Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers Part 66

Mr. Gallatin, in a letter of Feb. 22, in response to me on this subject, says: "The letter _L_ occurs in every Esquimaux dialect of which I have any knowledge. Thus heaven or sky, is in Greenland, _Killak_; Hudson's Bay, _Keiluk_; Kad.i.c.k Islands, _Kelisk_; Kotzebue's Sound, _Keilyak_; Asiatic Tshuktchi, _Kuelok_.

"I am not so certain about the _v_, which I find used only by Egede, or Crantz (not distinguished from each other in my collection) for the Greenland dialect. In their conjurations I find 'we (sing. and dual) wash them' Ernikp-auvut, and Ernikp-auvuk. In the Mithradites, the same letter _v_ is repeatedly used in dual examples of the Greenland and Labrador dialects, princ.i.p.ally (as it appears to me) but not exclusively in the p.r.o.nominal terminations, _picksaukonik, akeetvor, tivut_, Profetiv-vit! that is, good ours, debtors ours, a prophet art thou.

"By comparing this with the p.r.o.nouns of the other Esquimaux dialects, I suspect that _oo_ and _w_ in these, are used instead of _v_. But the difference may arise from that in the mother tongue, or in the delicacy of the ear, of those who have supplied us with other verbal and p.r.o.nominal forms or vocabularies."

_22d_, The Indian names may be studied a.n.a.lytically.

_Ches_ (p.r.o.nounced by the Algonquin Indians _Chees_), signifies a plant of the turnip family. _Beeg_ is the plural, and denotes water existing in large bodies, such as acc.u.mulations in the form of lakes and seas. If these two roots be connected by the usual sound in Algonquin words, thus Ches-a-beeg, a sound much resembling Chesapeake would be produced. The Nantic.o.kes, who inhabited this bay on its discovery, were of the Algonquin stock.

Potomac appears to be a clipped expression, derived, I believe, from Po-to-wau-me-ac. Po-to-wau, as we have it, in Potawattomie, means to make a fire in a place where fires, such as council fires, are usually made. The _ac_ in the word is apparently from _ak_ or _wak_, a standing tree. The whole appears descriptive of a burning tree, or a burning forest.

Megiddo in the Algonquin means he barks, or a barker. Hence me-giz-ze, an eagle or the bird that barks.

CHAPTER LXVII.

Workings of unshackled mind--Comity of the American Addison--Lake periodical fluctuations--American antiquities--Indian doings in Florida and Texas--Wood's New England's Prospect--Philological and historical comments--Death of Ningwegon--Creeks--Brothertons made citizens--Charles Fenno Hoffman--Indian names for places on the Hudson--Christian Indians--Etymology--Theodoric--Apprais.e.m.e.nts of Indian property--Algic researches--Plan and object.

1839. _Feb. 22d_. Hon. Lucius Lyon, Senator in Congress from Michigan, writes, informing me of the movements of political affairs in that State. The working of our system in the new States is peculiar. Popular opinion must have its full swing. It rights itself. Natural good sense and sound moral appreciation of right are at work at the bottom, and the lamp of knowledge is continually replenished with oil, by schools and teaching. That light cannot be put out. It will burn on till the world is not only free, but enlightened and renovated.

_24th_. Was.h.i.+ngton Irving kindly encloses me a letter to Colonel Aspinwall of London, commending to him my contemplated publication on the oral legends of the North American Indians. "I regret to say," he adds, "that the last time he wrote to me, he was in great uneasiness, apprehending the loss of one of his daughters, who appeared to be in a rapid decline."

_25th_. Mrs. Jameson, on returning from her trip to the lakes, writes for my opinion on the causes of the phenomenon of the rise in the waters of the lakes. Alluding to this subject, the Superintendent of the works in the Ohio says: "The water of Lake Erie, which has been rising for many years, and has attained a height unequaled in the memory of man, seems to have attained its maximum, and to have commenced its reflux.

Since the first day of June last, as I have ascertained by means of graduated rods at different points along the coast of Lake Erie, the water has fallen perpendicularly nineteen inches, and is still falling.

The meteorological character of the present season, as compared with that of several previous seasons, clearly shows the cause of the rise and fall of the lakes not to be periodical, as has heretofore been a.s.serted, but entirely accidental. For several years the summers have been cloudy and cold, with a prevalence of easterly winds and rainy weather. The last summer has been excessively warm for the whole season, and of exceeding drought. When it is remembered that the amount of water evaporated over the surface of these vast bodies of water, during a period of warm sunny weather, greatly exceeds that which pa.s.ses the outlet of one of these lakes (Niagara River, for example), the cause of the phenomenon is apparent."--See _Mr. Barrett's inquiries, ante_.

_26th_. The _New York Star_ publishes a notice of _Delafield's Antiquities_. This handsomely printed and ill.u.s.trated work contains four things that are new to the antiquarian inquirer: 1. A theory by the author, by which he conceives the Indian race to be descended from the ancient Cuthites, who are Hamitic. This is wrong. 2. A curious and valuable pictographic map of the migration of the Aztecs, not heretofore printed. This is an acquisition. 3. A disquisition of Dr. Lakey, of Cincinnati, on the superiority of the northern to the southern race of red men. This seems true. 4. A preface, by Bishop McIlvaine, showing the importance in all inquiries of the kind, of keeping the record of the Bible strictly in view. This is right.

_27th_. The _Houston Telegraph_ of this date gays: "A party of about eighty men from Bastrop County, accompanied by Castro and forty Lipan warriors, recently made an expedition into the Comanche country, and, near the San Saba, attacked and routed a large body of Comanches, who, with their women and children, were encamped on a small branch of the stream. About thirty of the Comanche warriors were killed in the engagement, many huts and considerable baggage destroyed, and a large number of horses and mules captured. On their return, however, a few Comanches stole silently into the droves of horses, while feeding at night, and recaptured the whole except ninety-three horses, which the shrewd Castro, with ten of his warriors, had driven far in advance of the main company, and which he subsequently brought in safety to Lagrange. Only two of the citizens of Texas were injured on this expedition."

"General Burlison, at the head of about seventy men, recently encountered a large body of Indians on the Brushy, and, after one or two skirmishes, finding the enemy numerous, retreated to a ravine in order to engage them with more advantage; but the Indians, fearing to attack him in his new position, drew off and retreated into a neighboring thicket. Being unable to pursue them, he returned to Bastrop. It is reported that he has lost three men in this engagement; the loss of the Indians is not known; it, however, must have been considerable, as most of the men under Burlison were excellent marksmen, and had often been engaged in Indian warfare."

_March 4th_. The _N. Y. Evening Post_ says, that a gentleman from Tallaha.s.see, just arrived at Was.h.i.+ngton, states that murders by the Indians are of everyday occurrence in that vicinity, and that between the 17th and 21st Feb. fifteen persons had been killed.

_5th_. Finished the perusal of William Wood's "_New England's Prospects_," a work of 98 12mo pages, printed at London, 1634. This was fourteen years after the first landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth, and the same year that John Eliot came over. Its chief claim to notice is its antiquity. "Some have thought," he says, "that they (the Indians) might be descendants of the Jews, because some of their words be near unto the Hebrew; but by the same rule they may conclude them to be some of the gleanings of all nations, because they have words which sound after the Greek, Latin, French, and other tongues. Their language is hard to learn, few of the English being able to speak any of it, or capable of the right p.r.o.nunciation, which is the chief grace of their tongue. They p.r.o.nounce much after the diphthongs, excluding B and L, which, in our English tongue, they p.r.o.nounce with much difficulty, as most of the Dutch do T and H, calling a lobster, a _n.o.bstan_."

The examples of a vocabulary he gives show them to be Algonquins, and not "Skroellings," or Esquimaux, as they are represented to have been by the Scandinavians (vide Ant. Amer.), who visited the present area of Ma.s.sachusetts in the tenth century.

The close alliance of their language with the existing Chippewa and Ottawa of the north, is shown by the following specimens:--

_New England Tribes_. _Chippewa of Lake Superior_.

1634. 1839.

_Woman_, Squa, E-qua.

_Water_, Nip-pe, Ne-be.

_A racc.o.o.n_, Au-supp, A se-bun.

_Daughter_, Tawonis, O-dau-nis.

_A duck_, Sea-sceep, She-sheeb.

_Summer_, Se-quan, Se-gwun.

_Red_ Squi, Mis-qui.

_A house_, Wig-wam, Weeg-wam.

He divides the tribes into:--

Tarrenteens.

Churhers (local tribes even then under instruction).

Aberginians (Algonquins of the St. Lawrence, probably).

Narragansetts (a tribe of the N.E. Algonquins with dialectic peculiarities).

Pequants (" " ") Nepnets (" " ") Connectacuts (" " ") Mohawks (a tribe of Iroquois).

The people whom he calls "Tarrenteens," are clearly Abenakies.

Cotton Mather, L. of E., 1691, p. 78, denominates the Indians "the veriest ruins of mankind. Their name for an Englishman was a knifeman; stone was used instead of metal for their tools; and for their coins they have only little beads, with holes in them, to string them upon a bracelet, whereof some are _white_, and of these there go six for a penny; some are _black_ or _blue_, and of these go three for a penny; this _wampum_, as they call it, is made of sh.e.l.l fish, which lies upon the sea-coast continually."

P. 79. "_Nokehick_, that is, a spoonful of parched meal with a spoonful of water, which will strengthen them to travel a day."

"Reading and writing are altogether unknown to them, though there is a stone or two in the country that has unaccountable characters engraved upon it."

The intention of the King in granting the royal charter to Ma.s.sachusetts was, says Cotton Mather:--

"To win and invite the natives of that country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true G.o.d and Saviour of mankind, and the Christian faith, is our Royal intentions, and the adventurer's free profession is the princ.i.p.al end of the plantation."--_Life of Eliot_, p. 77.

_10th_. Died at Little Traverse Bay, on Lake Michigan, Ningwegon, or the Wing, the well-known American-Ottawa chief--a man who distinguished himself for the American cause at Detroit, in 1812, and was thrown into prison by the British officers for his boldness in expressing his sentiments. He received a life annuity under the treaty of 28th March, 1836.

_11th_. Received notice of my election as a corresponding member of the Brooklyn Lyceum.

_12th_. A small party of chiefs of the Seneca tribe under the command of "Blacksmith," successor to Red Jacket, arrived in this city yesterday from Was.h.i.+ngton, and took lodgings at the Western Hotel in Courtland Street. They were received by the Mayor at the Governor's room about 12 o'clock. In the address made by one of the number, it was stated that the object of their visit had been to urge upon the President the impropriety of driving them from their present possessions.

_13th_, PEACE AMONG THE INDIANS.--The two nations of Upper and Lower Creeks, who were hostile while residing east of the Mississippi, have, in their new homes in Arkansas, united in general council, at which fifteen hundred were present. The oratory on this occasion, of smoking the calumet, is described as of the highest order.

_14th_. Judge Bronson, of Florida, last evening, at a party at his cousin's (Arthur Bronson, 46 Bond Street, N. Y.), states that, as Chairman of a Committee in Congress, a few years ago, he had reported a bill for allowing the Brotherton Indians to hold their property in Wisconsin individually, and to enjoy the rights of citizens.h.i.+p; and that this bill pa.s.sed both houses.

_20th_. Went to dine with Charles Fenno Hoffman, at his lodgings in Houston Street. Found his room garnished with curiosities of various sorts, indicative, among other things, of his interest in the Indian race. A poet in his garret I had long heard of, but a liberal gentlemanly fellow, surrounded by all the elegances of life, I had not thought of as the domicil of the Muses. Mr. Hoffman impressed me as being very English in his appearance and manners. His forehead is quite Byronic in its craniological developments. His eye and countenance are of the most commanding character. Pity that such a handsome man, so active in everything that calls for the gun, the rod, the boat, the horse, the dog, should have been shorn of so essential a prerequisite as a leg. His conversational powers are quite extraordinary. I felt constantly as if I were in the presence of a lover of nature and natural things; a _bon vivant_ perhaps, or an epicure, a Tom Moore, in some sense, whose day-dreams of heaven are mixed up with glowing images of women and wine.

_27th_. I was directed from Was.h.i.+ngton to relieve the princ.i.p.al disbursing officer at Detroit. Here then my hopes of visiting Europe are blown sky high for the present. I must return to the north, and, so far as labor is concerned, "heap Pelion on Ossa."

_April 6th_. There is hardly a word in the Indian languages which does not readily yield to the power of a.n.a.lysis. They call tobacco, Ussama.

_Ussa_, means to put (anything inanimate). _Ma_, is a particle denoting smell. The _us_, in the first syllable, is sounded very slight, and often, perhaps, nearly dropt, and the word then seems as if spelt _Sa ma_. The last vowel is broad.

_8th_. Left the city for Detroit. In ascending the Hudson, with so good an interpreter at my side as Mrs. Schoolcraft, whom I have carried through a perfect course of philological training in the English, Latin, and Hebrew principles of formation, I a.n.a.lyzed many of the old Indian names, which, until we reached Albany, are all in a peculiar dialect of the Algonquin.

SING SING.--This name is the local form of the name for rocks, and conveys the idea of the plural in the terminal letter. _Os-sin_ in modern Algonquin (the Chippewa dialect), is stone, or rock. _Ing_, is the local form of all nouns proper. The term may be rendered simply _place of rocks_.

NYAC.--This appears to be the name of a band of Indians who lived there.

The termination in _ac_, is generally from _acke_, land.

CROTON.--Historically, this is known to have been the name of a noted Indian chief, who resided near the mouth of the river. The word appears to be derived from _notin_, a wind. If we admit the interchange of sounds of _n_ for _r_, as being made, and the ordinary change of _t_ for _d_, between the Holland and Indian races, this derivation is probable.

The letter c seems to be the sign of a p.r.o.noun.