objects at a distance are more clearly seen. Whether it had this telescopic use, or others, the degree of art evinced in its construction is far from rude. By inserting a wooden rod and valve, this tube would be converted into a powerful syphon, or syringe. I have not space to notice one or two additional traits, which serve to awaken new interest at this ancient point of aboriginal and apparently mixed settlement, and must omit them till my next. III. Grave Creek Flats, August 24, 1843. The great mound at these flats was opened as a place of public resort about four years ago. For this purpose a horizontal gallery to its centre was dug and bricked up, and provided with a door. The centre was walled round as a rotunda, of about twenty-five feet diameter, and a shaft sunk from the top to intersect it; it was in these two excavations that the skeletons and accompanying relics and ornaments were found. All these articles are arranged for exhibition in this rotunda, which is lighted up with candles. The lowermost skeleton is almost entire, and in a good state of preservation, and is put up by means of wires, on the walls. It has been overstretched in the process so as to measure six feet; it should be about five feet eight inches. It exhibits a noble frame of the human species, bearing a skull with craniological developments of a highly favorable character. The face bones are elongated, with a long chin and symmetrical jaw, in which a full and fine set of teeth, above and below, are present. The skeletons in the upper vault, where the inscription stone was found, are nearly all destroyed. It is a damp and gloomy repository, and exhibits in the roof and walls of the rotunda one of the most extraordinary sepulchral displays which the world affords. On casting the eye up to the ceiling, and the heads of the pillars supporting it, it is found to be encrusted, or rather festooned, with a white, soft, flaky mass of matter, which had exuded from the mound above. This apparently animal exudation is as white as snow. It hangs in pendent masses and globular drops; the surface is covered with large globules of clear water, which in the reflected light have all the brilliancy of diamonds. These drops of water trickle to the floor, and occasionally the exuded white matter falls. The wooden pillars are furnished with the appearance of capitals, by this substance. That it is the result of a soil highly charged with particles of matter, arising from the decay or incineration of human bodies, is the only theory by which we may account for the phenomenon. Curious and unique it certainly is, and with the faint light of a few candles it would not require much imagination to invest the entire rotunda with sylph-like forms of the sheeted dead. An old Cherokee chief, who visited this scene, recently, with his companions, on his way to the West, was so excited and indignant at the desecration of the tumulus, by this display of bones and relics to the gaze of the white race, that he became furious and unmanageable; his friends and interpreters had to force him out, to prevent his assassinating the guide; and soon after he drowned his senses in alcohol. That this spot was a very ancient point of settlement by the hunter I have only time to add a single additional fact. Among the articles found in this cluster of mounds, the greater part are commonplace, in our western mounds and town ruins. I have noticed but one which bears the character of that unique type of architecture found by Mr. Stephens and Mr. Catherwood in Central America and Yucatan. With the valuable monumental standards of comparison furnished by these gentlemen before me, it is impossible not to recognize, in an ornamental stone, found in one of the lesser mounds here, a specimen of similar workmanship. It is in the style of the heavy feather-sculptured ornaments of Yucatan—the material being a wax yellow sand-stone, darkened by time. I have taken such notes and drawings of the objects above referred to, as will enable me, I trust, in due time, to give a connected account of them to our incipient society. IV. Massillon, Ohio, August 27th, 1843. Since my last letter I have traversed the State of Ohio, by stage, to this place. In coming up the Virginia banks of the Ohio from Moundsville, I passed a monument, of simple construction, erected to the memory of a Captain Furman and twenty-one men, who were killed by the Indians, in 1777, at that spot. They had been out, from the fort at Wheeling, on a scouting party, and were waylaid at a pass called the narrows. The Indians had dropped a pipe and some trinkets in the path, knowing that the white men would pick them up, and look at them, and while the latter were grouped together in this act, they fired and killed every man. The Indians certainly fought hard for the possession of this valley, aiming, at all times, to make up by stratagem what they lacked in numbers. I doubt whether there is in the history of the The face of the country, from the Ohio opposite Wheeling to the waters of the Tuscarawas, the north fork of the Muskingum, is a series of high rolling ridges and knolls, up and down which the stage travels slowly. Yet this section is fertile and well cultivated in wheat and corn, particularly the latter, which looks well. This land cannot be purchased under forty or fifty dollars an acre. Much of it was originally bought for seventy-five cents per acre. It was over this high, wavy land, that the old Moravian missionary road to Gnadenhutten ran, and I pursued it to within six miles of the latter place. You will recollect this locality as the scene of the infamous murder, by Williamson and his party, of the non-resisting Christian Delawares under the ministry of Heckewelder and Ziesberger. On the Stillwater, a branch of the Tuscarawas, we first come to level lands. This stream was noted, in early days, for its beaver and other furs. The last beaver seen here was shot on its banks twelve years ago. It had three legs, one having probably been caught in a trap or been bitten off. It is known that not only the beaver, but the otter, wolf and fox, will bite off a foot, to escape the iron jaws of a trap. It has been said, but I know not on what good authority, that the hare will do the same. We first struck the Ohio canal at Dover. It is in every respect a well constructed work, with substantial locks, culverts and viaducts. It is fifty feet wide at the top, and is more than adequate for all present purposes. It pursues the valley of the Tuscarawas up to the summit, by which it is connected with the Cuyahuga, whose outlet is at Cleveland. Towns and villages have sprung up along its banks, where before there was a wilderness. Nothing among them impressed me more than the town of Zoar, which is exclusively settled by Germans. There seems something of the principles of association—one of the fallacies of the age—in its large and single town store, hotel, &c., but I do not know how far they may extend. Individual property is held. The evidences of thrift and skill, in cultivation and mechanical and mill work, are most striking. Every dwelling here is surrounded with fruit and fruit trees. The botanical garden and hot-house are on a large scale, and exhibit a favorable specimen of the present state of horticulture. Among the towns which have recently sprung up on the line of the canal, not the least is the one from which I date this letter. The name of the noted French divine (Massillon) was affixed to an uncultivated spot, by some Boston gentlemen, some twelve or fourteen years ago. It is now one of the most thriving, city-looking, business places in the interior of Ohio. In the style of its stores, mills and architecture, it reminds the visitor of that extraordinary growth and spirit which marked the early years of the building of Rochester. It numbers churches for Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians, and also Lutherans and Romanists. About three hundred barrels of flour can be turned out per diem, by its mills. It is in the greatest wheat-growing county in Ohio (Stark), but is not the county-seat, which is at Canton. V. Detroit, Sept. 15th, 1843. In passing from the interior of Ohio toward Lake Erie, the face of the country exhibits, in the increased size and number of its boulder stones, evidences of the approach of the traveller toward those localities of sienites and other crystalline rocks, from which these erratic blocks and water-worn masses appear to have been, in a remote age of our planet, removed. The soil in this section has a freer mixture of the broken down slates, of which portions are still in place on the shores of Lake Erie. The result is a clayey soil, less favorable to wheat and Indian corn. We came down the cultivated valley of the Cuyahoga, and reached the banks of the lake at the fine town of Cleveland, which is elevated a hundred feet, or more, above it, and commands a very extensive view of the lake, the harbor and its ever-busy shipping. A day was employed, by stage, in this section of my tour, and the next carried me, by steamboat, to this ancient French capital. Detroit has many interesting historical associations, and appears destined, when its railroad is finished, to be the chief thoroughfare for travellers to Chicago and the Mississippi valley. As my attention has, however, been more taken Michigan connects itself in its antiquarian features with that character of pseudo-civilisation, or modified barbarianism, of which the works and mounds and circumvallations at Grave Creek Flats, at Marietta, at Circleville and other well known points, are evidences. That this improved condition of the hunter state had an ancient but partial connection with the early civilisation of Europe, appears now to be a fair inference, from the inscribed stone of Grave Creek, and other traces of European arts, discovered of late. It is also evident that the central American type of the civilisation, or rather advance to civilisation, of the red race, reached this length, and finally went down, with its gross idolatry and horrid rites, and was merged in the better known and still existing form of the hunter state which was found, respectively, by Cabot, Cartier, Verrezani, Hudson, and others, who first dropped anchor on our coasts. There is strong evidence furnished by a survey of the western country that the teocalli type of the Indian civilisation, so to call it, developed itself from the banks of the Ohio, in Tennessee and Virginia, west and north-westwardly across the sources of the Wabash, the Muskingum and other streams, toward Lake Michigan and the borders of Wisconsin territory. The chief evidences of it, in Michigan and Indiana, consist of a remarkable series of curious garden beds, or accurately furrowed fields, the perfect outlines of which have been preserved by the grass of the oak openings and prairies, and even among the heaviest forests. These remains of an ancient cultivation have attracted much attention from observing settlers on the Elkhart, the St. Joseph's, the Kalamazoo and Grand river of Michigan. I possess some drawings of these anomalous remains of by-gone industry in the hunter race, taken in former years, which are quite remarkable. It is worthy of remark, too, that no large tumuli, or teocalli, exist in this particular portion of the West, the ancient population of which may therefore be supposed to have been borderers, or frontier bands, who resorted to the Ohio valley as their capital, or place of annual visitation. All the mounds scattered through Northern Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, are mere barrows, or repositories of the dead, and would seem to have been erected posterior to the fall or decay of the gross idol worship and the offer of human sacrifice. I have, within a day or two, received a singular implement or ornament of stone, of a crescent shape, from Oakland, in this State, which connects the scattered and out-lying remains of the smaller mounds, and traces of ancient agricultural labor, with the antiquities of Grave Creek Flats. VI. Detroit, Sept. 16th, 1843. The antiquities of Western America are to be judged of by isolated and disjointed discoveries, which are often made at widely distant points and spread over a very extensive area. The labor of comparison and discrimination of the several eras which the objects of these discoveries establish, is increased by this diffusion and disconnection of the times and places of their occurrence, and is, more than all, perhaps, hindered and put back by the eventual carelessness of the discoverers, and the final loss or mutilation of the articles disclosed. To remedy this evil, every discovery made, however apparently unimportant, should in this era of the diurnal and periodical press be put on record, and the objects themselves be either carefully kept, or given to some public scientific institution. An Indian chief called the Black Eagle, of river Au Sables (Michigan), discovered a curious antique pipe of Etruscan ware, a few years ago, at Thunder Bay. This pipe, which is now in my possession, is as remarkable for its form as for the character of the earthenware from which it is made, differing as it does so entirely from the coarse earthen pots and vessels, the remains of which are scattered so generally throughout North America. The form is semi-circular or horn-shaped, with a quadrangular bowl, and having impressed in the ware ornaments at each angle. I have never before, indeed, seen any pipes of Indian manufacture of baked clay, or earthenware, such articles being generally carved out of steatite, indurated clays, or other soft mineral substances. It is a peculiarity of this pipe that it was smoked from the small end, which is rounded for the purpose of putting it between the lips, without the intervention of a stem. The discoverer told me that he had taken it from a very antique grave. A large hemlock tree, he said, had been blown down on the banks of the river, tearing up, by its roots, a large mass of earth. At the bottom of the excavation thus made he discovered a grave, which contained a vase, out of which he took the pipe with some other articles. The vase, he said, was broken, so that he did not deem it worth bringing away. The other articles he described as bones. Some time since I accompanied the chief Kewakonce, to get an ancient clay pot, such as the Indians used when the Europeans arrived on the continent. He said that he had discovered two such pots, in an entire state, in a cave, or crevice, on one of the rocky islets extending north of Point Tessalon, which is the northern cape of the entrance of the Straits of St. Mary's into Lake Huron. From this locality he had removed one of them, and concealed it at a distant point. We travelled With the exception of being cracked, this vessel is entire. It corresponds, in material and character, with the fragments of pottery usually found. It is a coarse ware, tempered with quartz or feld-spar, and such as would admit a sudden fire to be built around it. It is some ten inches in diameter, tulip-shaped, with a bending lip, and without supports beneath. It was evidently used as retorts in a sand bath, there being no contrivance for suspending it. I have forwarded this curious relic entire to the city for examination. I asked the chief who presented it to me, and who is a man of good sense, well acquainted with Indian traditions, how long it was since such vessels had been used by his ancestors. He replied, that he was the seventh generation, in a direct line, since the French had first arrived in the lakes. VII. Detroit, Sept. 16th, 1843. There was found, in an island at the west extremity of Lake Huron, an ancient repository of human bones, which appeared to have been gathered from their first or ordinary place of sepulture, and placed in this rude mausoleum. The island is called Isle Ronde by the French, and is of small dimensions, although it has a rocky basis and affords sugar maple and other trees of the hard wood species. This repository was first disclosed by the action of the lake against a diluvial shore, in which the bones were buried. At the time of my visit, vertebrÆ, tibiÆ, portions of crania and other bones were scattered down the fallen bank, and served to denote the place of their interment, which was on the margin of the plain. Some persons supposed that the leg and thigh bones denoted an unusual length; but by placing them hip by hip with the living specimen, this opinion was not sustained. All these bones had been placed longitudinally. They were arranged in order, in a wide grave, or trench. Contrary to the usual practice of the present tribes of red men, the skeletons were laid north and south. I asked In a small plain on the same island, near the above repository, is a long abandoned Indian burial-ground, in which the interments are made in the ordinary way. This, I understood from the Indians, is of the era of the occupation of Old Mackinac, or Peekwutinong, as they continue to call it—a place which has been abandoned by both whites and Indians, soldiers and missionaries, about seventy years. I caused excavations to be made in these graves, and found their statements to be generally verified by the character of the articles deposited with the skeletons; at least they were all of a date posterior to the discovery of this part of the country by the French. There were found the oxydated remains of the brass mountings of a chief's fusil, corroded fire steels and other steel implements, vermillion, wampum, and other cherished or valued articles. I sent a perfect skull, taken from one of these graves, to Dr. Morton, the author of "Crania," while he was preparing that work. No Indians have resided on this island within the memory of any white man or Indian with whom I have conversed. An aged chief whom I interrogated, called Saganosh, who has now been dead some five or six years, told me that he was a small boy when the present settlement on the island of Michilimackinac was commenced, and the English first took post there, and began to remove their cattle, &c., from the old fort on the peninsula, and it was about that time that the Indian village of Minnisains, or Isle Ronde, was abandoned. It had before formed a link, as it were, in the traverse of this part of the lake (Huron) in canoes to old Mackinac. The Indians opposed the transfer of the post to the island of Michilimackinac, and threatened the troops who were yet in the field. They had no cannon, but the commanding officer sent a vessel to Detroit for one. This vessel had a quick trip, down and up, and brought up a gun, which was fired the evening she came into the harbor. This produced an impression. I have made some inquiries to fix the date of this transfer of posts, and think it was at or about the opening of the era of the American revolution, at which period the British garrison did not feel itself safe in a mere stockade of timber on the main shore. This stockade, dignified with the name of a fort, had not been burned on the taking of it, by surprise, and the massacre of the English troops by the Indians, during Pontiac's war. This massacre, it will be recollected, was in 1763—twelve years before the opening of the American war. VIII. Detroit, Oct. 13th, 1843. The so-called copper rock of Lake Superior was brought to this place, a day or two since, in a vessel from Sault Ste-Marie, having been transported from its original locality, on the Ontonagon river, at no small labor and expense. It is upwards of twenty-three years since I first visited this remarkable specimen of native copper, in the forests of Lake Superior. It has been somewhat diminished in size and weight, in the meantime, by visitors and travellers in that remote quarter; but retains, very well, its original character and general features. I have just returned from a re-examination of it in a store, in one of the main streets of this city, where it has been deposited by the present proprietor, who designs to exhibit it to the curious. Its greatest length is four feet six inches; its greatest width about four feet; its maximum thickness eighteen inches. These are rough measurements with the rule. It is almost entirely composed of malleable copper, and bears striking marks of the visits formerly paid to it, in the evidences of portions which have from time to time been cut off. There are no scales in the city large enough, or other means of ascertaining its precise weight, and of thus terminating the uncertainty arising from the several estimates heretofore made. It has been generally estimated here, since its arrival, to weigh between six and seven thousand pounds, or about three and a half tons, and is by far the largest known and described specimen of native copper on the globe. Rumors of a larger piece in South America are apocryphal. The acquisition, to the curious and scientific world, of this extraordinary mass of native metal is at least one of the practical results of the copper-mining mania which carried so many adventurers northward, into the region of Lake Superior, the past summer (1843). The person who has secured this treasure (Mr. J. Eldred) has been absent, on the business, since early in June. He succeeded in removing it from its diluvial bed on the banks of the river, by a car and sectional railroad of two links, formed of timber. The motive power was a tackle attached to trees, which was worked by men, from fourteen to twenty of whom were employed upon it. These rails were alternately moved forward, as the car passed from the hindmost. In this manner the rock was dragged four miles and a half, across a rough country, to a curve of the river below its falls, and below the junction of its forks, where it was received by a boat, and conveyed to the mouth of the river, on the lake shore. At this point it was put on board a schooner, and taken to the falls, or Sault Ste-Marie, and thence, having been transported across the portage, embarked for Detroit. The What is to be its future history and disposition remains to be seen. It will probably find its way to the museum of the National Institute in the new patent office at Washington. This would be appropriate, and it is stated that the authorities have asserted their ultimate claim to it, probably under the 3d article of the treaty of Fond du Lac, of the 5th of August, 1826. I have no books at hand to refer to the precise time, so far as known, when this noted mass of copper first became known to Europeans. Probably a hundred and eighty years have elapsed. Marquette, and his devoted companion, passed up the shores of Lake Superior about 1668, which was several years before the discovery of the Mississippi, by that eminent missionary, by the way of the Wisconsin. From the letters of D'Ablon at Sault Ste-Marie, it appears to have been known prior to the arrival of La Salle. These allusions will be sufficient to show that the rock has a historical notoriety. Apart from this, it is a specimen which is, both mineralogically and geologically, well worthy of national preservation. It is clearly a boulder, and bears marks of attrition from the action of water, on some parts of its rocky surface as well as the metallic portions. A minute mineralogical examination and description of it are required. The adhering rock, of which there is less now than in 1820, is apparently serpentine, in some parts steatitic, whereas the copper ores of Keweena Point on that lake, are found exclusively in the amygdaloids and greenstones of the trap formation. A circular depression of opaque crystalline quartz, in the form of a semi-geode, exists in one face of it; other parts of the mass disclose the same mineral. Probably 300 lbs. of the metal have been hacked off, or detached by steel chisels, since it has been known to the whites, most of this within late years. IX. Detroit, Oct. 16th, 1843. In the rapid development of the resources and wealth of the West, there is no object connected with the navigation of the upper lakes of more prospective importance than the improvement of the delta, or flats of the St. Clair. It is here that the only practical impediment occurs to the passage of heavy shipping, between Buffalo and Chicago. This delta is formed by deposits at the point of discharge of the river St. Clair, into Lake St. Clair, and occurs at the estimated distance of about thirty- There are three principal channels, besides sub-channels, which carry a depth of from four to six fathoms to the very point of their exit into the lake, where there is a bar in each. This bar, as is shown by the chart of a survey made by officers Macomb and Warner, of the topographical engineers, in 1842, is very similar to the bars at the mouths of the upper lake rivers, and appears to be susceptible of removal, or improvement, by similar means. The north channel carries nine feet of water over this bar, the present season, and did the same in 1842, and is the one exclusively used by vessels and steamboats. To the latter this tortuous channel, which is above ten miles farther round than the middle channel, presents no impediment, besides the intricacies of the bar, but increased distance. It is otherwise, and ever must remain so, to vessels propelled by sails. Such vessels, coming up with a fair wind, find the bend so acute and involved at Point aux Chenes, at the head of this channel, as to bring the wind directly ahead. They are, consequently, compelled to cast anchor, and await a change of wind to turn this point. A delay of eight or ten days in the upward passage, is not uncommon at this place. Could the bar of the middle channel, which is direct, be improved, the saving in both time and distance above indicated would be made. This is an object of public importance, interesting to all the lake States and Territories, and would constitute a subject of useful consideration for Congress. Every year is adding to the number and size of our lake vessels. The rate of increase which doubles our population in a given number of years must also increase the lake tonnage, and add new motives for the improvement of its navigation. Besides the St. Clair delta, I know of no other impediment in the channel itself, throughout the great line of straits between Buffalo and Chicago, which prudence and good seamanship, and well found vessels, may not ordinarily surmount. The rapids at Black Rock, once so formidable, have long been obviated by the canal dam. The straits of Detroit have been well surveyed, and afford a deep, navigable channel at all times. The rapids at the head of the river St. Clair, at Port Huron, have a sufficiency of water for vessels of the largest class, and only require a fair wind for their ascent. The straits of Michilimackinac are believed to be on the same water level as Lakes Huron and Michigan, and only present the phenomenon of a current setting east or west, in compliance with certain laws of the reaction of water driven by winds. Such are the slight impediments on this extraordinary line of inland lake navigation, which is carried on at an average altitude of something less than 600 feet above the tide level X. Dundas, Canada West, Oct. 26th, 1843. Fortunately for the study of American antiquities the aborigines have, from the earliest period, practised the interment of their arms, utensils and ornaments, with the dead, thus furnishing evidence of the particular state of their skill in the arts, at the respective eras of their history. To a people without letters there could scarcely have been a better index than such domestic monuments furnish, to determine these eras; and it is hence that the examination of their mounds and burial-places assumes so important a character in the investigation of history. Heretofore these inquiries have been confined to portions of the continent south and west of the great chain of lakes and the St. Lawrence; but the advancing settlements in Canada, at this time, are beginning to disclose objects of this kind, and thus enlarge the field of inquiry. I had, yesterday, quite an interesting excursion to one of these ancient places of sepulture north of the head of Lake Ontario. The locality is in the township of Beverly, about twelve miles distant from Dundas. The rector of the parish, the Rev. Mr. McMurray, had kindly made arrangements for my visit. We set out at a very early hour, on horseback, the air being keen, and the mud and water in the road so completely frozen as to bear our horses. We ascended the mountain and passed on to the table land, about four miles, to the house of a worthy parishioner of Mr. McM., by whom we were kindly welcomed, and after giving us a warm breakfast, he took us on, with a stout team, about six miles on the Guelph road. Diverging from this, about two miles to the left, through a heavy primitive forest, with occasional clearings, we came to the spot. It is in the 6th concession of Beverly. We were now about seventeen miles, by the road, from the extreme head of Lake Ontario, at the town of Hamilton, Burlington Bay; and on one of the main branches of the bright and busy mill-stream of the valley of Dundas. As this part of the country is yet encumbered with dense and almost unbroken masses of trees, with roads unformed, we had frequently to inquire our way, and at length stopped on the skirts of an elevated beech ridge, upon which the trees stood as large and thickly as It is some five or six years since the discovery was made. It happened from the blowing down of a large tree, whose roots laid bare a quantity of human bones. Search was then made, and has been renewed at subsequent times, the result of which has been the disclosure of human skeletons in such abundance and massive quantities as to produce astonishment. This is the characteristic feature. Who the people were, and how such an accumulation should have occurred, are questions which have been often asked. And the interest of the scene is by no means lessened on observing that the greater part of these bones are deposited, not in isolated and single graves as the Indians now bury, but in wide and long trenches and rude vaults, in which the skeletons are piled longitudinally upon each other. In this respect they resemble a single deposit, mentioned in a prior letter, as occurring on Isle Ronde, in Lake Huron. And they would appear, as is the case with the latter, to be re-interments of bodies, after the flesh had decayed, collected from their first places of sepulture. No one—not the oldest inhabitant—remembers the residence of Indians in this location, nor does there appear to be any tradition on the subject. It is a common opinion among the settlers that there must have been a great battle fought here, which would account for the accumulation, but this idea does not appear to be sustained by an examination of the skulls, which, so far as I saw, exhibit no marks of violence. Besides, there are present the bones and crania of women and children, with implements and articles of domestic use, such as are ordinarily deposited with the dead. The supposition of pestilence, to account for the number, is subject to less objection; yet, if admitted, there is no imaginable state of Indian population in this quarter, which could have produced such heaps. The trenches, so far as examined, extend over the entire ridge. One of the transverse deposits, I judged, could not include less than fifteen hundred square feet. The whole of this had been once dug over, in search of curiosities, such as pipes, shells, beads, &c., of which a large number were found. Among the evidences of interments here since the discovery of Canada, were several brass kettles, in one of which were five infant skulls. Could we determine accurately the time required for the growth of a beech, or a black oak, as they are found on these deposits, of sixteen, eighteen and twenty inches and two feet in diameter, the date of the abandonment or completion of the interments might be very nearly fixed. We passed some ancient beaver dams, and were informed that the country east and north bears similar evidences of its former occupation by the small furred animals. The occurrence of the sugar maple adds another element of Indian subsistence. There are certain enigmatical walls of earth, in this vicinity, which extend several miles across the country, following the leading ridges of land. Accounts vary in representing them to extend from five to eight miles. These I did not see, but learn that they are about six feet high, and present intervals as if for gates. There is little likelihood that these walls were constructed for purposes of military defence, remote as they are from the great waters, and aside from the great leading war-paths. It is far more probable that they were intended to intercept the passage of game, and compel the deer to pass through these artificial defiles, where the hunters lay in wait for them. Ancient Iroquois tradition, as preserved by Colden, represents this section of Canada, extending quite to Three Rivers, as occupied by the Adirondacks; a numerous, fierce, and warlike race, who carried on a determined war against the Iroquois. The same race, who were marked as speaking a different type of languages, were, at an early day, called by the French by the general term of Algonquins. They had three chief residences on the Utawas and its sources, and retired northwestwardly, by that route, on the increase of the Iroquois power. Whoever the people were who hunted and buried their dead at Beverly, it is manifest that they occupied the district at and prior to the era of the discovery of Canada, and also continued to occupy it, after the French had introduced the fur trade into the interior. For we find, in the manufactured articles buried, the distinctive evidences of both periods. The antique bone beads, of which we raised many, in situ, with crania and other bones, from beneath the roots of trees, are in every respect similar to those found in the Grave Creek mound, which have been improperly called "Ivory." Amulets of bone and shell, and pipes of fine Having made such excavations as limited time and a single spade would permit, we retraced our way to Dundas, which we reached after nightfall, a little fatigued, but well rewarded in the examination of an object which connects, in several particulars, the antiquities of Canada with those of the United States. ERA OF THE SETTLEMENT OF DETROIT, AND THE STRAITS BETWEEN LAKES ERIE AND HURON.The following papers, relative to the early occupancy of these straits, were copied from the originals in the public archives in Paris, by Gen. Cass, while he exercised the functions of minister at the court of France. The first relates to an act of occupancy made on the banks of a tributary of the Detroit river, called St. Deny's, probably the river Aux Canards. The second coincides with the period usually assigned as the origin of the post of Detroit. They are further valuable, for the notice which is incidentally taken of the leading tribes, who were then found upon these straits. It will be recollected, in perusing these documents, that La Salle had passed these straits on his way to "the Illinois," in 1679, that is, eight years before the act of possession at St. Deny's, and twenty-two years before the establishment of the post of Detroit. The upper lakes had then, however, been extensively laid open to the enterprise of the missionaries, and of the adventurers in the fur trade. Marquette, accompanied by Alloez, had visited the south shore of Lake Superior in 1668, and made a map of the region, which was published in the Lettres Edifiantes. This zealous and energetic man established the mission of St. Ignace at Michilimackinac, about 1669 or 1670, and three years afterwards, entered the upper Mississippi, from the Wisconsin. Vincennes, on the Wabash, was established in 1710; Canada, 7th June, 1687.
This day, the 7th of June, 1687, in presence of the Rev'd Father Angeleran, Head of the Missions with the Ottawas The present act passed in our presence, signed by our hands, and by Rev. Father Angeleran, of the society of Jesuits, by MM. De la Forest, De Lisle and De Beauvais, thus in the original:
Compared by me with the original in my hands, Councillor Secretary of the King, and Register in Chief of the Royal Council at Quebec, subscribed, and each page paraphe. Collated at Quebec, this 11th September, 1712.
Q. Was it not in 1699 that you proposed to me an establishment in the Straits which separate Lake Erie from Lake Huron? A. Yes, my Lord. Q. What were the motives which induced you to wish to fortify a place there, and make an establishment? A. I had several. The first was to make a strong post, which should not be subject to the revolutions of other posts, by fixing there a number Q. At what time did you leave Quebec to go to Detroit? A. On the 8th of March, 1701. I reached Montreal the 12th, when we were obliged to make a change. * * * * I left La Chine the 5th of June with fifty soldiers and fifty Canadians—Messrs. De Fonty, Captain, Duque and Chacornach, Lieutenants. I was ordered to pass by the Grand River of the Ottawas, notwithstanding my remonstrances. I arrived at Detroit the 24th July and fortified myself there immediately; had the necessary huts made, and cleared up the grounds, preparatory to its being sowed in the autumn. Compare these data, from the highest sources, with the Indian tradition of the first arrival of the French, in the upper lakes, recorded at page 107, Oneota, No. 2. THE CHOCTAW INDIANS.The Vicksburg Sentinel of the 18th ult., referring to this tribe of Indians, has the following:—"The last remnant of this once powerful tribe are now crossing our ferry on their way to their new homes in the far West. To one who, like the writer, has been familiar to their bronze inexpressive faces from infancy, it brings associations of peculiar sadness to see them bidding here a last farewell perhaps to the old hills which gave birth, and are doubtless equally dear to him and them alike. The first playmates of our infancy were the young Choctaw boys of the then woods of Warren county. Their language was once scarcely less familiar to us than our mother-English. We know, we think, the character of the Choctaw well. We knew many of their present stalwart braves in those days of early life when the Indian and white alike forget disguise, but in the unchecked exuberance of youthful feeling show the real character that policy and habit may afterwards so much conceal; and we know that, under the stolid stoic look he assumes, there is burning in the Indian's nature a heart of fire and feeling, and an all-observing keenness of apprehension, that marks and remembers everything that occurs, and every insult he receives. Cunni-at a hah! They are going away! With a visible reluctance which nothing has overcome but the stern necessity they feel impelling them, they have looked their last on the graves of their sires—the scenes of their youth—and have taken up their slow toilsome march, with their household gods among them, to their new home in a strange land. They leave names to many of our rivers, towns and counties; and so long as our State remains, the Choctaws, who once owned most of her soil, will be remembered." A SYNOPSIS OF CARTIER'S VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY AT NORTH AMERICA. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "——a monster of so frightful mien, |
| That to be hated, needs but to be seen." |
Like the genie of Arabic fable, it has risen up, where it was least expected, and stalked through the most secret and the most public apartments. And wherever it has appeared, it has prostrated the human mind. It has silenced the voice of eloquence in the halls of justice and legislation. It has absorbed the brain of the scientific lecturer. It has caused the sword to drop from the hand of the military leader. It has stupefied the author in his study, and the pastor in his desk. It has made the wife a widow in her youth, and caused the innocent child to weep upon a father's grave. We dare not look beyond it. Hope, who has attended the victim of intemperance through all the changes of his downward fortune, and not forsaken him in any other exigency, has forsaken here. Earth had its vanities to solace him, but eternity has none.
Love, joy, and friendship's fame, and fortune's cross,
The wound that mars the flesh—the instant pain
That racks the palsied limb, or fever'd brain,
All—all the woes that life can feel or miss,
All have their hopes, cures, palliatives, but this—
This only—mortal canker of the mind,
Grim Belial's last attempt on human kind."
If such, then, are the effects of ardent spirits upon the condition of civilized man, who has the precepts of instructed reason to enlighten him, and the consolations of Christianity to support him, what must be the influence of intemperate habits upon the aboriginal tribes? I propose to offer a few considerations upon this subject. And in so doing I disclaim all intention of imputing to one nation of the European stock, more than the other, the national crime of having introduced ardent spirits among the American Indians. Spaniards, Portuguese, Swedes, Dutch, Italians, Russians, Germans, French and English, all come in for a share of the obloquy. They each brought ardent spirits to the New World—a proof, it may be inferred, of their general use, as a drink in Europe, at the era of the discovery. Whatever other articles the first adventurers took to operate upon the hopes and fears of the new found people, distilled
Nor do we, as Americans, affect to have suddenly succeeded to a better state of feelings respecting the natives than our English ancestry possessed. They were men of sterling enterprise; of undaunted resolution; of high sentiments of religious and political liberty. And we owe to them and to the peculiar circumstances in which Providence placed us, all that we are, as a free and a prosperous people. But while they bequeathed to us these sentiments as the preparatives of our own national destiny, they also bequeathed to us their peculiar opinions respecting the Indian tribes. And these opinions have been cherished with obstinacy, even down to our own times. The noble sentiments of benevolence of the 19th century had not dawned, when we assumed our station in the family of nations. If they were felt by gifted individuals, they were not felt by the body of the nation. Other duties—the imperious duties of self-existence, national poverty, wasted resources, a doubtful public credit, a feeble population, harassing frontier wars, pressed heavily upon us. But we have seen all these causes of national depression passing away, in less than half a century. With them, it may be hoped, have passed away, every obstacle to the exercise of the most enlarged charity, and enlightened philanthropy, respecting the native tribes.
Nationality is sometimes as well characterized by small as by great things—by names, as by customs. And this may be observed in the treatment of the Indians, so far as respects the subject of ardent spirits. Under the French government they were liberally supplied with brandy. Under the English, with Jamaica rum. Under the Americans, with whisky. These constitute the fire, the gall, and the poison ages of Indian history. Under this triple curse they have maintained an existence in the face of a white population. But it has been an existence merely. Other nations are said to have had a golden age. But there has been no golden age for them. If there ever was a state of prosperity among them, which may be likened to it, it was when their camps were crowned with temporal abundance—when the races of animals, furred and unfur
Historical writers do not always agree: but they coincide in their testimony respecting the absence of any intoxicating drink among the northern Indians, at the time of the discovery. It is well attested that the Azteeks, and other Mexican and Southern tribes, had their pulque, and other intoxicating drinks, which they possessed the art of making from various native grains and fruits. But the art itself was confined, with the plants employed, to those latitudes. And there is no historical evidence to prove that it was ever known or practised by the tribes situated north and east of the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Robertson, an able and faithful describer of Indian manners, fully concurs with the Jesuit authors, in saying that no such beverage was known in the north, until Europeans found it for their pecuniary interest to supply it. After which, intoxication became as common among the northern as the southern tribes.
Three hundred and forty years ago there was not a white man in America. Columbus discovered the West India Islands; but Cabot and Verrizani were the discoverers of North America. Cartier and Hudson followed in the track. The first interview of Hudson with the Mohegan tribes, took place at the mouth of the river which now bears his name. It is remarkable as the scene of the first Indian intoxication among them. He had no sooner cast anchor, and landed from his boat, and passed a friendly salutation with the natives, than he ordered a bottle of ardent spirits to be brought. To show that he did not intend to offer them what he would not himself taste, an attendant poured him out a cup of the liquor, which he drank off. The cup was then filled and passed to the Indians. But they merely smelled of it and passed it on. It had nearly gone round the circle untasted, when one of the chiefs, bolder than the rest, made a short harangue, saying it would be disrespectful to return it untasted, and declaring his intention to drink off the potion, if he should be killed in the attempt. He drank it off. Dizziness and stu
Nor was the first meeting with the New England tribes very dissimilar. It took place at Plymouth, in 1620. Massasoit, the celebrated chief of the Pokanokets, came to visit the new settlers, not long after their landing. He was received by the English governor with military music and the discharge of some muskets. After which, the Governor kissed his hand. Massasoit then kissed him, and they both sat down together. "A pot of strong water," as the early writers expressed it, was then ordered, from which both drank. The chief, in his simplicity, drank so great a draught that it threw him into a violent perspiration during the remainder of the interview.
The first formal interview of the French with the Indians of the St. Lawrence is also worthy of being referred to, as it appears to have been the initial step in vitiating the taste of the Indians, by the introduction of a foreign drink. It took place in 1535, on board one of Cartier's ships, lying at anchor near the Island of Orleans, forty-nine years before the arrival of Amidas and Barlow on the coast of Virginia. Donnaconna, a chief who is courteously styled the "Lord of Agouhanna," visited the ship with twelve canoes. Ten of these he had stationed at a distance, and with the other two, containing sixteen men, he approached the vessels. When he drew near the headmost vessel, he began to utter an earnest address, accompanied with violent gesticulation. Cartier hailed his approach in a friendly manner. He had, the year before, captured two Indians on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and he now addressed the chief through their interpretation. Donnaconna listened to his native language with delight, and was so much pleased with the recital they gave, that he requested Cartier to reach his arm over the side of the vessel, that he might kiss it. He was not content with this act of salutation, but fondled it, by drawing the arm gently around his neck. His watchful caution did not, however, permit him to venture on board. Cartier, willing to give him a proof of his confidence, then descended into the chief's canoe, and ordered bread and wine to be brought. They ate and drank together, all the Indians present participating in the banquet, which appears to have been terminated in a temperate manner.
But like most temperate beginnings in the use of spirits, it soon led to intemperance in its most repulsive forms. The taste enkindled by wine, was soon fed with brandy, and spread among the native bands like a wildfire. It gave birth to disease, discord, and crime, in their most
| "My bane and antidote are both before me: |
| While this informs me I shall never die, |
| This in a moment brings me to my end." |
National rivalry, between the English and French governments, gave a character of extreme bitterness to the feelings of the Indians, and served to promote the passion for strong drink. It added to the horrors of war, and accumulated the miseries of peace. It was always a struggle between these nations which should wield the Indian power; and, so far as religion went, it was a struggle between the Catholic and Protestant tenets. It was a power which both had, in a measure, the means of putting into motion: but neither had the complete means of controlling it, if we concede to them the perfect will. It would have mitigated the evil, if this struggle for mastering the Indian mind had terminated with a state of war, but it was kept up during the feverish intermissions of peace. Political influence was the ever-present weight in each side of the scale. Religion threw in her aid; but it was trade, the possession of the fur trade, that gave the preponderating weight. And there is nothing in the history of this rivalry, from the arrival of Roberval to the death of Montcalm, that had so permanently pernicious an influence as the sanction which this trade gave to the use of ardent spirits.
We can but glance at this subject; but it is a glance at the track of a tornado. Destruction lies in its course. The history of the fur trade is closely interwoven with the history of intemperance among the Indians. We know not how to effect the separation. Look at it in what era you will, the barter in ardent spirits constitutes a prominent feature. From Jamestown to Plymouth—from the island of Manhattan to the Lake of the Hills, the traffic was introduced at the earliest periods. And we cannot now put our finger on the map, to indicate a spot where ardent spirits is not known to the natives. Is it at the mouth of the Columbia,
The French, who have endeared themselves so much in the affections of the Indians, were earlier in Canada than the English upon the United States' coast. Cartier's treat of wine and bread to the Iroquois of the St. Lawrence, happened eighty-five years before the landing of the Pilgrims. They were also earlier to perceive the evils of an unrestrained trade, in which nothing was stipulated, and nothing prohibited. To prevent its irregularities, licenses were granted by the French government to individuals, on the payment of a price. It was a boon to superannuated officers, and the number was limited. In 1685, the number was twenty-five. But the remedy proved worse than the disease. These licenses became negotiable paper. They were sold from hand to hand, and gave birth to a traffic, which assumed the same character in temporal affairs, that "indulgences" did in spiritual. They were, in effect, licenses to commit every species of wrong, for those who got them at last, were generally persons under the government of no high standard of moral responsibility; and as they may be supposed to have paid well for them, they were sure to make it up by excessive exactions upon the Indians. Courier du bois, was the term first applied to them. Merchant voyageur, was the appellation at a subsequent period. But whatever they were called, one spirit actuated them—the spirit of acquiring wealth by driving a gainful traffic with an ignorant people, and for this purpose ardent spirits was but too well adapted. They transported it, along with articles of necessity, up long rivers, and over difficult portages. And when they had reached the borders of the Upper Lakes, or the banks of the Sasketchawine, they were too far removed from the influence of courts, both judicial and ecclesiastical, to be in much dread of them. Feuds, strifes, and murders ensued. Crime strode unchecked through the land. Every Indian trader became a legislator and a judge. His word was not only a law, but it was a law which possessed the property of undergoing as many repeals and mutations as the interest, the pride, or the passion of the individual rendered expedient. If wealth was accumulated, it is not intended to infer that the pressing wants of the Indians were not relieved—that the trade was not a very acceptable and important one to them, and that great peril and expense were not encoun
Those who entertain the opinion that the fall of Quebec, celebrated in England and America as a high military achievement, and the consequent surrender of Canada, produced any very important improvement in this state of things, forget that the leading principles and desires of the human heart are alike in all nations, acting under like circumstances. The desire of amassing wealth—the thirst for exercising power—the pride of information over ignorance—the power of vicious over virtuous principles, are not confined to particular eras, nations, or latitudes. They belong to mankind, and they will be pursued with a zeal as irrespective of equal and exact justice, wherever they are not restrained by the ennobling maxims of Christianity.
Whoever feels interested in looking back into this period of our commercial Indian affairs, is recommended to peruse the published statistical and controversial volumes, growing out of the Earl of Selkirk's schemes of colonization, and to the proceedings of the North West Company. This iron monopoly grew up out of private adventure. Such golden accounts were brought out of the country by the Tods, the Frobishers, and the M'Tavishes, and M'Gillvrays, who first visited it, that every bold man, who had either talents or money, rushed to the theatre of action. The boundary which had been left to the French, as the limit of trade, was soon passed. The Missinipi, Athabasca, Fort Chipewyan, Slave lake, Mackenzie's and Copper Mine Rivers, the Unjigah and the Oregon, were reached in a few years. All Arctic America was penetrated. The British government is much indebted to Scottish enterprise for the extension of its power and resources in this quarter. But while we admire the zeal and boldness with which the limits of the trade were extended, we regret that a belief in the necessity of using ardent spirits caused them to be introduced, in any quantity, among the North West tribes.
Other regions have been explored to spread the light of the gospel. This was traversed to extend the reign of intemperance, and to prove that the love of gain was so strongly implanted in the breast of the white man, as to carry him over regions of ice and snow, woods and waters, where the natives had only been intruded on by the Musk Ox and the Polar bear. Nobody will deem it too much to say, that wherever the current of the fur trade set, the nations were intoxicated, demoralized, depopulated. The terrible scourge of the small pox, which broke out in the country north west of Lake Superior in 1782, was scarcely more fatal to the natives, though more rapid and striking in its effects, than the
But while the products of the chase have yielded wealth to the white man, they have produced misery to the Indian. The latter, suffering for the means of subsistence, like the child in the parable, had asked for bread, and he received it; but, with it, he received a scorpion. And it is the sting of the scorpion, that has been raging among the tribes for more than two centuries, causing sickness, death, and depopulation in its track. It is the venom of this sting, that has proved emphatically
Curse to all states of man, but most to this."
Let me not be mistaken, in ascribing effects disproportionate to their cause, or in overlooking advantages which have brought along in their train, a striking evil. I am no admirer of that sickly philosophy, which looks back upon a state of nature as a state of innocence, and which cannot appreciate the benefits the Indian race have derived from the discovery of this portion of the world by civilized and Christian nations. But while I would not, on the one hand, conceal my sense of the advantages, temporal and spiritual, which hinge upon this discovery, I would not, on the other, disguise the evils which intemperance has caused among them; nor cease to hold it up, to the public, as a great and destroying evil, which was early introduced—which has spread extensively—which is in active operation, and which threatens yet more disastrous consequences to this unfortunate race.
Writers have not been wanting, who are prone to lay but little stress upon the destructive influence of ardent spirits, in diminishing the native population, and who have considered its effects as trifling in comparison to the want of food, and the enhanced price created by this want.
Such is no exaggerated picture of the Indian, who is in a situation to contract the habit of intemperance. And it is only within the last year or eighteen months—it is only since the operation of Temperance principles has been felt in this remote place, that scenes of this kind have become unfrequent, and have almost ceased in our village, and in our settlement. And when we look abroad to other places, and observe the spread of temperance in the wide area from Louisiana to Maine, we may almost fancy we behold the accomplishment of Indian fable. It is related, on the best authority, that among the extravagances of Spanish enterprise, which characterized the era of the discovery of America, the natives had reported the existence of a fountain in the interior of one of the islands, possessed of such magical virtues, that whoever bathed in its Waters would be restored to the bloom of youth and the vigor of manhood. In search of this wonderful fountain historians affirm, that Ponce de Leon and his followers ranged the island. They only, however, drew upon themselves the charge of credulity. May we not suppose this tale of the salutary fountain to be an Indian allegory of temperance? It will, at least, admit of this application. And let us rejoice that, in the era of temperance, we have found the spring which will restore bloom to the cheeks of the young man, and the panacea that will remove disease from the old.
If neither of these evils will result—if the highest principles of virtue and happiness sanction the measure—if learning applauds it, and religion approves it—if good must result from its success, and injury cannot accrue from its failure, what further motive need we to impel us onward, to devote our best faculties in the cause, and neither to faint nor rest till the modern hydra of intemperance be expelled from our country?
VENERABLE INDIAN CHIEF.
The Cattaraugus (N.Y.) Whig, of a late date, mentions that Gov. Blacksnake, the Grand Sachem of the Indian nation, was recently in that place. He resides on the Alleghany Reservation, about twenty miles from the village; is the successor of Corn Planter, as chief of the Six Nations—a nephew of Joseph Brant, and uncle of the celebrated Red Jacket. He was born hear Cayuga Lake in 1749, being now ninety-six years of age. He was in the battle of Fort Stanwix, Wyoming, &c., and was a warm friend of Gen. Washington during the Revolution. He was in Washington's camp forty days at the close of the Revolution—was appointed chief by him, and now wears suspended from his neck a beautiful silver medal presented to him by Gen. Washington, bearing date 1796.
