Seventh Annual Report Part 19

Akbat. Pilinginiut. s.h.i.+wokugmiut.

Karsuit. Sagdlirmiut. Ukivokgmiut.

Tessuisak. Sikosuilarmiut. Unaligmiut.

Sinimiut.

Ugjulirmiut. Aleutian group: Ukusiksalingmiut. Atka.

Unalashka.

Asiatic group: Yuit.

_Population._--Only a rough approximation of the population of the Eskimo can be given, since of some of the divisions next to nothing is known. Dall compiles the following estimates of the Alaskan Eskimo from the most reliable figures up to 1885: Of the Northwestern Innuit 3,100 (?), including the Kopagmiut, Kangmaligmiut, Nuwukmiut, Nunatogmiut, Kuagmiut, the Inguhklimiut of Little Diomede Island 40 (?), s.h.i.+wokugmiut of St. Lawrence Island 150 (?), the Western Innuit 14,500 (?), the Aleutian Islanders (Unungun) 2,200 (?); total of the Alaskan Innuit, about 20,000.

The Central or Baffin Land Eskimo are estimated by Boas to number about 1,100.[37]

[Footnote 37: Sixth Ann. Rep. Bu. Eth., 426, 1888.]

From figures given by Rink, Packard, and others, the total number of Labrador Eskimo is believed to be about 2,000.

According to Holm (1884-85) there are about 550 Eskimo on the east coast of Greenland. On the west coast the mission Eskimo numbered 10,122 in 1886, while the northern Greenland Eskimo, the Arctic Highlanders of Ross, number about 200.

Thus throughout the Arctic regions generally there is a total of about 34,000.

ESSELENIAN FAMILY.

< salinas,="" latham="" in="" trans.="" philolog.="" soc.="" lond.,="" 85,="" 1856="" (includes="" gioloco?,="" ruslen,="" soledad,="" eslen,="" carmel,="" san="" antonio,="" and="" san="" miguel,="" cited="" as="" including="" eslen).="" latham,="" opuscula,="" 350,="">

As afterwards mentioned under the Salinan family, the present family was included by Latham in the heterogeneous group called by him Salinas. For reasons there given the term Salinan was restricted to the San Antonio and San Miguel languages, leaving the present family without a name. It is called Esselenian, from the name of the single tribe Esselen, of which it is composed.

Its history is a curious and interesting one. Apparently the first mention of the tribe and language is to be found in the Voyage de la Prouse, Paris, 1797, page 288, where Lamanon (1786) states that the language of the Ecclemachs (Esselen) differs absolutely from all those of their neighbors. He gives a vocabulary of twenty-two words and by way of comparison a list of the ten numerals of the Achastlians (Costanoan family). It was a study of the former short vocabulary, published by Taylor in the California Farmer, October 24, 1862, that first led to the supposition of the distinctness of this language.

A few years later the Esselen people came under the observation of Galiano,[38] who mentions the Eslen and Runsien as two distinct nations, and notes a variety of differences in usages and customs which are of no great weight. It is of interest to note, however, that this author also appears to have observed essential differences in the languages of the two peoples, concerning which he says: The same difference as in usage and custom is observed in the languages of the two nations, as will be perceived from the following comparison with which we will conclude this chapter.

[Footnote 38: Relacion del viage hecho por las Goletas Sutil y Mexicana en el ao de 1792. Madrid, 1802, p. 172.]

Galiano supplies Esselen and Runsien vocabularies of thirty-one words, most of which agree with the earlier vocabulary of Lamanon. These were published by Taylor in the California Farmer under date of April 20, 1860.

In the fall of 1888 Mr. H. W. Henshaw visited the vicinity of Monterey with the hope of discovering survivors of these Indians. Two women were found in the Salinas Valley to the south who claimed to be of Esselen blood, but neither of them was able to recall any of the language, both having learned in early life to speak the Runsien language in place of their own. An old woman was found in the Carmelo Valley near Monterey and an old man living near the town of Cayucos, who, though of Runsien birth, remembered considerable of the language of their neighbors with whom they were connected by marriage. From them a vocabulary of one hundred and ten words and sixty-eight phrases and short sentences were obtained. These serve to establish the general correctness of the short lists of words collected so long ago by Lamanon and Galiano, and they also prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Esselen language forms a family by itself and has no connection with any other known.

The tribe or tribes composing this family occupied a narrow strip of the California coast from Monterey Bay south to the vicinity of the Santa Lucia Mountain, a distance of about 50 miles.

IROQUOIAN FAMILY.

> Iroquois, Gallatin in Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 21, 23, 305, 1836 (excludes Cherokee). Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 381, 1847 (follows Gallatin). Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, xcix, 77, 1848 (as in 1836). Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 401, 1853. Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 58, 1856. Latham, Opuscula, 327, 1860. Latham, Elements Comp. Phil., 463, 1862.

> Irokesen, Berghaus (1845), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848. Ibid., 1852.

X Irokesen, Berghaus, Physik. Atlas, map 72, 1887 (includes Kataba and said to be derived from Dakota).

> Huron-Iroquois, Bancroft, Hist. U.S., III, 243, 1840.

> Wyandot-Iroquois, Keane, App. Stanfords Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 460, 468, 1878.

> Cherokees, Gallatin in Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 89, 306, 1836 (kept apart from Iroquois though probable affinity a.s.serted). Bancroft, Hist. U.S., III, 246, 1840. Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 401, 1847. Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, xcix, 77, 1848.

Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 58, 1856 (a separate group perhaps to be cla.s.sed with Iroquois and Sioux). Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 401, 1853. Latham, Opuscula, 327, 1860.

Keane, App. Stanfords Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 460, 472, 1878 (same as Chelekees or Tsalagi--apparently entirely distinct from all other American tongues).

> Tschirokies, Berghaus (1845), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848.

> Chelekees, Keane, App. Stanfords Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 473, 1878 (or Cherokees).

> Cheroki, Gatschet, Creek Mig. Legend, I, 34, 1884. Gatschet in Science, 413, April 29, 1887.

= Huron-Cherokee, Hale in Am. Antiq., 20, Jan., 1883 (proposed as a family name instead of Huron-Iroquois; relations.h.i.+p to Iroquois affirmed).

Derivation: French, adaptation of the Iroquois word hiro, used to conclude a speech, and kou, an exclamation (Charlevoix). Hale gives as possible derivations ierokwa, the indeterminate form of the verb to smoke, signifying they who smoke; also the Cayuga form of bear, iakwai.[39] Mr. Hewitt[39] suggests the Algonkin words irin, true, or real; ako, snake; with the French termination ois, the word becomes Irinakois.

[Footnote 39: Iroquois Book of Rites, 1883, app., p. 173.]

[Footnote 40: American Anthropologist, 1888, vol. 1, p. 188.]

With reference to this family it is of interest to note that as early as 1798 Barton[41] compared the Cheroki language with that of the Iroquois and stated his belief that there was a connection between them.

Gallatin, in the Archologia Americana, refers to the opinion expressed by Barton, and although he states that he is inclined to agree with that author, yet he does not formally refer Cheroki to that family, concluding that We have not a sufficient knowledge of the grammar, and generally of the language of the Five Nations, or of the Wyandots, to decide that question.[42]

[Footnote 41: New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America. Phila., 1798.]

[Footnote 42: Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., 1836, vol. 2, p. 92.]

Mr. Hale was the first to give formal expression to his belief in the affinity of the Cheroki to Iroquois.[43] Recently extensive Cheroki vocabularies have come into possession of the Bureau of Ethnology, and a careful comparison of them with ample Iroquois material has been made by Mr. Hewitt. The result is convincing proof of the relations.h.i.+p of the two languages as affirmed by Barton so long ago.

[Footnote 43: Am. Antiq., 1883, vol. 5, p. 20.]

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

Unlike most linguistic stocks, the Iroquoian tribes did not occupy a continuous area, but when first known to Europeans were settled in three distinct regions, separated from each other by tribes of other lineage.

The northern group was surrounded by tribes of Algonquian stock, while the more southern groups bordered upon the Catawba and Maskoki.

A tradition of the Iroquois points to the St. Lawrence region as the early home of the Iroquoian tribes, whence they gradually moved down to the southwest along the sh.o.r.es of the Great Lakes.

When Cartier, in 1534, first explored the bays and inlets of the Gulf of St. Lawrence he met a Huron-Iroquoian people on the sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Gasp, who also visited the northern coast of the gulf. In the following year when he sailed up the St. Lawrence River he found the banks of the river from Quebec to Montreal occupied by an Iroquoian people. From statements of Champlain and other early explorers it seems probable that the Wyandot once occupied the country along the northern sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario.

The Conestoga, and perhaps some allied tribes, occupied the country about the Lower Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and have commonly been regarded as an isolated body, but it seems probable that their territory was contiguous to that of the Five Nations on the north before the Delaware began their westward movement.

As the Cherokee were the princ.i.p.al tribe on the borders of the southern colonies and occupied the leading place in all the treaty negotiations, they came to be considered as the owners of a large territory to which they had no real claim. Their first sale, in 1721, embraced a tract in South Carolina, between the Congaree and the South Fork of the Edisto,[44] but about one-half of this tract, forming the present Lexington County, belonging to the Congaree.[45] In 1755 they sold a second tract above the first and extending across South Carolina from the Savannah to the Catawba (or Wateree),[46] but all of this tract east of Broad River belonged to other tribes. The lower part, between the Congaree and the Wateree, had been sold 20 years before, and in the upper part the Broad River was acknowledged as the western Catawba boundary.[48] In 1770 they sold a tract, princ.i.p.ally in Virginia and West Virginia, bounded east by the Great Kanawha,[47] but the Iroquois claimed by conquest all of this tract northwest of the main ridge of the Alleghany and c.u.mberland Mountains, and extending at least to the Kentucky River,[49] and two years previously they had made a treaty with Sir William Johnson by which they were recognized as the owners of all between c.u.mberland Mountains and the Ohio down to the Tennessee.[50]

The c.u.mberland River basin was the only part of this tract to which the Cherokee had any real t.i.tle, having driven out the former occupants, the Shawnee, about 1721.[51] The Cherokee had no villages north of the Tennessee (this probably includes the Holston as its upper part), and at a conference at Albany the Cherokee delegates presented to the Iroquois the skin of a deer, which they said belonged to the Iroquois, as the animal had been killed north of the Tennessee.[52] In 1805, 1806, and 1817 they sold several tracts, mainly in middle Tennessee, north of the Tennessee River and extending to the c.u.mberland River watershed, but this territory was claimed and had been occupied by the Chickasaw, and at one conference the Cherokee admitted their claim.[53] The adjacent tract in northern Alabama and Georgia, on the headwaters of the Coosa, was not permanently occupied by the Cherokee until they began to move westward, about 1770.