The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies Part 25

_The Haidah._--Queen Charlotte's, and the southern extremity of the Prince of Wales' Archipelago, are the parts to which the Indians speaking the Haidah language have been referred. In case, however, any members of their family extend into the British territory, they are mentioned here.

Three Haidah tribes are more particularly named--

_a._ The _Skittegat_.

_b._ The _c.u.mshahas_--a name remarkably like that of the _Chimsheyan_, hereafter to be noticed.

_c._ The _Kygani_.

_The Tungaas._--This is the name of the language of the most Northern Indians, with which the Hudson's Bay Company comes in contact. It is Koluch; and more Russian than British.

The chief authority is Dr. Scouler. The whole of his valuable remarks upon the North-western Indians, is a commentary upon the a.s.sertion already made as to the extent which we have formed our ideas of the Aboriginal American upon the Algonkins and Iroquois exclusively; and his facts are a correction to our inferences. In what way do the moral and intellectual characters of the Western Indians differ from those of the Eastern? I shall give the answer in Dr. Scouler's only terms. They are less inflexible in character. Their range of ideas is greater. They are imitative and docile. They are comparatively humane.[77] No scalping. No excessive torture of prisoners. No probationary inflictions.

Now--whether negative or positive--there is not one of those characteristics wherein the Western American differs from the Eastern, in which he does not, at the same time, approach the Eskimo. In the absence of the scalping-knife, the tomahawk, the council fire, the wampum-belt, the hero chief, and the metaphorical orator, the Eskimo differs from the Ojibway, the Huron, and the Mohawk. True. But the Haidah and the Chimsheyan do the same.

The religion of the Algonkin and Iroquois is Shamanistic; like the Negro of Africa they attribute to some material object mysterious powers. As far as the term has been defined, this is Feticism. But, then, like the Finn, and the Samoeid of Siberia, they either seek for themselves or reverence in others, the excitement of fasting, charms, and dreams. As far as the term has been defined this is Shamanism. Now lest our notions as to the religion of the Indians be rendered unduly favourable through the ideas of pure theism, called up by the missionary term _Great Spirit_, we must simply remember, in the first place, that the term is _ours_, not _theirs_; and that those who, by looking to facts rather than words, have criticised it, have arrived at the conclusion that the creed of the Indians of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi is neither better nor worse than the creed of the Indians of the Columbia. Both are alike, Shamanistic. And so is the Eskimo.

The names in detail of the Indians of British Oregon, over and above those of the Athabaskan family already enumerated, are as follows; Dr.

Scouler still being the authority, and, along with him, Mr. Tolmie and Mr. Hale.

1. The _Chimsheyan_, or _Chimmesyan_, on the sea-coast and islands about 55 North lat. Their tribes are the _Naaskok_, the _Chimsheyan Proper_, the _Kitshatlah_, and the _Kethumish_.

2. The _Billichula_, on the mouth of the Salmon River.

3. The _Hailtsa_, on the sea-coast, from Hawkesbury Island to Broughton's Archipelago, and (perhaps) the northern part of Quadra's and Vancouver's Island. Their tribes are the _Hyshalla_, the _Hyhysh_, the _Esleytuk_, the _Weekenoch_, the _Nalatsenoch_, the _Quagheuil_, the _Ttatla-shequilla_, and the _Lequeeltoch_. The numerals from Fitz-Hugh Sound will be noticed in the sequel.

4. _The Nutka Sound Indians_ occupy the greater part of Quadra's and Vancouver's Island, speak the _Wakash_ language, and fall into the following tribes--

_a._ _The Naspatl._

_b._ _The Nutkans Proper._

_c._ _The Tlaoquatsh._

_d._ _The Nittenat._

5. _The Shushwah_, or _Atna_, are bounded on the north by the Takulli, belong to the interior rather than the coast, are members of a large family, called the _Tsihaili-Selish_, extending far into the United States. According to Mr. Hale, they present the remarkable phenomenon of an aboriginal stock having increased from about four hundred to twelve hundred, instead of diminis.h.i.+ng.

6. _The Kitunaha_, _Cutanies_, or _Flat-bows_, hardy, brave and shrewd hunters on the Kitunaha, or Flat-bow River, and conterminous with the Blackfoots, are the Oregon Indians whose habits most closely approach those of the Indians to the east of the Rocky Mountains.

To some of these I now return, since three points of Algonkin ethnology require special notice.

_a._ _The Nascopi_ or _Skoffi_.--This is a frontier tribe. Much as we connect the ideas of cold and cheerless sterility with the inclement climate and naked moorlands of Labrador, and much as we connect the Eskimo as a population with a similarly inhospitable country, it is only the coast of that vast region which is thus tenanted. On Hudson's Straits there are Eskimo; on the Straits of Belleisle there are Eskimo; along the intervening coast there are Eskimo, and as far south as Anticosti there are Eskimo, but in the interior there are no Eskimo.

Instead of them we find the Skoffi, and the Sheshatapush--subsections (as stated before) of the same section of the great Algonkin stock. In them we have a measure of the effect of external conditions upon different members of the same cla.s.s. Between the Skoffi of Mosquito Bay and the Pamticos of Cape Hatteras we have more than 25 of lat.i.tude combined with a difference of other physical conditions which more than equals the difference between north and south. Yet the contrast between the Algonkin and other inhabitants of Labrador is as evident (though not, perhaps, so great) as that between the Greenlander and the Virginian; so that just as the Norwegian is distinguishable from the Laplander so is the Skoffi from Eskimo.

Dirtier and coa.r.s.er than any other Algonkins, the Nascopi hunts and fishes for his livelihood exclusively; depending most upon the autumnal migrations of the reindeer; and, next to that, upon his net. This he sets under the ice, during the earlier months of the winter. After December, however, he would set them in vain; the fish being, then, all in the deep water. Woman, generally a drudge in North America, is pre-eminently so with the Nascopis. All that the man does, is the _killing_ of the game. The woman brings it home. The woman also drags the loaded sledges from squatting to squatting, clears the ground, and collects fuel; whilst the man sits idle and smokes. Of such domestic slaves more than one is allowed; so that as far as the Nascopi recognizes marriage at all, he is a polygamist. In this sense the contracting parties are respectively the parents of the couple--the bride and bridegroom being the last parties consulted. When all has been arranged, the youth proceeds to his father-in-law's tent, remains there a year, and then departs as an independent member of the community.

Cousins are addressed as brothers or sisters; marriage between near relations is allowed; and so is the marriage of more than one sister successively.

The Paganism of the Nascopi is that of the other Cree tribes; their Christianity still more partial and still more nominal. Sometimes rolling in abundance, sometimes starving, they are attached to the Whites by but few artificial wants; the few fur-bearing animals of their country being highly prized, and, consequently, going a long way as elements of barter. Their dress is almost wholly of reindeer skin; their travelling gear a leathern bag with down in it, and a kettle. In this bag the Nascopi thrusts his legs, draws his knees up to his chin, and defies both wind and snow.

This account has been condensed from M'Lean's "Five and Twenty Years'

Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory." I subjoin the remainder in his own words: "The horrid practice still obtains among the Nascopis of destroying their parents and relatives, when old age incapacitates them for further exertion. I must, however, do them the justice to say, that the parent himself expresses a wish to depart, otherwise the unnatural deed would probably never be committed, for they, in general, treat their old people with much care and tenderness. The son, or nearest relative, performs the office of executioner--the self-devoted victim being disposed of by strangulation."

_b._ _The Aborigines of Newfoundland._--Sebastian Cabot brought three Newfoundlanders to England. They were clothed in beasts' skin, and ate raw flesh. This last is an accredited characteristic of the Eskimo; and, thus far, the evidence is in favour of the savages in question belonging to that stock. Yet it is more than neutralized by what follows; since Purchas states that two years after he saw two of them, dressed like Englishmen, "which, at that time, I could not discover from Englishmen, till I learned what they were."

Now as the Bethuck--the aborigines in question--have either been cruelly exterminated, or exist in such small numbers as not to have been seen for many years, it has been a matter of doubt whether they were Eskimo or Micmacs, the present occupants of the island. Reasons against either of these views are supplied by a hitherto unpublished Bethuck vocabulary, with which I have been kindly furnished by my friend Dr.

King, of the Ethnological Society. This makes them a _separate section_ of the Algonkins. Such I believe them to have been, and have placed them accordingly.

_c._ _The Fitz-Hugh Sound Numerals._--These are nearly the same as the Hailtsa. On the other hand, they agree with the Blackfoot in ending in -_sc.u.m_.

Now if the resemblance go farther, so as really to connect the Blackfoot with the Hailtsa, it brings the Algonkin cla.s.s of languages across the whole breadth of the continent, and as far as the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific.

The Moskito Indians are no subjects of England, any more than the Tahitians are of France, or the Sandwich Islanders of America, France, and England conjointly. The Moskito coast is a Protectorate: and the Moskito Indians are the subjects of a native king.

The present reigning monarch was educated under English auspices at Jamaica, and, upon attaining his majority, crowned at Grey Town. I believe that his name is that of the grandfather of our late gracious majesty. King George, then, king of the Moskitos, has a territory extending from the neighbourhood of Truxillo to the lower part of the River San Juan; a territory whereof, inconveniently for Great Britain, the United States, and the commerce of the world at large, the limits and definition are far from being universally recognized. Nicaragua has claims, and the Isthmus ca.n.a.l suffers accordingly.

The king of the Moskito coast, and the emperor of the Brazil, are the only resident sovereigns of the New World.

The subjects of the former are, really, the aborigines of the whole line of coast between Nicaragua and Honduras--there being no Indians remaining in the former republic, and but few in the latter. Of these, too--the Nicaraguans--we have no definite ethnological information. Mr.

Squier speaks of them as occupants of the islands of the lakes of the interior. Colonel Galindo also mentions them; but I infer, from his account, that their original language is lost, and that Spanish is their present tongue; just as it is said to be that of the aborigines of St.

Salvador and Costa Rica. This makes it difficult to fix them. And the difficulty is increased when we resort to history, tradition, and archaeology. History makes them Mexicans--Asteks from the kingdom of Montezuma, and colonists of the Peninsula, just as the Phnicians were of Carthage. Archaeology goes the same way. A detailed description of Mr.

Squier's discoveries, is an accession to ethnology which is anxiously expected. At any rate, stone ruins and carved decorations have been found; so that what Mr. Stephenson has written about Yucatan and Guatemala, may be repeated in the case of Nicaragua. Be it so. The difficulty will be but increased; since whatever facts makes Nicaragua Mexican, isolates the Moskitos. They are now in contact with Spaniards and Englishmen--populations whose civilization differs from their own; and populations who are evidently intrusive and of recent origin.

Precisely the same would be the case, if the Nicaraguans were made Mexican. The civilization would be of another sort; the population which introduced it would be equally intrusive; and the only difference would be a difference of stage and degree--a little earlier in the way of time, and a little less contrast in the way of skill and industry.

But the evidence in favour of the Mexican origin of the Nicaraguans, is doubtful; and so is the fact of their having wholly lost their native tongue; and until one of these two opinions be proved, it will be well to suspend our judgment as to the isolation of the Moskitos. If, indeed, either of them be true, their ethnological position will be a difficult question. With nothing in Honduras to compare them with--with nothing tangible, or with an apparently incompatible affinity in Nicaragua--with only very general miscellaneous affinities in Guatemala--their ethnological affinities are as peculiar as their political const.i.tution. Nevertheless, isolated as their language is, it has undoubted _general affinities with those of America at large_; and this is all that it is safe to say at present. But it is safe to say _this_.

We have plenty of data for their tongue, in a grammar of Mr.

Henderson's, published at New York, 1846.

The chief fact in the history of the Moskitos, is that they were never subject to the Spaniards. Each continent affords a specimen of this isolated freedom--the independence of some exceptional and impracticable tribes, as compared with the universal empire of some encroaching European power. The Circa.s.sians in Caucasus, the Tshukts.h.i.+ Koriaks in North-eastern Asia, and the Kaffres in Africa, show this. Their relations with the buccaneers were, probably, of an amicable description. So they were with the Negroes--maroon and imported. And this, perhaps, has determined their _differentiae_. They are intertropical American aborigines, who have become partially European, without becoming Spanish.

Their physical conformation is that of the South rather than the North American; and, here it must be remembered, that we are pa.s.sing from one moiety of the new hemisphere to the other. With a skin which is olive-coloured rather than red, they have small limbs and undersized frames; whilst their habits are, _mutatis mutandis_, those of the intertropical African. This means, that the exuberance of soil, and the heat of the climate, makes them agriculturists rather than shepherds, and idlers rather than agriculturists; since the least possible amount of exertion gives them roots and fruits; whilst it is only those wants which are compatible with indolence that they care to satisfy. They presume rather than improve upon the warmth of their suns, and the fertility of the soil. When they get liquor, they get drunk; when they work hardest, they cut mahogany. Canoes and harpoons represent the native industry. _Wulasha_ is the name of their Evil Spirit, and _Liwaia_ that of a water-G.o.d.

I cannot but think that there is much intermixture amongst them. At the same time, the _data_ for ascertaining the amount are wanting. Their greatest intercourse has, probably, been with the Negro; their next greatest with the Englishman. Of the population of the interior, we know next to nothing. Here their neighbours are Spaniards.

They are frontagers to the river San Juan. This gives them their value in politics.

They are the only well-known extant Indians between Guatemala and Veragua. This gives them their value in ethnology.

The populations to which they were most immediately allied, have disappeared from history. This isolates them; so that there is no cla.s.s to which they can be subordinated. At the same time, they are quite as like the nearest known tribes as the _American_ ethnologist is prepared to expect.

What they were in their truly natural state, when, unmodified by either Englishman or Spaniard, Black or Indian, they represented the indigenous civilization (such as it was) of their coast, is uncertain.

That the difference between the North and South American aborigines has been over-rated, is beyond doubt. The tendency, however, to do so, decreases. An observer like Sir R. Schomburgk, who is at once minute in taking notice, and quick at finding parallels, adds his suffrage to that of Cicca de Leon and others, who enlarge upon the extent to which the Indians of the New World in general look "like children of one family."