Chapter VIII
New-Yearing--A prospect opened--Poem of Ontwa--Indian biography--Fossil tree--Letters from various persons--Notice of Ontwa--Professor Silliman--Gov. Clinton--Hon. J. Meigs--Colonel Benton--Mr. Dickenson--Professor Hall--Views of Ex-presidents Madison, Jefferson, and Adams on geology--Geological notices--Plan of a gazetteer--Opinions of my Narrative Journal by scientific gentlemen--The impostor John Dun Hunter--Trip up the Potomac--Mosaical chronology--Visit to Mount Vernon.
1822. Jan. 1st.--I spent this day a New-Yearing. Albany is a dear place for the first of January; not only the houses of every one, but the hearts of every one seem open on this day. It is no slight praise to say that one day out of the three hundred and sixty-five is consecrated to general hospitality and warm-hearted cordiality. If St. Nicholas was the author of this custom, he was a social saint; and the custom seems to be as completely kept up on the banks of the Hudson as it ever could have been on the banks of the Rhine.
Jan. 5th.--My experience is that he who would rise, in science or knowledge, must toil incessantly; it is the price at which success sells her favors. During the last four years, I have passed not less than ten thousand miles, and in all this time I have scarcely lain down one night without a feeling that the next day's success must depend upon a fresh appeal to continued effort. My pathway has certainly not lain over beds of gold, nor my pillow been composed of down. And yet my success has served to raise the envy and malignity of some minds. True, these have been small minds; while a just appreciation and approval have marked the course of the exalted and enlightened. A friend writes from Washington, this day, assuring me that I am not forgotten in high quarters. "The occupation," he says, "of the Sault has been decided on, and I have but little doubt of your appointment to the agency. Make your mind easy. I am certain the government will not forget you, and I never can. I shall not lose sight of your interest a moment."
Thus, while an envious little clique here has, in my absence, clandestinely thrown most uncandid censure upon me and my labors, a vista of honor is presented to my hopes from a higher source.
While recovering from the prostrating effects of my Chicago fever, I had drawn up a memoir for the American Geological Society, which had made me a member, on the fossil tree observed in the stratification of the Des Plaines, of the Illinois, and took the occasion of being detained here in making my report, to print it, and circulate copies. It appeared to be a good opportunity, while calling attention to the fact described, to connect it with the system of secondary rocks, as explained by geologists. In this way, the occurrence of perhaps a not absolutely unique phenomenon is made a vehicle of conveying geological information, which is now sought with avidity in the country. This step brought me many correspondents of note.
Mr. Madison (Ex-President United States) writes (Jan. 22): "The present is a very inquisitive age, and its researches of late have been ardently directed to the primitive composition and structure of our globe, as far as it has been penetrated, and to the processes by which succeeding changes have been produced. The discoveries already made are encouraging; but vast room is left for the further industry and sagacity of geologists. This is sufficiently shown by the opposite theories which have been espoused; one of them regarding water, the other fire, as the great agent employed by nature in her work.
"It may well be expected that this hemisphere, which has been least explored, will yield its full proportion of materials towards a satisfactory system. Your zealous efforts to share in the contributions do credit to your love of truth and devotion to the cause of science, and I wish they may be rewarded with the success they promise, and with all the personal gratifications to which they entitle you."
Mr. Jefferson (Ex-President United States) sends a note of thanks (Jan. 26th) in the following words: "It is a valuable element towards the knowledge we wish to obtain of the crust of the globe we inhabit; and, as crust alone is immediately interesting to us, we are only to guard against drawing our conclusions deeper than we dig. You are entitled to the thanks of the lovers of science for the preservation of this fact."
Mr. John Adams (Ex-President United States, Jan. 27th) says: "I thank you for your memoir on the fossil tree, which is very well written; and the conjectures on the processes of nature in producing it are plausible and probable.
"I once lay a week wind-bound in Portland road, in England, and went often ashore, and ascended the mountain from whence they get all the Portland stone that they employ in building. In a morning walk with some of the American passengers from the Lucretia, Captain Calehan, we passed by a handsome house, at the foot of the hill, with a handsome front yard before it. Upon the top of one of the posts of this yard lay a fish, coiled up in a spiral figure, which caught my eye. I stopped and gazed at it with some curiosity. Presently a person, in the habit and appearance of a substantial and well-bred English gentleman, appeared at his door and addressed me. 'Sir, I perceive that your attention is fixed on my fish. That is a conger eel--a species that abounds in these seas; we see them repeatedly, at the depth of twelve feet water, lying exactly in that position. That stone, as it now appears, was dug up from the bowels of this mountain, at the depth of twenty feet below the surface, in the midst of the rocks. Now, sir,' said he, 'at the time of the deluge, these neighboring seas were thrown up into that mountain, and this fish, lying at the bottom, was thrown up with the rest, and then petrified, in the very posture in which he lay.'
"I was charmed with the eloquence of this profound philosopher, as well as with his civility, and said that I could not account for the phenomenon by any more plausible or probable hypothesis.
"This is a lofty hill and very steep, and in the road up and down, there are flat and smooth rocks of considerable extent. The commerce in Portland stone frequently calls for huge masses, from ten to fifteen tons weight. These are loaded on very strong wheels, and drawn by ten or twelve pair of horses. When they come to one of those flat rocks on the side of the hill where the descent is steep, they take off six or eight pair of horses, and attach them behind the wagon, and lash them up hill, while one or two pair of horses in front have to drag the wagon and its load and six or eight pair of horses behind it, backwards.
"I give you this history by way of comment on Dr. Franklin's famous argument against a mixed government. That great man ought not to have quoted this as a New England custom, because it was an English practice before New England existed, and is a happy illustration of the necessity of a balanced government.
"And since I have mentioned Dr. Franklin, I will relate another fact which I had from his mouth. When he lived at Passy, a new quarry of stone was opened in the garden of Mr. Ray de Chaumont, and, at the depth of twenty feet, was found among the rocks a shark's tooth, in perfect preservation, which I suppose my Portland friend would account for as he did for his conger eel, though the tooth was not petrified."
Thus, my memoir was the cause of the expression of opinions and facts from distinguished individuals, which possess an interest distinct from the bearing of such opinions on geology.
Mr. Carter, who has just transferred the publication of the Statesman from Albany to New York, writes (Jan. 10th) from the latter city, urging me to hasten my return to that city.
Poem on the theme of the Aborigines.--"I have," he remarks, "read Ontwa, the Indian poem you spoke to me about last summer. The notes by Governor Cass are extremely interesting, and written in a superior style. I shall notice the work in a few days."
Geology of New York Island.--"I wish you to give me an article on the mineralogy and geology of Manhattan Island, in the form of a letter purporting to be by a foreign traveler. (See Appendix, No. 2.) It is my intention to give a series of letters, partly by myself and partly by others, which shall take notice of everything in and about the city which may be deemed interesting. I wish to begin at the foundation by giving a geographical and geological sketch of the Island."
Indian Biography.--"Colonel Haines also wishes you to unite with him and myself, in writing a series of sketches of celebrated Indians."
Professor Silliman writes (Jan. 20th), acknowledging the receipt of a memoir on the fossil tree of the River Des Plaines, which was prepared for the American Geological Society. He requests me to furnish him a copy of my memoir on the geology of the regions visited by the recent expedition, or, if it be too long for the purposes of the American Journal, an abstract of it.
Animal Impressions in Limestone.--"I am much obliged to you for your kind intention of furnishing me with a paper on the impressions in limestone, and I hope you will bear it in mind, and execute it accordingly.
"I have observed the appointment which the newspapers state that you have received from the government, and regret that it carries you so far south,[11] into an unhealthy climate; wishing you, however, health and leisure to pursue those studies which you have hitherto prosecuted so successfully."
[Footnote 11: This is evidently an allusion to St. Mary's, in Georgia, instead of Michigan.]
Professor Frederick Hall, of Middlebury College, addresses me (Jan. 14th) on the same subject. He alludes to my treatise "On the Mines, Minerals, &c., of the western section of the United States;" a work for which our country and the world are deeply indebted to your enlightened enterprise and unrelaxing zeal. Before reading it, I had a very inadequate conception of the actual extent and riches of the lead mines of the West. It seems, according to your account, that these mines are an exhaustless source of wealth to the United States. "I should feel glad to have them put under your superintendence; and to have you nurture up a race of expert mineralogists, and become a Werner among them."
Professor Silliman writes (Jan. 25th): "When I wrote you last, I had not been able to procure your memoir on the fossil tree. I read it, however, immediately after, and was so much pleased with it, that I extracted the most important parts in the American Journal, giving credit, of course, to you and to the Geological Society."
Jan. 29th. Chester Dewy, Professor, &c., in Williams College, Mass., writes a most kind and friendly letter, in which he presents various subjects, in the great area of the West, visited by me.
Chalk Formation.--"Mr. Jessup, of Philadelphia, told me that he believed you doubted respecting the chalk of Missouri, in which you found nodules of flints. I wish to ask if this be fact. From the situation, and characters and uses, you might easily be led into a mistake, for such a bed of any other earth would be far less to be expected, and be also a far greater curiosity."
Petrosilex, &c.--"By the way, I received from Dr. Torrey a curious mixture of petrosilex and prehnite in radiating crystals, which was sent him by you, and collected at the West. He did not tell me the name, but examination showed me what it was."
Tufa from Western New York.--"To day, a Quaker from Sempronius, New York, has shown me some fine tufa. I mention it, because you may, in your travels, be able to see it. He says it covers an acre or more to a great depth, is burned into excellent lime with great ease, and is very valuable, as no good limestone is found near them. Some of it is very soft, like agaric mineral, and would be so called, were it not associated with beautiful tufa of a harder kind."
Geology of America.--"You have explored in fine situations, to extend the knowledge of the geology of our country, and have made great discoveries. I congratulate you on what you have been able to do; I hope you may be able, if you wish it, to add still more to our knowledge."
Jan. 29th. Mr. McNabb says: "I have just received a specimen of excellent pit-coal from Tioga county, Pennsylvania, near the head of the south branch of the Tioga River, and about twenty miles south from Painted Post, in Steuben County. The quantity is said to be inexhaustible, and what renders it of still greater importance is, that arks and rafts descend from within four or five miles of the mines."
New Gazetteer of New York.--Mr. Carter writes (Feb. 5th) inauspiciously of the course of affairs at Washington, as not favoring the spirit of exploration. He proposes, in the event of my not receiving the contemplated appointment, the plan of a Gazetteer of New York, on an enlarged and scientific basis. "I have often expressed to you my opinion of the Spafford Gazetteer of this State. It is wholly unworthy of public patronage, and would not stand in the way of a good work of the kind; and such a one, I have the vanity to believe, our joint efforts could produce. It would be a permanent work, with slight alterations, as the State might undergo changes. My plan would be for you to travel over the State, and make a complete mineralogical, and geological, and statistical survey of it, which would probably take you a year or more. In the mean time, I would devote all my leisure to the collection and arrangement of such other materials as we should need in the compilation of the work."
Feb. 18th. Professor Dewy writes, vindicating my views of the Huttonian doctrines, respecting the formation of secondary rocks, which he had doubted, on the first perusal of my memoir of the fossil tree of Illinois.
Feb. 20th. Caleb Atwater, Esq., of Circleville, Ohio, the author of the antiquarian papers in the first volume of Archaeologiae Americana, writes on the occasion of my geological memoir. He completely confounds the infiltrated specimen of an entire tree, in the external strata, and of a recent age, which is prominently described in my paper, with ordinary casts and impressions of organic remains in the elder secondary rock column.
Feb. 24th. Mr. McNabb communicates further facts and discoveries of the mineral wealth, resources, and prospects of Western New York and Pennsylvania.
* * * * *
Narrative Journal.--Professor Silliman (March 5th) communicates an extract of a letter to him from Daniel Wadsworth, Esq., of Hartford, to whom he had loaned my Narrative.
"I have been very much entertained with the tour to the western lakes. I think Mr. Schoolcraft writes in a most agreeable manner; there is such an entire absence of affectation in all he says, as well as his manner of saying it, that no one can help being exceedingly pleased, even if the book had not in any other respect a great deal of merit. The whole seems such real and such absolute matter of fact, that I feel as if I had performed the journey with the traveller.
"All I regret about it is that it was not consistent with his plans to tell us more of what might be considered the domestic part of the expedition, the character and conduct of those who were of the party, their health, difficulties, opinions, and treatment of each other, &c. &c. As his book was a sort of official work, I suppose he thought this would not do, and I wish he now would give his friends (and let us be amongst them) a manuscript of the particulars that are not for the public. Mrs. W. has also been as much pleased as myself."
Under the date of March 22d, Sir Humphrey Davy, in a private letter to Dr. Hosack, says:--
"Mr. Schoolcraft's narrative is admirable, both for the facts it develops and for the simplicity and clearness of the details; he has accomplished great things by such means, and offers a good model for a traveler in a new country. I lent his book to our veteran philosophical geographer, Major Rennel, who was highly pleased with it; copies of it would sell well in England."
Dr. Silliman apprises me that Professor Douglass expects my geological report as part of his work.
Having now finished my geological report, I determined to take it to Washington. On reaching New York, I took lodgings at the Franklin House, then a private boarding-house, where my friends, Mr. Carter and Colonel Haines, had rooms. While here, I was introduced one day to a man who subsequently attracted a good deal of notice as a literary impostor. This was a person named Hunter. He said that he derived this name from his origin in the Indian country. He had a soft, compliant, half quizzical look, and appeared to know nothing precisely, but dealt in vague accounts and innuendoes. Having gone to London, the booksellers thought him, it appears, a good subject for a book, and some hack was employed to prepare it. It had a very slender basis in any observations which this man was capable of furnishing; but abounded in misstatements and vituperation of the policy of this government respecting the Indians. This fellow is handled in the Oct. No. of the North American Review, for 1825, in a manner which gives very little encouragement to literary adventurers and cheats. The very man, John Dunn, of Missouri, after whom he affected to have been named, denies that he ever heard of him.
I had, thus far, seen but little of the Atlantic, except what could be observed in a trip from New Orleans to New York, and knew very little of its coasts by personal examination. I had never seen more of the Chesapeake than could be shown from the head of that noble bay, and wished to explore the Valley of the Potomac. For this purpose, I took passage in a coasting vessel at New York, and had a voyage of a novel and agreeable kind, which supplied me with the desired information. At Old Point Comfort, I remained at the hotel while the vessel tarried. In ascending the Potomac one night, while anchored, a negro song was wafted in the stillness of the atmosphere. I could distinctly hear the following words:--
Gentlemen, he come from de Maryland shore, See how massa gray mare go. Go, gray, go, Go, gray, go; See how massa gray mare go.
I reached Washington late in March, and sent in my geological report on the 2d of April. Mr. Calhoun, who acknowledged it on the 6th, referred it to the Topographical Bureau. Some question, connected with the establishment of an agency in Florida, complicated my matter. Otherwise it appeared to be a mere question of time. The Secretary of War left me no room to doubt that his feelings were altogether friendly. Mr. Monroe was also friendly.
Additional Judicial District in Michigan.--J.D. Doty, Esq., wrote to me (April 8th) on this subject. So far as my judgment and observation went, they were favorable to this project. Besides, if I was to become an inhabitant of the district, as things now boded, it would be desirable to me to dwell in a country where the laws, in their higher aspects, were periodically administered. I had, therefore, every reason to favor it.
Skeptical Views of the Mosaical Chronology.--Baptiste Irvine, Esq., in referring to some criticism of his in relation to the discovery of fossils by a distinguished individual, brings this subject forward in a letter of April 19th. This individual had written to him, impugning his criticisms.
"I regret," he observes, "the cause, and shall endeavor to give publicity to his (my friend's) observations; though hardly necessary to him, they may yet awaken some ideas in the minds of the people on the wonders of physics I had almost said the slow miracles of creation. For if ever there was a time when matter existed not, it is pretty evident that millions of years were necessary to establish order on chaos, instead of six days. Let Cuvier, &c., temporize as they may. However, it is the humble allotment of the herd to believe or stare; it is the glory of intelligent men to acquire and admire." "For the memoir I am very thankful, and I perceive it alters the case."
April 22d. Mount Vernon.--In a pilgrimage to this spot, if political veneration may assume that name, I was accompanied by Honorable Albert H. Tracy, Mr. Ruggles, and Mr. Alfred Conkling of the House of Representatives, all of New York. We took a carriage, and reached the hallowed place in good season, and were politely admitted to all the apartments and grounds, which give interest to every tread. I brought some pebbles of common quartz and bits of brown oxide of iron, from the top of the rude tomb, and we all broke branches of the cedars growing there. We gazed into the tomb, through an aperture over the door, where bricks had been removed, and thought, at last, that we could distinguish the coffin.
Human Feet figured on Rock at St. Louis.--The Honorable Thomas H. Benton, in a letter of 29th April, expresses the opinion that these are antiquities, and not "prints," and that they are of the age of the mounds on the American bottom.
Mineralogy.--J.D. Doty, Esq., transmits (May 6th) from the vicinity of Martinsburg, New York, specimens of the geological structure of that neighborhood.
Austin's Colony.--"What you have said to me heretofore, concerning Mr. Austin's settlement in Texas, has rather turned my attention in that direction. Have you any means of communicating with your friend? What are your views of that country?"
Chapter IX
Appointed an agent of Indian affairs for the United States at Saint Mary's--Reasons for the acceptance of the office--Journey to Detroit--Illness at that point--Arrival of a steamer with a battalion of infantry to establish a new military post at the foot of Lake Superior--Incidents of the voyage to that point--Reach our destination, and reception by the residents and Indians--A European and man of honor fled to the wilderness.
1822. At length Congress passed an act, which left Mr. Calhoun free to carry out his intentions respecting me, by the creation of a separate Indian agency for Florida. This enabled him to transfer one of the western agencies, namely, at Vincennes, Indiana, where the Indian business had ceased, to the foot of the basin of Lake Superior, at the ancient French village of Sault de Ste. Marie, Michigan. Had not this act passed, it would have been necessary to transfer this agency to Florida, for which Mr. Gad Humphreys was the recognized appointee. Mr. Monroe immediately sent in my nomination for this old agency to the Senate, by whom it was favorably acted on the 8th of May. The gentleman (Mr. J.B. Thomas, Senator from Illinois) whose boat I had been instrumental in saving in my descent of the Ohio in the spring of 1818, I believe, moved its confirmation. It was from him, at any rate, that I the same day obtained the information of the Senate's action.
I had now attained a fixed position; not such as I desired in the outset, and had striven for, but one that offered an interesting class of duties, in the performance of which there was a wide field for honorable exertion, and, if it was embraced, also of historical inquiry and research. The taste for natural history might certainly be transferred to that point, where the opportunity for discovery was the greatest. At any rate, the trial of a residence on that remote frontier might readily be made, and I may say it was in fact made only as a temporary matter. It was an ancient agency in which General Harrison had long exercised his superior authority over the fierce and wild tribes of the West, which was an additional stimulus to exertion, after its removal to Lake Superior.
I called the next day on Mr. Calhoun, to express my obligation, and to request instructions. For the latter object, he referred me to General Cass, of Detroit, who was the superintendent of Indian affairs on the North-Western frontier, and to whom the policy of pushing an agency and a military post to that point is, I believe, due.
I now turned my face to the North, made a brief stay in New York, hurried through the western part of that State to Buffalo, and ascended Lake Erie to Detroit. At this point I was attacked with fever and ague, which I supposed to have been contracted during a temporary landing at Sandusky. I directed my physician to treat it with renewed doses of mercury, in quick succession, which terminated the fever, but completely prostrated my strength, and induced, at first tic douloureux, and eventually a paralysis of the left cheek.
The troops destined for the new post arrived about the beginning of July. They consisted of a battalion of the 2d Regiment of Infantry, under Colonel Brady, from garrison duty at Sackett's Harbor, and they possessed every element of high discipline and the most efficient action, under active officers. Brady was himself an officer of Wayne's war against the Indians, and had looked danger steadily in the face on the Niagara frontier, in the Late War. In this condition, I hastily snatched up my instructions, and embarked on board the new steamer "Superior," which was chartered by the government for the occasion. It was now the 2d of July.
Before speaking of the voyage from this point, it may be well to refer to another matter. The probability of Professor Douglass publishing the joint results of our observations on the expedition of 1820, appeared now unfavorable. Among the causes of this, I regarded my withdrawal to a remote point as prominent but not decisive. Two years had already elapsed; the professor was completely absorbed in his new professorship, in which he was required to teach a new subject in a new language. Governor Cass, who had undertaken the Indian subject, had greatly enlarged the platform of his inquiries, which rendered it probable that there would be a delay. My memoir on the geology and mineralogy only was ready. Dr. Barnes had the conchology nearly ready, and the botany, which was in the hands of Dr. Torrey, was well advanced. But it required a degree of labor, zeal, and energy to push forward such a work, that admits of no abatements, and which was sufficient to absorb all the attention of the highest mind; and could not be expected from the professor, already overtasked.
Among the papers which were put in my hands at Detroit, I found a printed copy of Governor Cass's Indian queries, based on his promise to Douglass, by which I was gratified to perceive that his mind was earnestly engaged in the subject, which he sought a body of original materials to illustrate. I determined to be a laborer in this new field.
Our voyage up Lake Huron to Michilimackinack, and thence east to the entrance of the Straits of St. Mary's, at Detour, was one of pleasant excitement. We ascended the straits and river, through Muddy Lake and the narrow pass at Sailor's Encampment, to the foot of the great Nibeesh [12] rapids. Here the steamer came to anchor from an apprehension that the bar of Lake George [13] could not be crossed in the existing state of the water.
[Footnote 12: This name signifies strong water, meaning bad for navigation, from its strength. Here Nebeesh is the derogative form of Nebee, water.]
[Footnote 13: The depth of water on this bar was then stated to be but six feet two inches.]
It was early in the morning of the 6th of July when this fact was announced. Colonel Brady determined to proceed with his staff in the ship's yawl, by the shorter passage of the boat channel, and invited me to a seat. Captain Rogers, of the steamer, himself took the helm. After a voyage of about four or five hours, we landed at St. Mary's at ten o'clock in the morning. Men, women, children, and dogs had collected to greet us at the old wharf opposite the Nolan House--the ancient "chateau" of the North-West Company. And the Indians, whose costume lent an air of the picturesque to the scene, saluted us with ball, firing over our heads as we landed. The Chemoquemon had indeed come! Thus the American flag was carried to this point, and it was soon hoisted on a tall staff in an open field east of Mr. Johnston's premises, where the troops, as they came up, marched with inspiring music, and regularly encamped. The roll of the drum was now the law for getting up and lying down. It might be 168 or 170 years since the French first landed at this point. It was just 59 since the British power had supervened, and 39 since the American right had been acknowledged by the sagacity of Dr. Franklin's treaty of 1783. But to the Indian, who stood in a contemplative and stoic attitude, wrapped in his fine blanket of broadcloth, viewing the spectacle, it must have been equally striking, and indicative that his reign in the North-West, that old hive of Indian hostility, was done. And, had he been a man of letters, he might have inscribed, with equal truth, as it was done for the ancient Persian monarch, "MENE, MENE, TEKEL."
To most persons on board, our voyage up these wide straits, after entering them at Point de Tour, had, in point of indefiniteness, been something like searching after the locality of the north pole. We wound about among groups of islands and through passages which looked so perfectly in the state of nature that, but for a few ruinous stone chimneys on St. Joseph's, it could not be told that the foot of man had ever trod the shores. The whole voyage, from Buffalo and Detroit, had indeed been a novel and fairy scene. We were now some 350 miles north-west of the latter city. We had been a couple of days on board, in the area of the sea-like Huron, before we entered the St. Mary's straits. The Superior, being the second steamer built on the Lakes,[14] had proved herself a staunch boat.
[Footnote 14: The first steamer built on the Lakes was called the "Walk-in-the-Water," after an Indian chief of that name; it was launched at Black Rock, Niagara River, in 1818, and visited Michilimackinack in the summer of that year.]
The circumstances of this trip were peculiar, and the removal of a detachment of the army to so remote a point in a time of profound peace, had stimulated migratory enterprise. The measure was, in truth, one of the results of the exploring expedition to the North-West in 1820, and designed to curb and control the large Indian population on this extreme frontier, and to give security to the expanding settlements south of this point. It was in this light that Mr. Calhoun, the present enlightened Secretary of War, viewed the matter, and it may be said to constitute a part of his plan for throwing a cordon of advanced posts in front of the wide area of our western settlements. From expressions heard on our route, the breaking up in part of the exceedingly well-quartered garrison of Madison barracks at Sackett's Harbor, N.Y., was not particularly pleasing to the officers of this detachment, most of whom were married gentlemen, having families, and all of whom were in snug quarters at that point, surrounded as it is by a rich, thriving, farming population, and commanding a good and cheap market of meats and vegetables. To be ordered off suddenly a thousand miles or more, over three of the great series of lakes, and pitched down here, on the verge of the civilized world, at the foot of Lake Superior, amid Indians and Indian traders, where butchers' meat is a thing only to be talked about, and garden vegetables far more rare than "blackberries," was not, certainly, an agreeable prospect for officers with wives and mothers with babies. It might, I am inclined to think from what I heard, be better justified on the grounds of national than of domestic policy. They determined, however, on the best possible course under the circumstances, and took their ladies and families along. This has given an air of gayety and liveliness to the trip, and, united with the calmness of the season, and the great novelty and beauty of the scenery, rendered the passage a very agreeable one. The smoothness of the lakes, the softness and purity of the air, the wild and picturesque character of the scenes, and the perfect transparency of the waters, have been so many themes of perpetual remark and admiration. The occasional appearance of the feather-plumed Indian in his sylph-like canoe, or the flapping of a covey of wild-fowl, frightened by the rushing sound of a steamboat, with the quick pulsation of its paddle-strokes on the water, but served to heighten the interest, and to cast a kind of fairy spell over the prospect, particularly as, half shrouded in mist, we passed among the green islands and brown rocks, fringed with fir trees, which constituted a perfect panorama as we entered and ascended the Straits of the St. Mary's.
We sat down to our Fourth-of-July dinner on board the Superior, a little above the Thunder Bay Islands, in Lake Huron, and as we neared the once sacred island of Michilimackinack, and saw its tall cliffs start up, as it were by magic, from the clear bosom of the pellucid lake, a true aboriginal, whose fancy had been well imbued with the poetic mythology of his nation, might have supposed he was now, indeed, approaching his fondly-cherished "Island of the Blest." Apart from its picturesque loveliness, we found it, however, a very flesh and blood and matter-of-fact sort of place, and having taken a pilot on board, who knew the sinuosities of the Saint Mary's channel, we veered around, the next day, and steered into the capes of that expanded and intricate strait, where we finally anchored on the morning denoted, and where the whole detachment was quickly put under orders to ascend the river the remainder of the distance, about fifteen miles, in boats, each company under its own officers, while the colonel pushed forward in the yawl. It was settled, at the same time, that the ladies and their "little ones" should remain on board, till matters had assumed some definite shape for their reception.
We were received by the few residents favorably, as has been indicated. Prominent among the number of residents who came to greet us was Mr. John Johnston, a gentleman from the north of Ireland, of whose romantic settlement and adventures here we had heard at Detroit. He gave us a warm welcome, and freely offered every facility in his power to contribute to the personal comfort of the officers and their families, and the general objects of the government. Mr. J. is slightly lame, walking with a cane. He is of the medium stature, with blue eyes, fair complexion, hair which still bears traces of its original light brown, and possesses manners and conversation so entirely easy and polite as to impress us all very favorably.
Colonel Brady selected some large open fields, not susceptible of a surprise, for his encampment. To this spot, as boat after boat came up, in fine style, with its complement of men from the steamer, the several companies marched down, and before nightfall, the entire command was encamped in a square, with their tents handsomely pitched, and the whole covered by lines of sentinels, and under the exact government of troops in the field. The roll of the drum which had attracted but little attention on the steamer, assumed a deeper tone, as it was re-echoed from the adjoining woods, and now distinctly announced, from time to time, the placing of sentinels, the hour for supper, and other offices of a clock, in civil life. The French population evinced, by their countenances and gestures, as they clustered round, a manifest satisfaction at the movement; the groups of Indians had gazed in a sort of silent wonder at the pageant; they seemed, by a certain air of secrecy and suspicion, to think it boded some evil to their long supremacy in the land. Night imperceptibly threw her dark mantle over the scene; the gazers, group by group, went to their lodges, and finally the sharp roll of the tattoo bid every one within the camp to his tent. Captain Alexander R. Thompson, who had claimed the commandant as his guest, invited me also to spend the night in his tent. We could plainly hear the deep murmur of the falls, after we lay down to rest, and also the monotonous thump of the distant Indian wabeno drum. Yet at this remote point, so far from the outer verge of civilization, we found in Mr. Johnston a man of singular energy and independence of character, from one of the most refined circles of Europe; who had pushed his way here to the foot of Lake Superior about the year 1793; had engaged in the fur trade, to repair the shattered fortunes of his house; had married the daughter of the ruling Ogima or Forest King of the Chippewas; had raised and educated a large family, and was then living, in the only building in the place deserving the name of a comfortable residence, with the manners and conversation of a perfect gentleman, the sentiments of a man of honor, and the liberality of a lord. He had a library of the best English works; spent most of his time in reading and conducting the affairs of an extensive business; was a man of social qualities, a practical philanthropist, a well-read historian, something of a poet, and talked of Europe and its connections as things from which he was probably forever separated, and looked back towards it only as the land of reminiscences.
Chapter X
Incidents of the summer during the establishment of the new post at St. Mary's--Life in a nut-shell--Scarcity of room--High prices of everything--State of the Indians--Their rich and picturesque costume--Council and its incidents--Fort site selected and occupied--The evil of ardent spirits amongst the Indians--Note from Governor De Witt Clinton--Mountain ash--Curious superstitions of the Odjibwas--Language--Manito poles--Copper--Superstitious regard for Venus--Fine harbor in Lake Superior--Star family--A locality of necromancers--Ancient Chippewa capital--Eating of animals.
1822. July 7th. We left our pallets at the sound of the reveille, and partook of a rich cup of coffee, with cream, which smoked on the camp breakfast-board of our kind entertainer, Captain Thompson.[15] The ladies and children came up from the steamer, under due escorts, during the day, and were variously accommodated with temporary quarters. Dr. Wheaton and lady, Captain Brant, quartermaster, and myself, were received eventually at the table of Mr. Johnston. Captain Brant and myself hired a small room hard by for an office to be used between us. This room was a small log tenement, which had been occupied by one of Mr. J.'s hands. It was about twelve by fourteen feet, with a small window in front and in rear, and a very rural fire-place in one corner. It is astonishing how much comfort can be enjoyed in a crowded and ill-fitted place on a pinch. We felicitated ourselves at even this. We really felt that we were quite fortunate in getting such a locality to hail from. Captain N.S. Clark got an adjoining tenement, of similar construction and use, but much larger, for his numerous family. Some of the ladies took shelter at the domicil of an intelligent American family (Mr. E.B. Allen's) who had preceded us a short time with an adventure of merchandise. One or two of the ladies abode temporarily in the tents of their husbands. The unmarried officers looked for nothing better than life in camp. I accepted an invitation at the mess-table of the officers. Besides this sudden influx of population, there were followers and hucksters of various hues who hoped to make their profits from the soldiery. There was not a nook in the scraggy-looking little antique village but what was sought for with avidity and thronged with occupants. Whoever has seen a flock of hungry pigeons, in the spring, alight on the leaf-covered ground, beneath a forest, and apply the busy powers of claw and beak to obtain a share of the hidden acorns that may be scratched up from beneath, may form some just notion of the pressing hurry and bustle that marked life in this place. The enhanced price that everything bore was one of the results of this sudden influx of consumers and occupants.
[Footnote 15: This officer fell at the battle of Ochechubby, in Florida, as colonel of the sixth infantry, gallantly leading his men to battle.]
8th. I went to rest last night with the heavy murmuring sound of the falls in my ears, broken at short intervals by the busy thump-thump-thump of the Indian drum; for it is to be added, to the otherwise crowded state of the place, that the open grounds and river-side greens of the village, which stretch along irregularly for a mile or two, are filled with the lodges of visiting Indian bands from the interior. The last month of spring and the early summer constitute, in fact, a kind of carnival for the natives. It is at this season that the traders, who have wintered in the interior, come out with their furs to the frontier posts of St. Mary's, Drummond Island, and Michilimackinack, to renew their stocks of goods. The Indians, who have done hunting at this season, as the furred animals are now changing their hair, and the pelt becomes bad, follow them to enjoy themselves along the open shores of the lakes, and share in the good things that may fall to their lot, either from the traders at their places of outfit, from presents issued by the British or American governments at their chief posts, or from merchants in the towns, to whom a few concealed skins are still reserved to trade. An Indian's time appears to be worth but little to him at this season, if at any season. He lives most precariously on small things, such as he can pick up as he travels loitering along the lake shores, or strolls, with easy footsteps, about the forest precincts of his lodge. A single fish, or a bird or squirrel, now and then, serves to mitigate, if it does not satisfy, hunger. He has but little, I am told, at the best estate; but, to make amends for this, he is satisfied and even happy with little. This is certainly a philosophic way of taking life, but it is, if I do not mistake it, stoic philosophy, and has been learned, by painful lessons of want, from early youth and childhood. Where want is the common lot, the power of endurance which the race have must be a common attainment.
9th. This day I hired an interpreter for the government, to attend at the office daily, a burly-faced, large man of some five-and-forty, by the name of Yarns. He tells me that he was born at Fort Niagara, of Irish parentage, to which an originally fair skin, blue eyes, and sandy hair, bear testimony. He has spent life, it seems, knocking about trading posts, in the Indian country, being married, has metif children, and speaks the Chippewa tongue fluently--I do not know how accurately.
The day which has closed has been a busy day, having been signalized as the date of my first public council with the Indians. It has ushered in my first diplomatic effort. For this purpose, all the bands present were invited to repair to camp, where Colonel Brady, at the appointed hour, ordered his men under arms, in full dress. They were formed in a hollow square in front of his marque. The American flag waved from a lofty staff. The day was bright and fine, and everything was well arranged to have the best effect upon the minds of the Indians. As the throng of both resident and foreign bands approached, headed by their chiefs, they were seated in the square. It was noticed that the chiefs were generally tall and striking-looking persons, of dignified manners, and well and even richly dressed. One of the chiefs of the home band, called Sassaba, who was generally known by the sobriquet of the Count, appeared in a scarlet uniform, with epaulets and a sword. The other chiefs observed their native costume, which is, with this tribe, a toga of blue broadcloth, folded and held by one hand on the breast, over a light-figured calico shirt, red cloth leggins and beaded moccasons, a belt or baldric about the waist, sustaining a knife-sheath and pouch, and a frontlet of skin or something of the sort, around the forehead, environed generally with eagles' feathers.
When the whole were seated, the colonel informed them that I had been sent by their great father the President to reside among them, that respect was due me in that capacity, and that I would now address them. I had directed a quantity of tobacco to be laid before them; and offered them the pipe with the customary ceremonies. Being a novice in addresses of this kind, I had sat down early in the morning, in my crowded log hut, and written an address, couched in such a manner, and with such allusions and appeals, as I supposed would be most appropriate. I was not mistaken, if I could judge by the responses made at the close of each sentence, as it was interpreted. The whole address was evidently well received, and responded to in a friendly manner, by the ruling chief, a tall, majestic, and graceful person named Shingabawossin, or the Image Stone, and by all who spoke except the Count. He made use of some intemperate, or ill-timed expressions, which were not interpreted, but which brought out a strong rebuke from Mr. Johnston, who, being familiar with the Indian language, gave vent in their tongue to his quick and high-toned feelings of propriety on the occasion. Colonel Brady then made some remarks to the chiefs, dictated by the position he occupied as being about to take post, permanently, in their country. He referred to the treaty of purchase made at these falls two years before by Governor Cass. He told the Indians that he should not occupy their ancient encamping and burial-ground on the hill, but would select the next best site for his troops. This announcement was received with great satisfaction, as denoted by a heavy response of approbation on the part of the Indians; and the council closed to the apparent mutual satisfaction of all. I augured well from all I heard respecting it, as coming from the Indians, and was resolved to follow it up zealously, by cultivating the best understanding with this powerful and hitherto hostile tribe, namely the Chippewas, or, as they call themselves, Od-jib-wä.[16] To this end, as well as for my amusement, I commenced a vocabulary, and resolved to study their language, manners, customs, &c.
[Footnote 16: This word has its pluraling thus, Od-jib-wäig.]
10th. On examining the topography and advantages of the ground, Colonel Brady determined to take possession of a lot enclosed and dwelling, originally the property of the North West Company, and known as the Nolin House, but now the property of Mr. C.O. Ermatinger.[17] To this place the troops were marched, soon after the close of the Indian council mentioned, and encamped within the area. This area was enclosed with cedar pickets. The dwelling-house, which occupied an eminence some eighth of a mile below the falls, was in old times regarded as a princely château of the once powerful lords of the North West Fur Trade, but is now in a decayed and ruinous state. It was nick-named "Hotel Flanagan." Dilapidated as it was, there was a good deal of room under its roof, and it afforded quarters for most of the officers' families, who must otherwise have remained in open tents. The enclosure had also one or two stone houses, which furnished accommodations to the quartermaster's and subsistence and medical departments. Every nerve was now directed to fit up the place, complete the enclosure, and furnish it with gates; to build a temporary guard-house, and complete other military fixtures of the new cantonment. The edifice also underwent such repairs as served to fence out, as much as possible, the winds and snows of a severe winter--a winter which every one dreads the approach of, and the severity of which was perhaps magnified in proportion as it was unknown.
[Footnote 17: For the property thus taken possession of, the United States Government, through the Quartermaster's Department, paid the claimant the just and full amount awarded by appraisers.]
11th. What my eyes have seen and my ears have heard, I must believe; and what is their testimony respecting the condition of the Indian on the frontiers? He is not, like Falstaff's men, "food for powder," but he is food for whisky. Whisky is the great means of drawing from him his furs and skins. To obtain it, he makes a beast of himself, and allows his family to go hungry and half naked. And how feeble is the force of law, where all are leagued in the golden bonds of interest to break it! He is indeed
"Like some neglected shrub at random cast That shades the steep and sighs at every blast."
12th. I received by to-day's mail a note from De Witt Clinton, Governor of New York. America has produced few men who have united civic and literary tastes and talents of a high order more fully than he does. He early and ably investigated the history and antiquities of Western New York. He views with a comprehensive judgment the great area of the West, and knows that its fertility and resources must render it, at no distant day, the home of future millions. He was among the earliest to appreciate the mineralogical and geographical researches which I made in that field. He renewed the interest, which, as a New Yorker, he felt in my history and fortunes, after my return from the head of the Mississippi in 1820. He opened his library and house to me freely; and I have to notice his continued interest since my coming here. In the letter which has just reached me, he encloses a favorable notice of my recent Narrative of the Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi, from Sir Humphrey Davy. If there were nothing else, in such a notice from such a source but the stimulus it gives to exertion, that alone is worth to a man in my position "pearls and diamonds."
Colonel Brady, who is active in daily perambulating the woods, to make himself acquainted with the environs, seeking, at the same time, the best places of finding wood and timber, for the purposes of his command, brought me a twig of the Sorbus Americana, a new species of tree to him, in the American forest, of which he asked me the name. This tree is found in occasional groups extensively in the region of the upper Lake latitudes, where it is called the mountain ash. In the expedition to the sources of the Mississippi in 1820, it was observed on the southern shores of Lake Superior, which are on the average a little north of latitude 36° 30'. This tree does not in these straits attain much size; a trunk of six to eight inches diameter is large. Its leaves, flowers, and fruit all tend to make it a very attractive species for shade and ornament. It must have a rich soil, but, this requisite granted, it delights in wet moist lands, and will thrive with its roots in springy grounds.
15th. One of the curious superstitions of the Chippewas, respecting the location of spiritual existences, revealed itself to-day. There is quite an eminence nearly a mile back of the new cantonment, which is called La Butte de Terre by the French, and Wudjuwong,[18] or Place of the Mountain, by the natives. This eminence is covered with a fine growth of forest trees, and lies in the track of an ancient Indian hunting path. About half way between the brow of the hill and the cantonment, there formerly stood a large tree of this species, partly hollow, from the recesses of which, Indian tradition says, there issued, on a calm day, a sound like the voice of a spirit or monedo. It resembled the sounds of their own drum. It was therefore considered as the residence of some powerful spirit, and deemed sacred. To mark their regard for the place, they began to deposit at its foot bows and twigs of the same species of tree, as they passed it, from year to year, to and from their hunting-grounds. These offerings began long before the French came to the country, and were continued up to this time. Some years ago, the tree had become so much decayed that it blew down during a storm, but young shoots came up from its roots, and the natives continued to make these offerings of twigs, long after the original trunk had wholly decayed. A few days ago, Colonel Brady directed a road to be cut from the cantonment to the hill, sixty feet wide, in order to procure wood from the hill for the garrison. This road passed over the site of the sacred tree, and the men, without knowing it, removed the consecrated pile of offerings. It may serve to show a curious coincidence in the superstitions of nations, between whom, however, there is not the slightest probability of national affiliation, or even intercourse, to remark that this sacred manito tree was a very large species of the Scottish rowan or mountain ash.
[Footnote 18: Wudijoo, a mountain--ong denotes locality.]
16th. I this day left the mess-table of my kind friends, the officers of the second infantry, and went to the hospitable domicil of Mr. Johnston, who has the warm-hearted frankness of the Irish character, and offers the civilities of life with the air and manner of a prince. I flatter myself with the opportunity of profiting greatly while under his roof, in the polished circle of his household, and in his ripe experience and knowledge of the Indian character, manners, and customs, and in the curious philosophical traits of the Indian language. It is refreshing to find a person who, in reference to this language, knows the difference between the conjugation of a verb and the declension of a noun. There is a prospect, at least, of getting at the grammatical principles, by which they conjoin and build up words. It has been intolerable to me to converse with Indian traders and interpreters here, who have, for half their lives, been using a language without being able to identify with precision person, mood, tense, or any of the first laws of grammatical utterance.
17th. It is customary with the Chippewas at this place, when an inmate of the lodge is sick, to procure a thin sapling some twenty to thirty feet long, from which, after it has been trimmed, the bark is peeled. Native paints are then smeared over it as caprice dictates. To the slender top are then tied bits of scarlet, blue cloth, beads, or some other objects which are deemed acceptable to the manito or spirit, who has, it is believed, sent sickness to the lodge as a mark of his displeasure. The pole is then raised in front of the lodge and firmly adjusted in the ground. The sight of these manito poles gives quite a peculiar air to an Indian encampment. Not knowing, however, the value attached to them, one of the officers, a few days after our arrival, having occasion for tent poles, sent one of his men for one of these poles of sacrifice; but its loss was soon observed by the Indians, who promptly reclaimed it, and restored it to the exact position which it occupied before. There is, in fact, such a subtle and universal belief in the doctrine and agency of minor spirits of malign or benignant influence among the Indians who surround the cantonment, or visit the agency, and who are encamped at this season in great numbers in the open spaces of the village or its vicinity, that we are in constant danger of trespassing against some Indian custom, and of giving offence where it was least intended. It is said that one cause of the preference which the Indians have ever manifested for the French, is the respect which they are accustomed to pay to all their religious or superstitious observances, whereas an Englishman or an American is apt, either to take no pains to conceal his disgust for their superstitions, or to speak out bluntly against them.
18th. Sulphuret of Copper.--I received a specimen of this mineral, which is represented to have been obtained on the Island of Saint Joseph's, in these straits (Saint Mary's). It has the usual brass yellow color of the sulphurets of this metal, and furnishes a hint for seeking that hitherto undiscovered, but valuable species of the ore in this vicinity. Hitherto, we have found the metal chiefly in the native form, or in the condition of a carbonate, the first being a form of it which has not in Europe been found in large quantities, and the second not containing a sufficient per centage to repay well the cost of smelting.
20th. Superstitious regard for Woman.--Some of the rites and notions of these northern barbarians are curious. The following custom is stated to me to have been formerly prevalent among the Chippewas: After their corn-planting, a labor which falls to the share of the women, and as soon as the young blades began to shoot up from the hills, it was customary for the female head of the family to perform a circuit around the field in a state of nudity. For this purpose, she chose a dark evening, and after divesting herself of her machecota, held it in her hands dragging it behind her as she ran, and in this way compassed the field. This singular rite was believed to protect the corn from blight and the ravages of worms and vermin, and to insure a good crop. It was believed that neither worms nor vermin could cross the mystic or enchanted ring made by the nocturnal footsteps of the wife, nor any mildew or canker affect the growing stalks and ears.
21st. Grand Island, in Lake Superior, lies transversely in the lake, just beyond the termination of the precipitous coast of the Pictured Rocks. Its southern end is crescent-shaped, and forms a singularly fine harbor for vessels, which will one day be appreciated. The Indian band occupying it was formerly numerous. There are many stories still current of their former prowess and traits of hospitality and generosity, and of the skill of their old seers, and divining-men, i.e. Jossakeeds. Its present Indian population is reduced to forty-six souls, of whom ten are men, sixteen women, and twenty children. Of the men, nine are married, one of whom has two wives, and there are two widows.
Of this band the Star family, so called, have long possessed the chieftainship, and are remarkable on several accounts. There are eleven children of them now living, five of whom are males, all by one mother, who is still living. Sabboo is the principal man. The South Bird, his elder, and the ruling chief, has removed to Bay de Nocquet. At this island, story says, formerly lived the noted warrior and meta, Sagima; and it was also, according to Indian mythology, the residence of Mishosha, who owned a magic canoe, that would shoot through the water by uttering a charmed word.
22d. I have heard much of the ancient Chippewa capital of La Pointe, as the French call it, or Chegoimegon, in Lake Superior, situated near its west end, or head. The Chippewas and their friends, the old traders and Boisbrules, and Canadians, are never tired of telling of it. All their great men of old times are located there. It was there that their Mudjekewis, king or chief ruler, lived, and, as some relate, that an eternal fire was kept up with a sort of rude temple service. At that place lived, in comparatively modern times, Wabojeeg and Andaigweos, and there still lives one of their descendants in Gitchee Waishkee, the Great First-born, or, as he is familiarly called, Pezhickee, or the Buffalo, a chief decorated with British insignia. His band is estimated at one hundred and eighteen souls, of whom thirty-four are adult males, forty-one females, and forty-three children. Mizi, the Catfish, one of the heads of families of this band, who has figured about here this summer, is not a chief, but a speaker, which gives him some éclat. He is a sort of petty trader too, being credited with little adventures of goods by a dealer on the opposite, or British shores.
23d. There are few animals which the Indians reject as food. On this subject they literally fulfil the declaration of Paul, "that every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused;" but I fear the poor creatures, in these straits, do anything but show the true spirit of thanksgiving in which the admonition is given. There is nothing apparently in the assertion respecting Indians distinguishing between clean and unclean beasts; I have heard, however, that crows and vultures are not eaten, but, when they are pushed by hunger, whatever can sustain life is taken.
The truth is, the calls of hunger are often so pressing to these northern Indians, that anything in the shape of animal fibre, that will keep soul and body together, is eaten in times of their greatest want. A striking instance of this kind has just occurred, in the case of a horse killed in the public service. The animal had, to use the teamster's phrase, been snagged, and was obliged to be shot. To prevent unpleasant effects in hot summer weather, the carcass was buried in the sand; but as soon as the numerous bands of Indians, who are encamped here, learned the fact, they dug up the animal, which was, however, nowise diseased, and took it to their camp for food.
Chapter XI
Murder of Soan-ga-ge-zhick, a Chippewa, at the head of the falls--Indian mode of interment--Indian prophetess--Topic of interpreters and interpretation--Mode of studying the Indian language--The Johnston family--Visits--Katewabeda, chief of Sandy Lake--Indian mythology, and oral tales and legends--Literary opinion--Political opinion--Visit of the chief Little Pine--Visit of Wabishkepenais--A despairing Indian--Geography.
1822. July 26th. A tragic occurrence took place last night, at the head of the portage, resulting in the death of a Chippewa, which is believed to be wholly attributable to the use of ardent spirits in the Indian camps. As soon as I heard the facts, and not knowing to what lengths the spirit of retaliation might go, I requested of Colonel Brady a few men, with a non-commissioned officer, and proceeded, taking my interpreter along, to the spot. The portage road winds along about three-fourths of a mile, near the rapids, and all the way, within the full sound of the roaring water, when it opens on a green, which is the ancient camping ground, at the head of the falls. A footpath leads still higher, by clumps of bushes and copsewood, to the borders of a shallow bay, where in a small opening I somewhat abruptly came to the body of the murdered man. He was a Chippewa from the interior called Soan-ga-ge-zhick, or the Strong Sky. He had been laid out, by his relatives, and dressed in his best apparel, with a kind of cap of blue cloth and a fillet round his head. His lodge, occupied by his widow and three small children, stood near. On examination, he had been stabbed in several places, deeply in both thighs. These wounds might not have proved fatal; but there was a subsequent blow, with a small tomahawk, upon his forehead, above the left eye. He was entirely dead, and had been found so, on searching for him at night, by his wife. It appeared that he had been drinking during the evening and night, with an Indian half-breed of the Chippewa River, of the name of Gaulthier. This fellow, finding he had killed him, had taken his canoe and fled. Both had been intoxicated. I directed the body to be interred, at the public charge, on the ancient burial hill of the Chippewas, near the cantonment. The usual shroud, on such occasions, is a new blanket; a grave was dug, and the body very carefully dressed, laid in the coffin, beside the grave. Before the lid was fastened, an aged Indian came forward, and pronounced a funeral oration. He recited the traits of his character. He addressed the dead man direct. He told him that he had reached the end of his journey first, that they should all follow him soon to the land of the dead, and again meet. He gave him directions for his journey. He offered a brief admonition of dangers. He bid him adieu. The brother of the deceased then stept forward, and, having removed the head-dress of the slain man, pulled out some locks of hair as a memento. The head-dress was then carefully replaced, the lid of the coffin fastened, and the corpse let down into the ground. Two stout poles were then laid over the open grave. The brother approached the widow and stood still. The orator then addressed a few words to both, telling the survivor to perform a brother's part by the widow. He then took her by the hand, and led her carefully across the open grave, over the two poles. This closed the ceremony, and the grave was then filled, and the crowd of white and red men dispersed. At night a small flickering fire was built by the Indian relatives of the murdered man, at the head of the grave.
27th. Making inquiries respecting the family of Soan-ga-ge-zhick, in order to direct some provisions to be issued to them, I learned that the widow is a prophetess among her people, or in other words a female Jossakeed, and is supposed to have much influence in this way. This denotes that the prophetic office is not, as has been supposed, confined to males. I cannot better indicate the meaning of the word Jossakeed than to say that it is a person who makes oracular responses from a close lodge of peculiar construction, where the inmate is supposed to be surrounded by superhuman influences, which impart the power of looking into futurity. It is, manifestly, the ancient office of a seer, and after making interrogatories about it, from persons supposed to be best acquainted with the manners and customs of the people, the existence of such an order of persons among them offers a curious coincidence with one of the earliest superstitions of mankind. I further learn that there is nothing hereditary in the descent of such priestly functions; that any one, who acquires a character for sanctity or skill therein among the bands, may assume the duties, and will secure a rank and respect in proportion to his supposed skill therein. Having spoken of descent, it is added, by my informants, that the widow of Strong Sky, is a granddaughter of the noted war-chief Wabodjeeg,[19] of Chegoimegon, Lake Superior, who, some half a century ago, had obtained a high reputation with his people for his military skill and bravery, in the war against the Ottogamies and Sioux. They talk of him as having been a sort of Rajah, who could at any time get men to follow him.
[Footnote 19: White Fisher. The fisher is a small furred animal resembling the mustela.]
28th. I have had an interview to-day with Ka-ba-konse (Little Hawk), brother of the murdered Strong Sky.
It does not seem possible to obtain much information respecting their secret beliefs and superstitions direct from the Indians. The attempts I have made thus far have, at least, been unsuccessful, partly, perhaps, because the topic was not properly apprehended by them, or by my ordinary office interpreter, who, I find, is soon run a-muck by anything but the plainest and most ordinary line of inquiry. A man of the Indian frontiers, who has lived all his life to eat and drink, to buy and sell, and has grown old in this devotion to the means necessary to secure the material necessaries of life is not easily roused up to intellectual ardor. I find this to be the case with my present interpreter, and he is, perhaps, not inferior to the general run of paid interpreters. But as I find, in my intercourse, the growing difficulties of verbal communication with the Indians on topics at all out of the ordinary routine of business, I begin to feel less surprised at the numerous misapprehensions of the actual character, manners, and customs of the Indians, which are found in books. I speak as to the communication of exact ideas of their beliefs. As to literal exactitude in such communications, my inquiries have already convinced me that there must be other and higher standards than a hap-hazard I-au-ne-kun-o-tau-gade, or trade interpreter, before the thing can be attempted. Fortunately, I have, in my kind and polite friend Mr. Johnston, who has given me temporary quarters at his house, and the several intelligent members of his family, the means of looking deeper into the powers and structure of the language, and am pressing these advantages, amidst the pauses of business, with all my ardor and assiduity.
The study of the language, and the formation of a vocabulary and grammar have almost imperceptibly become an absorbing object, although I have been but a short time at the place, and the plan interests me so much, that I actually regret the time that is lost from it, in the ordinary visits of comity and ceremony, which are, however, necessary. My method is to interrogate all persons visiting the office, white and red, who promise to be useful subjects of information during the day, and to test my inquiries in the evening by reference to the Johnstons, who, being educated, and speaking at once both the English and Odjibwa correctly, offer a higher and more reliable standard than usual.
Mr. Johnston's family consists of ten persons, though all are not constantly present. He is himself a native of the county of Antrim, in the north of Ireland, his father having possessed an estate at Craige, near the Giant's Causeway. He came to America in the last presidential term of General Washington, having a brother at that time settled at Albany, and after visiting Montreal and Quebec, he fell into company with the sort of half-baronial class of north-west fur traders, who struck his fancy. By their advice, he went to Michilimackinack and Lake Superior, where he became attached to, and subsequently married the younger daughter of Wabojeeg, a northern Powhatan, who has been before mentioned. There are four sons and four daughters, to the education of all of whom he has paid the utmost attention. His eldest son was first placed in the English navy, and is now a lieutenant in the land service, having been badly wounded and cut in the memorable battle with Commodore Perry on Lake Eric, in 1813. The next eldest is engaged in commerce. The eldest daughter was educated in Ireland, and the two next at Sandwich, near Detroit. These constituted the adults; there are two sons and a daughter, still in their school-days. All possess agreeable, easy manners and refinement. Mrs. Johnston is a woman of excellent judgment and good sense; she is referred to on abstruse points of the Indian ceremonies and usages, so that I have in fact stumbled, as it were, on the only family in North West America who could, in Indian lore, have acted as my "guide, philosopher and friend."
30th. I received yesterday a second visit from Ka-ta-wa-be-da, or the Broken Tooth chief of Sandy Lake, on the Upper Mississippi, who is generally known by his French name of Breshieu, and at the close of the interview gave him a requisition on the commissary for some provisions to enable him to return to his home. The Indians must be led by a very plain path and a friendly hand. Feeling and preference are subsequent manifestations. I took this occasion to state to him the objects and policy of the government by the establishment at these falls of a post and agency, placing it upon its true basis, namely, the preservation of peace upon the frontiers, and the due observance, by all parties, of the laws respecting trade and intercourse with the tribes, and securing justice both to them and to our citizens, particularly by the act for the exclusion of ardent spirits from the Indian country. By the agency, a door was opened through which they could communicate their wishes to the President, and he was also enabled to state his mind to them. All who opened their ears truly to the voice of their American father would be included among the recipients of his favors. He felt kindly to all, but those only who hearkened to his council would be allowed, as he had been, to share in the usual privileges which the agency at this place secured to them. Having drawn his provisions, and duly reflected on what was said by me, he returned to-day to bid me adieu, on his setting out to go home, and to express his thanks for my kindness and advice. The old chief, who has long exercised his sway in the region of Sandy Lake, made a well-considered speech in reply to mine of yesterday, in which he took the ground of neutrality as between the United States and Great Britain, and averred that he had ever been the friend of the white race and of traders who came into the country, and declared himself the friend of peace.
At the conclusion of this interview, I gave him a small sea-shell from my cabinet, as a mark of my respect, and a token which would remind him of my advice. I remembered that the Indians of the continent have always set a high value on wampum, which is made solely from sea-shells, and have attributed a kind of sacredness for this class of productions.
31st. Indian Mythology.--Nothing has surprised me more in the conversations which I have had with persons acquainted with the Indian customs and character, than to find that the Chippewas amuse themselves with oral tales of a mythological or allegorical character. Some of these tales, which I have heard, are quite fanciful, and the wildest of them are very characteristic of their notions and customs. They often take the form of allegory, and in this shape appear designed to teach some truth or illustrate some maxim. The fact, indeed, of such a fund of fictitious legendary matter is quite a discovery, and speaks more for the intellect of the race than any trait I have heard. Who would have imagined that these wandering foresters should have possessed such a resource? What have all the voyagers and remarkers from the days of Cabot and Raleigh been about, not to have discovered this curious trait, which lifts up indeed a curtain, as it were, upon the Indian mind, and exhibits it in an entirely new character?
August 1st. Every day increases the interest which the question of the investigation of the Indian languages and customs assumes in my mind. My facilities for pursuing these inquiries and for the general transaction of the official business has been increased this day by my removing into a new and more convenient office, situated some ninety or a hundred yards west of my former position, but on a line with it, and fronting, like the former room, on an ancient green on the river's banks. The St. Mary's River is here about three-fourths of a mile wide, and the green in front of my office is covered with Indian lodges, and presents a noble expanse. I have now a building some thirty-six feet square, built of squared timber, jointed with mortar and whitewashed, so as to give it a neat appearance. The interior is divided into a room some twenty feet by thirty-six, with two small ante-rooms. A large cast iron Montreal stove, which will take in three feet wood, occupies the centre. The walls are plastered, and the room moderately lighted. The rear of the lot has a blacksmith shop. The interpreter has quarters near by. The gate of the new cantonment is some three hundred yards west of my door, and there is thus brought within a small compass the means of transacting the affairs of the agency during the approaching and expected severe winter. These are the best arrangements that can be made, better indeed than I had reason to expect on first landing here.
3d. I wrote to-day to Dr. Hosack, expressing my thanks for the extract of a letter, which he had enclosed me from Sir Humphrey Davy, dated London, March 24th, 1822, in which this eminent philosopher expresses his opinion on my Narrative Journal, a copy of which Dr. Hosack had sent him. "Schoolcraft's Narrative is admirable," observes Sir Humphrey Davy, "both for the facts it develops, and for the simplicity and clearness of the details. He has accomplished great things by such means, and offers a good model for a traveler in a new country. I lent his book to our veteran philosophical geographer, Major Kennel, who was highly pleased with it. Copies of it would sell well in England."
A friend sends me a prospectus for a paper under the title of "Washington Republican," which has just been established at the seat of government, earnestly advocating the election of John C. Calhoun for the presidency in 1824.
4th. A chief of a shrewd and grave countenance, and more than the ordinary cast of thought, visited me this morning, and gave me his hand, with the ordinary salutation of Nosa (my father). The interpreter introduced him by the name of Little Pine, or Shingwalkonee, and as a person of some consequence among the Indians, being a meta, a wabeno, a counselor, a war chief, and an orator or speaker. He had a tuft of beard on his chin, wore a hat, and had some other traits in his dress and gear which smacked of civilization. His residence is stated to be, for the most part, on the British side of the river, but he traces his lineage from the old Crane band here. I thought him to be a man of more than the ordinary Indian forecast. He appeared to be a person who, having seen all the military developments on these shores during the last month, thought he would cross over the channel with a retinue, to see what the Chemoquemon [20] was about. He had also, perhaps, a shrewd Indian inkling that some presents might be distributed here during the season.
[Footnote 20: Chemoquemon, an American; from Gitchee great, moquemon a knife.]
10th. A strange-looking Indian came in from the forest wearing an American silver medal. He looked haggard and forsaken. It will be recollected by those who have read my Narrative Journal of the expedition of 1820, that Governor Cass became lost and entangled among the sharp mountainous passes of the River Ontonagon, in his attempts to reach the party who had, at an early part of the day, gone forward to the site of the Copper Rock; and that he bestowed a medal on a young Chippewa, who had rendered his party and himself services during its stay on that river. This individual was among the earlier visitors who presented himself at my office. He recognized me as one of the party on that occasion. He was introduced to me by the name of Wabish-ke-pe-nace, or the White Bird, and seemed to rouse up from a settled look of melancholy when referring to those events. It appears that his conduct as a guide on that occasion had made him unpopular with the band, who told him he had received an honor for that which should be condemned. That it was a crime to show the Americans their wealth, and the Great Spirit did not approve it. His dress had something wild and forlorn, as well as his countenance.
17th. A week or two ago, an Indian, called Sa-ne-baw, or the Ribbon, who encamped on the green in front of my office, fell sick. I requested Dr. Wheaton to visit him, but it did not appear that there was any disease of either an acute or chronic character which could be ascertained. The man seemed to be in a low desponding state. Some small medicines were administered, but he evinced no symptoms of restoration. He rather appeared to be pining away, with some secret mental canker. The very spirit of despair was depicted in his visage. Young Wheaton, a brother of the Doctor, and Lieutenant C. Morton, United States Army, visited him daily in company, with much solicitude; but no effort to rally him, physically or mentally, was successful, and he died this morning. "He died," said the former to me, "because he would die." The Indians seem to me a people who are prone to despond, and easily sink into frames of despair.
I received a letter to-day from the veteran geographer, Mr. W. Darby, of Philadelphia, brought by the hands of a friend, a Mr. Toosey, through whom he submitted to me a list of geographical and statistical queries relating to some generic points, which he is investigating in connection with his forthcoming Gazetteer of the United States.
Chapter XII
A pic-nic party at the foot of Lake Superior--Canoe--Scenery--Descent of St. Mary's Falls--Etymology of the Indian names of Sault Ste. Marie, and Lake Superior--The wild rice plant--Indian trade--American Fur Company--Distribution of presents--Death of Sassaba--Epitaph--Indian capacity to count--Oral literature--Research--Self-reliance.
1822. August 20th. I Went with a pic-nic to Gross Cape, a romantic promontory at the foot of Lake Superior. This elevation stands on the north shore of the straits, and consequently in Canada. It overlooks a noble expanse of waters and islands, constituting one of the most magnificent series of views of American scenery. Immediately opposite stands the scarcely less elevated, and not less celebrated promontory of Point Iroquois, the Na-do-wa-we-gon-ing, or Place of Iroquois Bones, of the Chippewas. These two promontories stand like the pillars of Hercules which guard the entrance into the Mediterranean, and their office is to mark the foot of the mighty Superior, a lake which may not, inaptly, be deemed another Mediterranean Sea. The morning chosen to visit this scene was fine; the means of conveyance chosen was the novel and fairy-like barque of the Chippewas, which they denominate Che-maun, but which we, from a corruption of a Charib term as old as the days of Columbus, call Canoe. It is made of the rind of the betula papyracea, or white birch, sewed together with the fine fibrous roots of the cedaror spruce, and is made water-tight by covering the seams with boiled pine rosin, the whole being distended over and supported by very thin ribs and cross-bars of cedar, curiously carved and framed together. It is turned up, at either end, like a gondola, and the sides and gunwales fancifully painted. The whole structure is light, and was easily carried by two men on their shoulders; yet will bear a weight of more than a ton on the water. It is moved with cedar paddles, and the Canadians who managed it, kept time in their strokes, and regulated them to the sonorous cadence of some of their simple boat songs. Our party consisted of several ladies and gentlemen. We carried the elements of a pic-nic. We moved rapidly. The views on all sides were novel and delightful. The water in which the men struck their paddles was pure as crystal. The air was perfectly exhilarating from its purity. The distance about three leagues. We landed a few moments at Point aux Pins, to range along the clean sandy shore, and sandy plains, now abounding in fine whortleberries. Directly on putting out from this, the broad view of the entrance into the lake burst upon us. It is magnificent. A line of blue water stretched like a thread on the horizon, between cape and cape, say five miles. Beyond it is what the Chippewas call Bub-eesh-ko-be, meaning the far off, indistinct prospect of a water scene, till the reality, in the feeble power of human vision, loses itself in the clouds and sky. The two prominences of Point Iroquois and Gross Cape are very different in character. The former is a bold eminence covered with trees, and having all the appearance of youth and verdure. The latter is but the end, so to say, of a towering ridge of dark primary rocks with a few stunted cedars. The first exhibits, on inspection, a formation of sandstone and reproduced rocks, piled stratum super stratum, and covered with boulder drifts and alluvion. The second is a massive mountain ridge of the northern sienite, abounding in black crystaline hornblende, and flanked at lower altitudes, in front, in some places, by a sort of trachyte. We clambered up and over the bold undulations of the latter, till we were fatigued. We stood on the highest pinnacle, and gazed on the "blue profound" of Superior, the great water or Gitchegomee of the Indians. We looked down far below at the clean ridges of pebbles, and the transparent water. After gazing, and looking, and reveling in the wild magnificence of views, we picked our way, crag by crag, to the shore, and sat down on the shining banks of black, white, and mottled pebbles, and did ample justice to the contents of our baskets of good things. This always restores one's spirits. We forget the toil in the present enjoyment. And having done this, and giving our last looks at what has been poetically called the Father of Lakes, we put out, with paddles and song, and every heart beating in unison with the scene, for our starting-point at Bá-wa-teeg, or Pa-wa-teeg, alias Sault Ste. Marie. But the half of my story would not be told, if I did not add that, as we gained the brink of the rapids, and began to feel the suction of the wide current that leaps, jump after jump, over that foaming bed, our inclinations and our courage rose together to go down the formidable pass; and having full faith in the long-tried pilotage of our guide, Tom Shaw, down we went, rushing at times like a thunderbolt, then turned by a dab of the pole of our guide, on a rock, shooting off in eschelon, and then careering down another schute, or water bolt, till we thus dodged every rock, and came out below with a full roaring chorus of our Canadians, who, as they cleared the last danger, hoisted our starry flag at the same moment that they struck up one of their wild and joyous, songs.
22d. I have questioned the Indians closely for the names of Sault Ste. Marie and Lake Superior. They are destined to hold an important rank in our future geography. But the result is not agreeable to preconceived poetic notions. When the French first came to these falls, they found the Chippewas, the falls signifying, descriptively, Shallow water pitching over rocks, or by a prepositional form of the term, at the place of shallow water, pitching over rocks. Such is the meaning of the words Pa-wa-teeg and Pa-wa-ting. The terms cover more precisely the idea which we express by the word cascade. The French call a cascade a Leap or Sault; but Sault alone would not be distinctive, as they had already applied the term to some striking passes on the St. Lawrence and other places. They therefore, in conformity with their general usage, added the name of a patron saint to the term by calling it Sault de Ste. Marie, i.e. Leap of Saint Mary, to distinguish it from other Leaps, or Saults. Now as the word Sainte, as here used, is feminine, it must, in its abbreviated form, be written Ste. The preposition de (the) is usually dropped. Use has further now dropped the sound of the letter l from Sault. But as, in the reforms of the French dictionary, the ancient geographical names of places remain unaffected, the true phraseology is SAULT STE. MARIE.
Having named the falls a Sault, they went a step further, and called the Odjibwa Indians who lived at it, Saulteurs, or People of the Sault. Hence this has ever remained the French name for Chippewas.
In the term Gitchegomee, the name for Superior, we have a specimen of their mode of making compounds. Gitche signifies something great, or possessing the property of positive magnitude. Gomee is itself a compound phrase, denoting, when so conjoined, a large body of water. It is the objective member of their term for the sea; but is governed by its antecedent, and may be used in describing other and minor, even the most minute liquid bodies, as we hear it, in the compound term mushkuagomee, i.e. strong drink. Under the government of the term gitchee, it appears to express simply the sense of great water, but conveys the idea, to the Indian mind, of sea-water. I have cast about, to find a sonorous form of elision, in which it may come into popular use, but find nothing more eligible than I-go-mee, or Igoma. A more practical word, in the shape of a new compound, may be made in Algoma, a term in which the first syllable of the generic name of this tribe of the Algonquin stock, harmonizes very well with the Indian idea of goma (sea), giving us, Sea of the Algonquins. The term may be objected to, as the result of a grammatical abbreviation, but if not adopted practically, it may do as a poetical synonym for this great lake. Such is, at least, the result of a full discussion of these names, with the very best speakers of the language.
30th. The Wild Rice Plant.--Having received a request for some of this native grain to send abroad, and knowing that the smoked rice, such as the Indians usually bring in, will not germinate, I this day dispatched my interpreter in a canoe, with some Indians, to the northern shores of the straits to gather some of it for seed; the result was successful. This plant may be deemed a precious gift of nature to the natives, who spread over many degrees of northern latitude. They call it mon-ó-min, a compound descriptive phrase, which differs only from their name for the zea maize in putting an o--the third syllable--for the imperative future in dau.
Sept. 1st. Indian Trade.--Congress has provided a code of laws to regulate this, the object of which is a good one, and the provisions of the various enactments appear to be founded on the highest principles of justice and benevolence. It is still a question, it appears to me, whether some of these provisions do not merely sanction by the forms of law what was formerly done, not always well, without it, and whether the measure of protection which they afford to the tribes against the cupidity of the whites is very efficacious. It was heretofore pretended by the British traders that all this country belonged to Great Britain, and they told the Indians that the war of 1812 would settle all this. It did so; but, contrary to their wishes and the predictions to the Indians, it settled it precisely on the basis of the treaty of 1783, which ran the boundary line through the straits of Saint Mary's and Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods. As soon as the smoke of the war cleared off, namely, in 1816, Congress enacted that British traders and capital should be excluded from the American lines, that no British subjects should receive licenses to trade, and that all such persons who went inland in subordinate capacities should be bonded for by the American traders who employed them. This law seemed to bear particularly on this section of country, and is generally understood to have been passed to throw the old North West Company, and other British traders, trading on their own account, out of this hitherto very lucrative branch of trade. John Jacob Astor, of New York, went immediately to Montreal and bought out all the posts and factories of that company, situated in the north-west, which were south of the lines. With these posts, the factors, trading clerks, and men were, as a matter of course, cast on the patronage and employment of that eminent German furrier. That he might cover their employment, he sent an agent from Montreal into Vermont to engage enterprising young men, in whose names the licenses could be taken out. He furnished the entire capital for the trade, and sent agents, in the persons of two enterprising young Scotch gentlemen, from Montreal and New York to Michilimackinack, to manage the business. This new arrangement took the popular name of the American Fur Company. In other respects, except those related, the mode of transacting the trade, and the real actors therein, remained very much as they were. American lads, whose names were inscribed in the licenses at Michilimackinack, as principals, went inland in reality to learn the business and the language; the engagees, or boatmen, who were chiefly Canadians or metifs, were bonded for, in five hundred dollars each. In this condition, I found things on my arrival here. The very thin diffusion of American feeling or principle in both the traders and the Indians, so far as I have seen them, renders it a matter of no little difficulty to supervise this business, and it has required perpetual activity in examining the boats and outfits of the traders who have received their licenses at Mackinack, to search their packages, to detect contraband goods, i.e. ardent spirits, and grant licenses, passports, and permits to those who have applied to me. To me it seems that the whole old resident population of the frontiers, together with the new accessions to it, in the shape of petty dealers of all sorts, are determined to have the Indians' furs, at any rate, whether these poor red men live or die; and many of the dealers who profess to obey the laws wish to get legally inland only that they may do as they please, law or no law, after they have passed the flag-staff of Sainte Marie's. There may be, and I trust there are, higher motives in some persons, but they have not passed this way, to my knowledge, the present season. I detected one scamp, a fellow named Gaulthier, who had carried by, and secreted above the portage, no less than five large kegs of whisky and high wines on a small invoice, but a few days after my arrival. It will require vigilance and firmness, and yet mildness, to secure anything like a faithful performance of the duties committed to me on a remote frontier, and with very little means of action beyond the precincts of the post, and this depends much on the moral influence on the Indian mind of the military element of power.
6th. First Distribution of Presents.--In fulfilment of a general declaration of friendly purposes, made on my opening speech to the Chippewas in July last, the entire home band of St. Mary's, men, women, and children, were assembled on the green in front of my office, this morning, to receive a small invoice of goods and merchandise, which were distributed amongst them as presents. These goods were the best that could be purchased in the Detroit market, and were all of the best description; and they were received with a lively satisfaction, which betokened well for my future influence. Prominent among the pleased recipients were the chiefs of the village, Shin-ga-ba-was-sin, the Image Stone, She-wa-be-ke-tone, the Man of Jingling Metals, Kau-ga-osh, or the Bird in Eternal Flight, Way-ish-kee, or The First Born Son, and two or three others of minor note. Behind them were the warriors and young men, the matrons and maids; and peppered in, as it were, the children of all ages. All were in their best attire. The ceremony began by lighting the pipe, and having it passed by suitable officials to the chiefs and warriors in due order, and by placing a pile of tobacco before them, for general use, which the chiefs with great care divided and distributed, not forgetting the lowest claimant. I then stated the principles by which the agency would be guided in its intercourse with them, the benevolence and justice of the views entertained by their great father, the President, and his wishes to keep improper traders out of their country, to exclude ardent spirits, and to secure their peace and happiness in every practicable way. Each sentence, as it was rendered into Indian, was received with the response of Hoh! an exclamation of approbation, which is uttered feebly or loud, in proportion as the matter is warmly or coldly approved. The chiefs responded. All looked pleased; the presents were divided, and the assembly broke up in harmony and good will. It does seem that, according to the oriental maxim,[21] a present is the readiest door to an Indian's heart.
[Footnote 21: "Let thy present go before thee."--Proverbs of Solomon.]
25th. The Indian mind appears to lack the mathematical element. It is doubtful how far they can compute numbers. The Chippewas count decimally, and after ten, add the names of the digits to the word ten, up to twenty; then take the word for twenty, and add them as before, to thirty; and so on to a hundred. They then add them to the term for a hundred, up to a thousand.
They cannot be made to understand the value of an American dollar, without reducing it to the standard of skins. A striking instance of this kind happened among the Potowattomies at Chicago last year (1821). The commanding officer had offered a reward of thirty dollars for the apprehension of a deserter. The Potowattomies pursued and caught him, and received a certificate for the reward. The question with them now was, how much they had got. They wished to sell the certificate to a trader, and there were five claimants. They sat down and counted off as many racoon skins. They then made thirty equal heaps, substituting symbols for skins. Taking the store price of a racoon at five skins to the dollar, they then found they had received the equivalent of one hundred and fifty racoons, and at this price they sold the order or certificate.
26th. Death of Sassaba,[22] or the Count.--This chief, who has from the day of our first landing here, rendered himself noted for his sentiments of opposition to the Americans, met with a melancholy fate yesterday. He was in the habit of using ardent spirits, and frequently rose from a debauch of this kind of two or three days' continuance. Latterly he has exhibited a singular figure, walking through the village, being divested of every particle of clothing except a large gray wolf's skin, which he had drawn over his body in such a manner as to let its tail dangle down behind. It was in this unique costume that I last saw him, and as he was a tall man, with rather prominent features, the spectacle was the more striking. From this freak of dress he has been commonly called, for some time, My-een-gun, or the Wolf. He had been drinking at Point aux Pins, six miles above the rapids, with Odabit and some other boon companions, and in this predicament embarked in his canoe, to come to the head of the portage. Before reaching it, and while still in the strong tide or suck of the current, he rose in his canoe for some purpose connected with the sail, and tipped it over. Odabit succeeded in making land, but the Count, his wife and child, and Odabit's wife, went over the rapids, which was the last ever seen of them. Sassaba appeared to me to be a man of strong feelings and an independent mind, not regarding consequences. He had taken a deep prejudice against the Americans, from his brother having been shot by his side in the battle under Tecumseh on the Thames. This appeared to be the burden of his complaints. He was fond of European dress, and articles of furniture. It was found that he had in his tent, which was of duck, a set of silver tea and tablespoons, knives, forks, cups and saucers, and a tea tray. Besides his military coat, sword, and epaulets, and sash, which were presented to him, he had some ruffled linen shirts, gloves, shoes and stockings, and an umbrella, all of which were kept, however, in the spirit of a virtuoso, and he took a pride in displaying these articles to visitors.
[Footnote 22: The word means finery.]
Many a more worthless man than Sassaba has had his epitaph, or elegiac wreath, which may serve as an apology for the following lines:--
The Falls were thy grave, as they leapt mad along, And the roar of their waters thy funeral song: So wildly, so madly, thy people for aye, Are rapidly, ceaselessly, passing away. They are seen but a moment, then fade and are past, Like a cloud in the sky, or a leaf in the blast; The path thou hast trodden, thy nation shall tread, Chief, warrior, and kin, to the Land of the Dead; And soon on the lake, or the shore, or the green, Not a war drum shall sound, not a smoke shall be seen.
27th. Oral Literature of the Indians.--"I am extremely anxious," writes a friend, "that Mr. Johnston and his family should furnish full and detailed answers to my queries, more particularly upon all subjects connected with the language, and, if I may so speak, the polite literature of the Chippewas (I write the word in this way because I am apprehensive that the orthography is inveterately fixed, and not because I suppose it is correct)[23]. There is no quarter from which I can expect such full information upon these topics as from this. I must beg you to aid me in the pursuit. Urge them during the long winter evenings to the task. The time cannot be more profitably or pleasantly spent, and, as I am told you are somewhat of an aboriginal scholar, you can assist them with your advice and judgment. A perfect analysis of the language is a great desideratum. I pray you, in the spring, to let me have the fruits of their exertions."
[Footnote 23: I had written, announcing the word Od-jib-wa to be the true Indian pronunciation, and recommending its adoption.]
With a strong predisposition to these inquiries, with such additional excitement to the work, and with the very highest advantages of interpretation and no little fixity of application from boyhood, it must go hard with me this winter if I do not fish up something from the well of Indian researches and traditionary lore.
Go, student, search, and if thou nothing find, Go search again; success is in the mind.--ALGON.
28th. The right spirit, humble yet manful.--A young man of purpose and some talent, with considerable ambition, who is diligently seeking a place in the world, writes me from Detroit to-day, in this strain: "True it is, I have determined to pass the winter either in New York or Washington, probably the latter place. But, my dear sir, my hope of doing anything for myself in this world is the faintest possible, and I begin to fatigue with the exertion. If I do not succeed this winter in obtaining something permanent,[24] I shall probably settle down, either in this place or somewhere in New York, a poor devil!--from all which, and many other things, 'good Lord deliver us!' Farewell; my best wishes be with you this winter, to keep you warm. I shall expect next spring to see you an accomplished nichee" [25] [Në-jë].
[Footnote 24: He did succeed at W.]
[Footnote 25: A term signifying, in the Chippewa, my friend, but popularly used at the time to some extent at Detroit to denote an Indian.]
Chapter XIII
My first winter at the foot of Lake Superior--Copper mines--White fish--A poetic name for a fish--Indian tale--Polygamy--A reminiscence--Taking of Fort Niagara--Mythological and allegorical tales among the aborigines--Chippewa language--Indian vowels--A polite and a vulgar way of speaking the language--Public worship--Seclusion from the world.
1822. Oct. 1st. Copper Mines of Lake Superior.--On the 8th of May last, the Senate of the United States passed a resolution in these words:--
"Resolved, that the President of the United States be requested to communicate to the Senate, at the commencement of the next session of Congress, any information which may be in the possession of the government, derived from special agents or otherwise, showing the number, value, and position of the copper mines on the south shore of Lake Superior; the names of the Indian tribes who claim them; the practicability of extinguishing their title, and the probable advantage which may result to the Republic from the acquisition and working these mines."
The resolution having been referred to me by the Secretary of War, I, this day, completed and transmitted a report on the subject, embracing the principal facts known respecting them, insisting on their value and importance, and warmly recommending their further exploration and working.[26]
[Footnote 26: See Public Doc. No. 365, 2d Sess., 17th Congress.]
4th. White Fish Fishery.--No place in America has been so highly celebrated as a locality for taking this really fine and delicious fish, as Saint Mary's Falls, or the Sault,[27] as it is more generally and appropriately called. This fish resorts here in vast numbers, and is in season after the autumnal equinox, and continues so till the ice begins to run. It is worthy the attention of ichthyologists. It is a remarkable, but not singular fact in its natural history, that it is perpetually found in the attitude of ascent at these falls. It is taken only in the swift water at the foot of the last leap or descent. Into this swift water the Indians push their canoes. It requires great skill and dexterity for this. The fishing canoe is of small size. It is steered by a man in the stern. The fisherman takes his stand in the bows, sometimes bestriding the light and frail vessel from gunwale to gunwale, having a scoop-net in his hands. This net has a long slender handle, ten feet or more in length. The net is made of strong twine, open at the top, like an entomologist's. When the canoe has been run into the uppermost rapids, and a school of fish is seen below or alongside, he dexterously puts down his net, and having swooped up a number of the fish, instantly reverses it in water, whips it up, and discharges its contents into the canoe. This he repeats till his canoe is loaded, when he shoots out of the tail of the rapids, and makes for shore. The fish will average three pounds, but individuals are sometimes two and three times that weight. It is shad-shaped, with well-developed scales, easily removed, but has the mouth of the sucker, very small. The flesh is perfectly white and firm, with very few bones. It is boiled by the Indians in pure water, in a peculiar manner, the kettle hung high above a small blaze; and thus cooked, it is eaten with the liquid for a gravy, and is delicate and delicious. If boiled in the ordinary way, by a low hung pot and quick fire, it is soft and comparatively flabby. It is also broiled by the inhabitants, on a gridiron, after cutting it open on the back, and brought on the table slightly browned. This must be done, like a steak, quickly. It is the most delicious when immediately taken from the water, and connoisseurs will tell you, by its taste at the table, whether it is immediately from the water, or has lain any time before cooking. It is sometimes made into small ovate masses, dipped into batter, and fried in butter, and in this shape, it is called petite pâte. It is also chowdered or baked in a pie. It is the great resource of the Indians and the French, and of the poor generally at these falls, who eat it with potatoes, which are abundantly raised here. It is also a standing dish with all.
[Footnote 27: This word is pronounced as if written so, not soo. It is a derivative, through the French, from the Latin saltus.]
A Poetic Name for a Fish.--The Chippewas, who are ready to give every object in creation, whose existence they cannot otherwise account for, an allegorical origin, call the white fish attikumaig, a very curious or very fanciful name, for it appears to be compounded of attik, a reindeer, and the general compound gumee, or guma, before noticed, as meaning water, or a liquid. To this the addition of the letter g makes a plural in the animate form, so that the translation is deer of the water, an evident acknowledgment of its importance as an item in their means of subsistence. Who can say, after this, that the Chippewas have not some imagination?
Indian Tale.--They have a legend about the origin of the white fish, which is founded on the observation of a minute trait in its habits. This fish, when opened, is found to have in its stomach very small white particles which look like roe or particles of brain, but are, perhaps, microscopic shells. They say the fish itself sprang from the brain of a female, whose skull fell into these rapids, and was dashed out among the rocks. A tale of domestic infidelity is woven with this, and the denouement is made to turn on the premonition of a venerable crane, the leading Totem of the band, who, having consented to carry the ghost of a female across the falls on his back, threw her into the boiling and foaming flood to accomplish the poetic justice of the tale.
17th. Polygamy.--This practice appears to be less common among the Chippewas than the more westerly tribes. An instance of it came to my notice to-day, in a complaint made by an Indian named Me-ta-koos-se-ga, i.e. Smoking-Weed, or Pure Tobacco, who was living with two wives, a mother and her daughter. He complained that a young woman whom he had brought up had left his lodge, and taken shelter with the family of the widow of a Canadian. It appears that the old fellow had been making advances to this girl to become his third wife, and that she had fled from his lodge to avoid his importunities.
18th. Historical Reminiscences.--This day sixty-three years ago, General Wolf took Quebec, an event upon which hinged the fall of Canada. That was a great historical era, and it is from this date, 1759, that we may begin to date a change in the Indian policy of the country. Before that time, the French, who had discovered this region of country and established trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, were acknowledged supreme by the natives. Since this event, the English rule has been growing, and the allegiance of the tribes has been gradually strengthened and fixed. It is not a light task to change habits of political affiance, cemented by so many years. The object which is only sought so far as the tribes fall within the American lines, may, however, be attained by a mild, consistent, and persevering course of policy. Time is a slow but sure innovator. A few years will carry the more aged men, whose prejudices are strongest, to their graves. The young are more pliant, and will see their interests in strengthening their intercourse with the Americans, who can do so much to advance them, and probably long before half another period of sixty-three years is repeated, the Indians of the region will be as firmly attached to us as they ever were to the French or the English.
Never to doubt, and never to despair, Is to make acts what once but wishes were. ALGON.
26th. Allegorical and Mythological Tales.--"I shall be rejoiced," observed Governor C., in a letter of this day, in reply to my announcement of having detected fanciful traditionary stories among the Chippewas, "to receive any mythological stories to which you allude, even if they are enough to rival old Tooke in his Pantheon." He had put into my hands, at Detroit, a list of printed queries respecting the Indians, and calls me to remember them, during my winter seclusion here, with the knowledge of the advantages I possess in the well-informed circle of the Johnston family.
25th. Chippewa Language.--There is clearly a polite and a vulgar way of speaking the language. Tradition says that great changes have taken place, and that these changes keep pace with the decline of the tribe from their ancient standard of forest morals and their departure from their ancient customs. However this may be, their actual vocabulary is pretty full. Difficulties exist in writing it, from the want of an exact and uniform system of notation. The vowels assume their short and slender as well as broad sounds. The language appears to want entirely the consonant sounds of f, l, r, v, and x. In conjugating their verbs, the three primary tenses are well made out, but it is doubtful how much exactitude exists in the forms given for the oblique and conditional tenses. If it be true that the language is more corrupt now than at a former age, it is important to inquire in what this corruption consists, and how it came about. "To rescue it," I observe at the close of a letter now on my table to his Excellency Governor C., transmitting him a vocabulary of one hundred and fifty words, "To rescue it from that oblivion to which the tribe itself is rapidly hastening, while yet it may be attempted, with a prospect of success, will constitute a novel and pleasing species of amusement during the long evenings of that dreary cold winter of which we have already had a foretaste."
31st. Public Worship.--As Colonel Brady is about to leave the post for the season, some conversation has been had about authorizing him to get a clergyman to come to the post. It is thought that if such a person would devote a part of his time as an instructor, a voluntary subscription could be got among the citizens to supply the sum requisite for his support. I drew up a paper with this view this morning, and after handing it round, found the sum of ninety-seven dollars subscribed--seventy-five dollars of which are by four persons. This is not half the stipend of "forty pounds a year" that poor Goldsmith's brother thought himself rich upon; and it is apprehended the colonel will hardly find the inducement sufficient to elicit attention to so very remote a quarter.
Nov. 1st. We have snow, cold, and chilly winds. On looking to the north, there are huge piles of clouds hanging over Lake Superior. We may say, with Burns,
"The wintry wind is gathering fast."
This is a holiday with the Canadian French--"All Saints." They appear as lively and thoughtless as if all the saints in the calendar were to join them in a dance. Well may it be said of them, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."
20th. Seclusion from the World realized.--We are now shut out from the world. The season of navigation has closed, the last vessel has departed. Philosophers may write, and poets may sing of the charms of solitude, but when the experiment comes to be tried, on a practical scale, such as we are now, one and all, about to realize, theories and fancies sink wonderfully in the scale. For some weeks past, everything with the power of motion or locomotion has been exerting itself to quit the place and the region, and hie to more kindly latitudes for the winter. Nature has also become imperceptibly sour tempered, and shows her teeth in ice and snows. Man-kind and bird-kind have concurred in the effort to go. We have witnessed the long-drawn flight of swans, brant, and cranes, towards the south. Singing birds have long since gone. Ducks, all but a very few, have also silently disappeared, and have probably gone to pick up spicy roots in the Susquehannah or Altamaha.
Prescient in the changes of the season, they have been the first to go. Men, who can endure greater changes and vicissitudes than all the animal creation put together, have lingered longer; but at last one after another has left Pa-wa-teeg, till all who can go have gone. Col. Brady did not leave his command till after the snow fell, and he saw them tolerably "cantoned." The last vessel for the season has departed--the last mail has been sent. Our population has been thinned off by the departure of every temporary dweller, and lingering trader, and belated visitor, till no one is left but the doomed and fated number whose duty is here, who came here to abide the winter in all its regions, and who cannot, on any fair principle or excuse, get away. They, and they alone, are left to winter here. Of this number I am a resigned and willing unit, and I have endeavored to prepare for the intellectual exigencies of it, by a systematic study and analysis of the Indian language, customs, and history, and character. My teachers and appliances are the best. I have furnished myself with vocabularies and hand-books, collected and written down, during the season. I have the post library in my room, in addition to my own, with a free access to that of "mine host" of the Emerald Isle, Mr. Johnston, to while away the time. My huge Montreal stove will take long billets of wood, which, to use the phraseology of Burns, "would mend a mill." The society of the officers and their families of the garrison is at hand. The amusements of a winter, in this latitude, are said to be rather novel, with their dog trains and creole sleighs. There are some noble fellows of the old "North West" order in the vicinity. There are thus the elements, at least, of study, society, and amusement. Whatever else betide, I have good health, and good spirits, and bright hopes, and I feel very much in the humor of enjoying the wildest kind of tempests which Providence may send to howl around my dwelling.
We have, as the means of exchanging sentiment, one English family of refinement and education, on the American side of the river, and two others, an English family and the Hudson Bay House in charge of a Scotch gentleman, on the Canada shore. We have the officers attached to a battalion of infantry, most of them married and having their ladies and families with them, and about a dozen American citizens besides, engaged in traffic and other affairs. These, with the resident metif population of above 300 souls, and the adjacent Indian tribes, constitute the world--the little isolated world--in which we must move for six months to come. About fifty miles off, S.E., is the British post of Drummond Island, and about forty west of the latter, the ancient position and island settlement of Michilimackinack, that bugbear to children in all our earlier editions of Webster's Spelling Book.
All the rest of the United States is a far-off land to us. For one, I draw around my fire, get my table and chair properly located, and resort to my books, and my Indian ia-ne-kun-o-tau-gaid let the storm whistle as it may.
25th. Zimmerman may write as much as he pleases about solitude. It is all very well in one's study, by his stove, if it is winter, with a good feather bed, and all comforts at hand; but he who would test his theories should come here. It is a capital place, in the dead of winter, for stripping poetic theories of their covering.
Chapter XIV
Amusements during the winter months, when the temperature is at the lowest point--Etymology of the word Chippewa--A meteor--The Indian "fire-proof"--Temperature and weather--Chippewa interchangeables--Indian names for the seasons--An incident in conjugating verbs--Visiting--Gossip--The fur trade--Todd, McGillvray, Sir Alexander Mackenzie--Wide dissimilarity of the English and Odjibwa syntax--Close of the year.
1822. December 1st. We have now plunged into the depths of a boreal winter. The blustering of tempests, the whistling of winds, and the careering of snow drifts form the daily topics of remark. We must make shift to be happy, with the most scanty means of amusement. Books and studies must supply the most important item in this--at least, so far as I am concerned.
It is observed by Dr. Johnson "that nothing can supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity, long continued, will render knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible." This sententious apothegm is thrown out in contemplating the life of Savage, one of the English poets who united some of the highest requisites of genius with the lowest personal habits. But how much instruction does it convey to all! It does not fall to the lot of all to have wit or genius, or to be eminent in knowledge. None, however, who are not absolute idiots are without some share of the one or the other. And in proportion as these gifts are possessed, how fruitless, and comparatively useless do they become, if not governed by prudence, assiduity, and regularity!
3d. The Indian tribes in this vicinity call themselves Ojibwäg. This expression is in the plural number. It is rendered singular by taking off the g. The letter a, in this word, is pronounced like a in hate, or ey in obey. Chippewa--often written with a useless terminal y--is the Anglicized pronunciation. The meaning of this seems obscure. The final syllable wä, in compound words, stands for voice. In the ancient Massachusetts language, as preserved by Eliot, in his translation of the Bible, as in Isaiah xi. 14, Chepwoieu means the east.
What a curious subject for speculation the Indian language presents! Since I began to dip into this topic, I have found myself irresistibly carried forward in the inquiry, and been led to resume it, whenever the calls of business or society have been intermitted. I have generally felt, however, while pursuing it, like a mechanist who is required to execute a delicate and difficult work without suitable implements. Technical words may be considered as the working tools of inquiry, and there seems to be a paucity of terms, in our common systems, to describe such a many-syllabled, aggregated language as the Indian. I have been sometimes half inclined to put my manuscripts in the fire, and to exclaim with Dryden, respecting some metaphysical subject--
"I cannot bolt this matter to the bran."
It is not, however, the habitual temper of my mind to give up. "The spider," it is said, "taketh hold with her hands, and is in king's palaces;" and should a man have less perseverance than a spider?
4th. A meteor, or fire-ball, passed through the village at twilight this evening. The weather, which has been intensely cold for the last three days, indicates a change this evening. Meteoric phenomena of a luminous character were universally referred to electricity, after Franklin's day. Chemistry has since put forth reasons why several of these phenomena should be attributed to phosphorus or hydrogen liberated by decomposition.
5th. The Chippewa jugglers, or Jassakeeds, as they are called, have an art of rendering their flesh insensible, probably for a short time, to the effects of a blaze of fire. Robert Dickson told me that he had seen several of them strip themselves of their garments, and jump into a bonfire. Voltaire says, in his Essay on History, that rubbing the hand for a long time with spirit of vitriol and alum, with the juice of an onion, is stated to render it capable of enduring hot water without injury.
7th. Acting as librarian for the garrison during the season, I am privileged to fill up many of the leisure hours of my mornings and evenings by reading. The difficulty appears to be, to read with such reference to system as to render it profitable. History, novels, voyages and travels, and various specific treatises of fancy or fact, invite perusal, and like a common acquaintance, it requires some moral effort to negative their claims. "Judgment," says a celebrated critic, "is forced upon us by experience. He that reads many books must compare one opinion, or one style with another, and when he compares must necessarily distinguish, reject, prefer."
Sunday 8th. Quintilian says, "We palliate our sloth by the specious pretext of difficulty." Nothing, in fact, is too difficult to accomplish, which we set about, with a proper consideration of those difficulties, and pursue with perseverance. The Indian language cannot be acquired so easily as the Greek or Hebrew, but it can be mastered by perseverance. Our Indian policy cannot be understood without looking at the Indian history. The taking of Fort Niagara was the first decisive blow at French power. Less than three months afterwards, that is, on the 18th of October of that year, General Wolf took Quebec. Goldsmith wrote some stanzas on this event, eulogizing the heroism of the exploit. England's consolation for the loss of Wolf is found in his heroic example, which the poet refers to in his closing line,
"Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise."
11th. Names are the pegs of history. Velasco, it is said, on visiting the gulf which receives the St. Lawrence, and finding the country cold and inhospitable, cried out aca nada--"there is nothing here." This is said to be the origin of the word Canada. Nothing could be more improbable: Did the Indians of Canada hear him, and, if so, did they understand or respect the language of a foreigner hovering on their coast? We must look to the Iroquois for the origin of this word. Jacques Cartier, in 1534, evidently mistook the Indian word Canada, signifying a town, for the whole country. The Indians have no geographical terms for districts. They name a hill, a river, or a fall, but do not deal in generics. Some à priori reasoning seems constrained, where the facts are granted, as this: All animals at Nova Zembla, it is said, are carnivorous, because there is no grass.
12th. Snow covers everything. We are shut out from the civilized world, and thrown entirely on our own resources. I doubt, if we were in Siberia, or Kamschatka, if we could be so completely isolated.
13th. Ellis, in one of his northern voyages, asserts the opinion that the northern lights kindle and disperse the vapors requisite to the formation of lightning. Hence there is no thunder in high northern latitudes. We admit the fact, but doubt the reasoning. Vapor is but water in a gaseous state. It is a fine medium for the exhibition of electricity, and we cannot say that electricity exists without it.
14th. When Lucas Fox sailed to discover the north-west passage to India, in 1631, he carried a letter from Charles the First to the Emperor of Japan. Such was public information, in Europe, twenty-two years after the discovery of the River Hudson, and the settlement of New England, eleven years later.
15th. The state of the weather, during this month, has exhibited some striking changes. The first three or four days were quite severe. On the fifth it became mild, and continued so for eight or nine days. During this time, nearly all the snow which had previously fallen was carried off by rains, or the heat of the sun. The weather was so mild that I sat in my office, on the 13th, without fire, for about two hours. Two evenings previous, the snow fell from the roofs of buildings at nine o'clock, and it continued thawing through the night. To day, the wind has veered round to a northerly point, and the weather has resumed its wintry temperature.
22d. The River St. Mary's froze over during the night of this day. The stream had been closed below, for about a week previous.
24th. The Tartars cannot pronounce the letter b. Those of Bulgaria pronounce the word blacks as if written Iliacs. The Chippewas in this quarter usually transpose the b and p in English words. They substitute n for l, pronouncing Louis as if written Nouis. The letter r is dropped, or sounded au. P is often substituted for f, b for v, and ch for j. In words of their own language, the letters f, l, r, v, and x, do not occur. The following are their names for the seasons.
Pe-boan, Winter. Se-gwun, Spring. Ne-bin, Summer. Ta-gwa-ge, Autumn.
Years are counted by winters, months by moons, and days by nights. There are terms for morning, mid-day, and evening. The year consists of thirteen moons, each moon being designated by a descriptive name, as the moon of flowers (May), the moon of strawberries (June), the moon of berries (July), &c. Canoe and tomahawk are not terms belonging to the Chippewa language. From inquiries I think the former is of Carib origin, and the latter Mohegan. The Chippewa equivalents are in the order stated, Cheman and Agákwut.
26th. In going out to dinner at 3 o'clock, a sheet of paper containing conjugations of verbs, which had cost me much time and questioning, had fallen from my table. On returning in the evening, I found my dog, Ponty, a young pet, had torn my care-bought conjugations into small pieces. What was to be done? It was useless to whip the dog, and I scarcely had the courage to commence the labor anew. I consequently did neither; but gathering up the fragments, carefully soaked the gnawed and mutilated parts in warm water, and re-arranged and sealed them together. And before bedtime I had restored the manuscript so as to be intelligibly read. I imposed this task upon myself, but, had it been imposed by another, I would have been ready to pronounce him a madman.
27th. I devoted the day and evening in transcribing words into my "Ojibwa Vocabulary." This is a labor requiring great caution. The language is so concrete, that often, when I have supposed a word had been dissected and traced to its root, subsequent attention has proved it to be a compound. Thus verbs have been inserted with pronouns, or with particles, indicating negation, or the past or future tense, when it has been supposed they had been divested of these appendages. I am now going over the work the third time. The simplest forms of the verb seem to be the first and third persons singular of the imperative mood.
Ennui, in situations like the present, being isolated and shut up as it were from the world, requires to be guarded against. The surest preventive of it is employment, and diversity in employment. It has been determined to-day to get up a periodical sheet, or jeu d'esprit newspaper, to be circulated from family to family, commencing on the first of January. Mrs. Thompson asked me for a name. I suggested the "Northern Light." It was finally determined to put this into Latin, and call it Aurora Borealis.
28th. Visits make up a part of the winter's amusements. We owe this duty to society; but, like other duties, which are largely connected with enjoyment, there is a constant danger that more time be given up to it than is profitable. Conversation is the true index of feeling. We read wise and grave books, but are not a whit better by them, than as they introduce and fix in our minds such principles as shall shine out in conversation or acts. Now were an ordinary social winter evening party tested by such principles, what would a candid spectator judge to have been the principal topics of reading or study? I remember once, in my earlier years, to have passed an evening in a room where a number of my intimate friends were engaged in playing at cards. As I did not play, I took my seat at an office-table, and hastily sketched the conversation which I afterwards read for their amusement. But the whole was in reality a bitter satire on their language and sentiments, although it was not so designed by me, nor received by them. I several years afterwards saw the sketch of this conversation among my papers, and was forcibly struck with this reflection.
Let me revert to some of the topics of conversation introduced in the circles where I have visited this day, or in my own room. It is Goldsmith, I think, who says that our thoughts take their tinge from contiguous objects. A man standing near a volcano would naturally speak of burning mountains. A person traversing a field of snow would feel his thoughts occupied with polar scenes. Thus are we here thrown together. Ice, snow, winds, a high range of the thermometer, or a driving tempest, are the almost ever present topics of remark: and these came in for a due share of the conversation to-day. The probability of the ice in the river's breaking up the latter part of April, and the arrival of a vessel at the post early in May!--the dissolution of the seventeenth Congress, which must take place on the 4th of March, the character and administration of Governor Clinton (which were eulogized), were adverted to.
In the evening I went, by invitation, to Mr. Siveright's at the North West House. The party was numerous, embracing most of the officers of the American garrison, John Johnston, Esq., Mr. C.O. Ermatinger, a resident who has accumulated a considerable property in trade, and others. Conversation turned, as might have been expected, upon the topic of the Fur Trade, and the enterprising men who established, or led to the establishment of, the North West Company. Todd, Mackenzie, and M'Gillvray were respectively described. Todd was a merchant of Montreal, an Irishman by birth, who possessed enterprise, courage, address, and general information. He paved the way for the establishment of the Company, and was one of the first partners, but died untimely. He possessed great powers of memory. His cousin, Don Andrew Todd, had the monopoly of the fur trade of Louisiana.
M'Gillvray possessed equal capacity for the trade with Todd, united to engaging, gentlemanly manners. He introduced that feature in the Company which makes every clerk, at a certain time, a partner. This first enabled them successfully to combat the Hudson's Bay Company. His passions, however, carried him too far, and he was sometimes unjust.
Sir Alexander Mackenzie was at variance with M'Gillvray, and they never spoke in each other's praise. Mackenzie commanded great respect from all classes, and possessed a dignity of manners and firmness of purpose which fitted him for great undertakings. He established the X.Y. Company, in opposition to the North West.
29th. The days are still very short, the sun having but just passed the winter solstice. We do not dine till four; Mr. Johnston, with whom I take my meals, observing this custom, and it is dark within the coming hour. I remained to family worship in the evening.
30th. Read the articles in the "Edinburgh Review" on Accum's work on the adulteration of food, and Curran's Life by his Son. Accum, it is said, came to England as an adventurer. By assiduity and attention, he became eminent as an operative chemist, and accumulated a fortune. Curran was also of undistinguished parentage. His mother, in youth, seems to have judged rightly of his future talents.
Mr. Johnston returned me "Walsh's Appeal," which he had read at my request, and expressed himself gratified at the ability with which the subject is handled. Captain Clarke, an industrious reader on local and general subjects, had come in a short time before. Conversation became general and animated. European politics, Greece, Turkey, and Russia, the state of Ireland, radicalism in England, the unhappy variance between the king and queen, Charles Fox, &c., were successively the subjects of remark. We adjourned to Mr. Johnston's.
In the evening I went into my office and wrote to Mr. Calhoun, the Secretary of War, recommending Captain H.'s son William, for the appointment of a cadet in the Military Academy.[28]
[Footnote 28: The appointment was made.]
31st. Devoted the day to the Indian language. It scarcely seems possible that any two languages should be more unlike, or have fewer points of resemblance, than the English and Ojibwa. If an individual from one of the nomadic tribes of farther Asia were suddenly set down in London, he could hardly be more struck with the difference in buildings, dress, manners, and customs, than with the utter discrepance in the sounds of words, and the grammatical structure of sentences. The Ojibwa has this advantage, considered as the material of future improvement; it is entirely homogeneous, and admits of philosophical principles being carried out, with very few, if any, of those exceptions which so disfigure English grammar, and present such appalling obstacles to foreigners in learning the language.
On going to dine at the usual hour, I found company invited, among whom were some gentlemen from Upper Canada. Conversation rolled on smoothly, and embraced a wide range of topics. Some of the dark doings of the North West Company, in their struggle for exclusive power in the Indian country, were mentioned. Nobody appeared to utter a word in malice or ill will. Dark and bright traits of individual character and conduct floated along the stream of conversation, without being ruffled with a breeze. In the evening I attended a party at the quarters of one of the officers in the fort. Dancing was introduced. The evening passed off agreeably till the hour of separation, which was a few minutes before twelve. And thus closed the year eighteen hundred and twenty-two.
Chapter XV
New Year's day among the descendants of the Norman French--Anti-philosophic speculations of Brydone--Schlegel on language--A peculiar native expression evincing delicacy--Graywacke in the basin of Lake Superior--Temperature--Snow shoes--Translation of Gen. i. 3--Historical reminiscences--Morals of visiting--Ojibwa numerals--Harmon's travels--Mackenzie's vocabularies--Criticism--Mungo Park.
January 1st. This is a day of hilarity here, as in New York. Gayety and good humor appear on every countenance. Visiting from house to house is the order. The humblest individual is expected to make his appearance in the routine, and "has his claims allowed." The French custom of salutation prevails. The Indians are not the last to remember the day. To them, it is a season of privileges, although, alas! it is only the privilege to beg. Standing in an official relation to them, I was occupied in receiving their visits from eight o'clock till three. I read, however, at intervals, Dr. Johnson's Lives of Rochester, Roscommon, Otway, Phillips, and Walsh.
2d. Brydone, the traveler, says, on the authority of Recupero, a priest, that in sinking a pit near Iaci in the region of Mount Etna, they pierced through seven distinct formations of lava, with parallel beds of earth interposed between each stratum. He estimates that two thousand years were required to decompose the lava and form it into soil, and consequently that fourteen thousand years were needed for the whole series of formations. A little further on, he however furnishes data, showing to every candid mind on what very vague estimates he had before relied. He says the fertile district of Hybla was suddenly turned to barrenness by an eruption of lava, and soon after restored to fertility by a shower of ashes. The change which he had required two thousand years to produce was here accomplished suddenly, and the whole argument by which he had arrayed himself against the Mosaical chronology overturned. Of such materials is a good deal of modern pseudo-philosophy constructed.
I received, this morning, a number of mineralogical specimens from Mr. Johnston, which had been collected by him at various times in the vicinity. Among them were specimens of copper pyrites in quartz, sulphate of strontian, foliated gypsum, and numerous calcareous petrifactions. He also presented me a fine antler of the Caribo, or American reindeer, a species which is found to inhabit this region. This animal is called Addik by the Ojibwas. Ik is a termination in the Ojibwa denoting some hard substance.
3d. Forster, in his "History of Northern Voyages," mentions some facts which appear to be adverse to Mr. Hayden's theory of a north-western current. The height of islands observed by Fox, in the arctic regions, was found to be greatest on their eastern sides, and they were depressed towards the west. "This observation," he says, "seems to me to prove that, when the sea burst impetuously into Hudson's Bay, and tore away these islands from the main land, it must have come rushing from the east and south-east, and have washed away the earth towards the west--a circumstance which has occasioned their present low position."
4th. I read the review of Schlegel's "Treatise on the Sanscrit Language." How far the languages of America may furnish coincidences in their grammatical forms, is a deeply interesting inquiry. But thus insulated, as I am, without books, the labor of comparison is, indeed, almost hopeless! I must content myself, for the present, with furnishing examples for others.
The Indians still continue their New Year's visits. Fresh parties or families, who come in from the woods, and were not able to come on the day, consider themselves privileged to present their claims. It should not be an object of disappointment to find that the Indians do not, in their ordinary intercourse, evince those striking traits of exalted and disinterested character which we are naturally accustomed to expect from reading books. Books are, after all, but men's holiday opinions. It requires observation on real life to be able to set a true estimate upon things. The instances in which an Indian is enabled to give proofs of a noble or heroic spirit cannot be expected to occur frequently. In all the history of the seaboard tribes there was but one Pocahontas, one Uncas, and one Philip. Whereas, everyday is calling for the exercise of less splendid, but more generally useful virtues. To spare the life of a prisoner, or to relieve a friend from imminent peril, may give applause, and carry a name down to posterity. But it is the constant practice of every day virtues and duties, domestic diligence, and common sense, that renders life comfortable, and society prosperous and happy. How much of this everyday stamina the Indians possess, it would be presumptuous in me, with so short an opportunity of observation, to decide. But I am inclined to the opinion that their defect of character lies here.
Our express for Detroit, via Michilimackinack, set out at three o'clock this morning, carrying some few short of a hundred letters. This, with our actual numbers, is the best commentary on our insulated situation. We divert ourselves by writing, and cling with a death-grasp, as it were, to our friends and correspondents.
5th. Gitche ie nay gow ge ait che gah, "they have put the sand over him" is a common expression among the Indians to indicate that a man is dead and buried. Another mode, delicate and refined in its character, is to suffix the inflection for perfect past tense, bun, to a man's name. Thus Washington e bun would indicate that Washington is no more.
I read the Life of Pope. It is strange that so great a poet should have been so great a lover of wealth; mammon and the muses are not often conjointly worshiped. Pope did not excel in familiar conversation, and few sallies of wit, or pointed observation, are preserved. The following is recorded: "When an objection raised against his inscription for Shakspeare was defended by the authority of Patrick, he replied, 'horresco referens,' that he would allow the publisher of a dictionary to know the meaning of a single word, but not of two words put together."
In the evening I read a number of the "London Literary Gazette," a useful and interesting paper, which, in its plan, holds an intermediate rank between a newspaper and a review. It contains short condensed criticisms on new works, together with original brief essays and anecdotes, and literary advertisements, which latter must render it a valuable paper to booksellers. I think we have nothing on this plan, at present, in the United States.
6th. I received a specimen of slaty graywacke from Lake Superior. The structure is tabular, and very well characterized. If there be no mistake respecting the locality, it is therefore certain that this rock is included among the Lake Superior group.[29] It was not noticed in the expedition of 1820. I also received a specimen of iron sand from Point aux Pins.
[Footnote 29: I found graywacke in sitû at Iron River, in Lake Superior, in 1826, and subsequently at Presque Isle River, where it is slaty, and fine even grained, and apparently suitable for some economical uses.]
The thermometer has stood at 25° below zero a few days during the season. It was noticed at 10° below, this morning. Notwithstanding the decidedly wintry character of the day, I received a visit from Mr. Siveright, a Canadian gentleman, who came across the expanse of ice on snow shoes. I loaned him Silliman's "Travels in England and Scotland," feeling a natural desire to set off our countrymen, as authors and travelers, to the best advantage. Mr. S., who has spent several years at the north, mentioned that each of the Indian tribes has something peculiar in the fashion of their snow shoes. The Chippewas form theirs with acute points fore and aft, resembling two inverted sections of a circle. The Crees make a square point in front, tapering away gradually to the heel. The Chippewyans turn up the fore point, so that it may offer less resistance in walking. Females have their snow shoes constructed different from the men's. The difference consists in the shape and size of the bows. The netting is more nicely wrought and colored, and often ornamented, particularly in those worn by girls, with tassels of colored worsted. The word "shoe," as applied to this apparatus of the feet, is a complete misnomer. It consists of a net-work of laced skin, extended between light wooden bows tied to the feet, the whole object of which is to augment the space pressed upon, and thus bear up the individual on the surface of the snow.
I devoted the leisure hours of the day to the grammatical structure of the Indian language. There is reason to suppose the word moneto not very ancient. It is, properly speaking, not the name for God, or Jehovah, but rather a generic term for spiritual agency in their mythology. The word seems to have been derived from the notion of the offerings left upon rocks and sacred places, being supernaturally taken away. In any comparative views of the language, not much stress should be laid upon the word, as marking a difference from other stocks. Maneton, in the Delaware, is the verb "to make." Ozheton is the same verb in Chippewa.
7th. History teaches its lessons in small, as well as great things. Vessels from Albemarle, in Virginia, in 1586, first carried the potato to Ireland. Thomas Harriot says the natives called it open-awk. The Chippewas, at this place, call the potato open-eeg; but the termination eeg is merely a form of the plural. Open (the e sounded like short i) is the singular form. Thomas Jefferson gives the word "Wha-poos" as the name of the Powhatanic tribes for hare. The Chippewa term for this animal is Wa-bos, usually pronounced by white men Wa-poos.
Longinus remarks the sublimity of style of the third verse of Genesis i. I have, with competent aid, put it into Chippewa, and give the re-translation:--
Appee dush and then Gezha Monedo Merciful Spirit Akeedood He said Tah Let Wassay-au, Light be, Appee dush And then Wassay-aug Light was.
It is not to be expected that all parts of the language would exhibit equal capacities to bear out the original. Yet in this instance, if the translation be faithful, it is clearly, but not, to our apprehension, elegantly done. I am apprehensive that the language generally has a strong tendency to repetition and redundancy of forms, and to clutter up, as it were, general ideas with particular meanings. At three o'clock I went to dine with Mr. Siveright, at the North West Company's House. The party was large, including the officers from the garrison. Conversation took a political turn. Colonel Lawrence defended the propriety of his recent toast, "The Senate of the United States, the guardians of a free people," by which a Boston paper said "more was meant than met the eye." The evening was passed with the ordinary sources of amusement. I have for some time felt that the time devoted to these amusements, in which I never made much advance, would be better given up to reading, or some inquiry from which I might hope to derive advantage. An incident this evening impressed me with this truth, and I came home with a resolution that one source of them should no longer engross a moment of my time.
Harris, the author of Hermes, says, "It is certainly as easy to be a scholar as a gamester, or any other character equally illiberal and low. The same application, the same quantity of habit, will fit us for one as completely as for the other. And as to those who tell us, with an air of seeming wisdom, that it is men, and not books, that we must study to become knowing; this I have always remarked, from repeated experience, to be the common consolation and language of dunces." Now although I have no purpose of aiming at extreme heights in knowledge, yet there are some points in which every man should have that precision of knowledge which is a concomitant of scholarship. And every man, by diligence, may add to the number of these points, without aiming at all to put on a character for extraordinary wisdom or profundity.
* * * * *
9th. Historical Reminiscences.--On the third of April, 1764, Sir William Johnson concluded preliminary articles of peace and friendship with eight deputies of the Seneca nation, which was the only one of the Iroquois who joined Pontiac. This was done at his residence at Johnson Hall, on the Mohawk.
In August, 1764, Colonel Bradstreet granted "Terms of Peace" to certain deputies of the Delaware, Huron, and Shawnee tribes at Presque Isle, being then on his way to relieve Detroit, which was then closely invested by the Indians. These deputies gave in their adhesion to the English cause, and agreed to give up all the English prisoners.
In October of the same year, Colonel Bouquet granted similar terms to another deputation of Shawnees, Delawares, &c., at Tuscarawas.
The best account of the general transactions of the war of that era, which I have seen, is contained in a "History of the Late War in North America, and Islands of the West Indies. By Thomas Mante, Assistant Engineer, &c., and Major of a Brigade. London, 1772:" 1 vol. quarto, 552 pages. I am indebted to Governor Clinton for my acquaintance with this work.
10th. I have employed the last three days, including this, very diligently on my Indian vocabulary and inquiries, having read but little. Too exclusive a devotion to this object is, however, an error. I have almost grudged the time I devoted to eating and sleeping. And I should certainly be unwilling that my visitors should know what I thought of the interruptions created by their visits. It is true, however, that I have gained but little by these visits in the way of conversation. One of my visitors, a couple of days since, made me waste a whole morning in talking of trifling subjects. Another, who is a gourmand, is only interested in subjects connected with the gratification of his palate. A third, who is a well-informed man, has such lounging habits that he remained two hours and a half with me this morning. No wonder that men in office must be guarded by the paraphernalia of ante-rooms and messengers, if a poor individual at this cold end of the world feels it an intrusion on his short winter days to have lounging visitors. I will try to recollect, when I go to see others, that although I may have leisure, perhaps they are engaged in something of consequence.
* * * * *
11th. History abounds in examples of excellence.--Xenophon says of Jason, "All who have served under Jason have learned this lesson, that pleasure is the effect of toil; though as to sensual pleasures, I know no person in the world more temperate than Jason. They never break in upon his time; they always leave him leisure to do what must be done."
Of Diphridas, the same author observes, "No bodily indulgence ever gained the ascendant over him, but, on the contrary, he gave all his attention to the business in hand." What admirable maxims for real life, whether that life be passed in courts or camps, or a humble sphere!
12th. I finished reading Thiebault's "Anecdotes of Frederick the Great," which I had commenced in December. This is a pleasing and instructive work. Every person should read it who wishes to understand the history of Prussia, particularly the most interesting and important period of it. We here find Frederick I. and II., and William depicted to the life. We are made acquainted also with national traits of the Russian, English, German, and French character, which are nowhere else to be found.
13th. The ancient Thracians are thus described by Herodotus: "The most honorable life with them is a life of indolence; the most contemptible that of a husbandman. Their supreme delight is war and plunder." Who, if the name and authority were concealed, but would suppose the remarks were made of some of the tribes of the North American Indians?
I divided the day between reading and writing. In the evening I went by invitation to a party at Lieutenant B.'s in the cantonment.
14th. The Chippewa names of the numerals, from one to ten, are--pazhik, neezh, niswee, newin, nanun, neen-goodwaswa, neezh-waswa, swaswa, shonguswa, metonna.
Dined at Mr. Ermatinger's, a gentleman living on the Canada shore, who, from small beginnings, has accumulated a considerable property by the Indian trade, and has a numerous Anglo-Odjibwa family.
15th. Completed the perusal of Harmon's Travels, and extracted the notes contained in memorandum book N. Mr. Harmon was nineteen years in the service of the North West Company, and became a partner after the expiration of the first seven years. The volume contains interesting data respecting the topography, natural history (incidental), and Indian tribes of a remote and extensive region. The whole scope of the journal is devoted to the area lying north of the territory of the United States. It will be found a valuable book of reference to those who are particularly directing their attention to northern scenes. The journal was revised and published by a Mr. Haskell, who, it is said here, by persons acquainted with Mr. Harmon, has introduced into the text religious reflections, not believed to have been made by the author at the time. No exceptions can be taken to the reflections; but his companions and co-partners feel that they should have led the individual to exemplify them in his life and conversation while inland.
Mr. Harmon says, of the Canadians--"All their chat is about horses, dogs, canoes, women, and strong men, who can fight a good battle." Traders and Indians are placed in a loose juxtaposition. "Their friendship," he states, "is little more than their fondness for our property, and our eagerness to obtain their furs." European manufactures are essential to the natives. "The Indians in this quarter have been so long accustomed to European goods, that it would be with difficulty that they could now obtain a livelihood without them. Especially do they need firearms, axes, kettles, knives, &c. They have almost lost the use of bows and arrows, and they would find it nearly impossible to cut their fire wood with implements made of stone or bone."
16th. Examined Mackenzie's Travels, to compare his vocabulary of Knisteneaux and Algonquin, with the Odjibwa, or Chippewa. There is so close an agreement, in sense and sound, between the two latter, as to make it manifest that the tribes could not have been separated at a remote period. This agreement is more close and striking than it appears to be by comparing the two written vocabularies. Mackenzie has adopted the French orthography, giving the vowels, and some of the consonants and diphthongs, sounds very different from their English powers. Were the words arranged on a common plan of alphabetical notation, they would generally be found to the eye, as they are to the ear, nearly identical. The discrepancies would be rendered less in cases in which they appear to be considerable, and the peculiarities of idiom, as they exist, would be made more striking and instructive. I have heard both idioms spoken by the natives, and therefore have more confidence in speaking of their nearness and affinity, than I could have had from mere book comparison. I am told that Mackenzie got his vocabulary from some of the priests in Lower Canada, who are versed in the Algonquin. It does not seem to me at all probable that an Englishman or a Scotchman should throw aside his natural sounds of the vowels and consonants, and adopt sounds which are, and must have been, from infancy, foreign.
As I intend to put down things in the order of their occurrence, I will add that I had a visitor to-day, a simple mechanic, who came to talk to me about nothing; I could do no less than be civil to him, in consequence of which he pestered me with hems and haws about one hour. I think Job took no interest in philology.
17th. Devoted the day to the language. A friend had loaned me a file of Scottish papers called the Montrose Review, which I took occasion to run over. This paper is more neatly and correctly printed than is common with our papers of this class from the country. The strain of remark is free, bold, and inquisitive, looking to the measures of government, and advocating principles of rational liberty throughout the world.
Col. Lawrence, Capt. Thompson, and Lieut. Griswold called in the course of the day. I commenced reading Mungo Parke's posthumous volume.
18th. The mind, like the body, will get tired. Quintilian remarks, "Variety refreshes and renovates the mind." Composition and reading by turns, wear away the weariness either may create; and though we have done many things, we in some measure find ourselves fresh and recruited at entering on a new thing. This day has been almost entirely given up to society. Visitors seemed to come in, as if by concert. Col. Lawrence, Capts. Clarke and Beal, Lieuts. Smith and Griswold. Mr. S.B. Griswold, who was one of the American hostage officers at Quebec, Dr. Foot, and Mr. Johnston came in to see me, at different times. I filled up the intervals in reading.
19th, Sabbath. A party of Indians came to my door singing the begging dance. These people do not respect the Sabbath.[30] The parties who came in, on New Year's day, still linger about the settlements, and appear to be satisfied to suffer hunger half the time, if their wants can be gratuitously relieved the other half.
[Footnote 30: About eighteen months afterwards, I interdicted all visits of Indians on the Sabbath, and adopted it as an invariable rule, that I would not transact any business, or receive visits, from any Indian under the influence of liquor. I directed my interpreter to tell them that the President had sent me to speak to sober men only.]
20th. I continued to transcribe, from loose papers, into my Indian lexicon. A large proportion of the words are derivatives. All are, more or less, compounded in their oral forms, and they appear to be glued, as it were, to objects of sense. This is not, however, peculiar to this language. The author of "Hermes" says--"The first words of men, like their first ideas, had an immediate reference to sensible objects, and that in after days, when they began to discern with their intellect, they took those words which they found already made, and transferred them, by metaphor, to intellectual conceptions."
On going to dinner, I found a party of officers and their ladies. "Mine host," Mr. Johnston, with his fine and frank Belfast hospitality, does the honors of his table with grace and ease. Nothing appears to give him half so much delight as to see others happy around him. I read, in the evening, the lives of Akenside, Gray, and Littleton. What a perfect crab old Dr. Johnson was! But is there any sound criticism without sternness?
21st. I finished the reading of Mungo Parke, the most enterprising traveler of modern times. He appears to me to have committed two errors in his last expedition, and I think his death is fairly attributable to impatience to reach the mouth of the Niger. He should not have attempted to pass from the Gambia to the Niger during the rainy season. By this, he lost thirty-five out of forty men. He should not have tried to force a passage through the kingdom of Houssa, without making presents to the local petty chiefs. By this, he lost his life. When will geographers cease to talk about the mouth of the Niger? England has been as indefatigable in solving this problem as she has been in finding out the North West Passage, and, at present, as unsuccessful. We see no abatement, however, in her spirit of heroic enterprise. America has sent but one explorer to this field--Ledyard.
Chapter XVI
Novel reading--Greenough's "Geology"--The cariboo--Spiteful plunder of private property on a large scale--Marshall's Washington--St. Clair's "Narrative of his Campaign"--Etymology of the word totem--A trait of transpositive languages--Polynesian languages--A meteoric explosion at the maximum height of the winter's temperature--Spafford's "Gazetteer"--Holmes on the Prophecies--Foreign politics--Mythology--Gnomes--The Odjibwa based on monosyllables--No auxiliary verbs--Pronouns declined for tense--Esprella's letters--Valerius--Gospel of St. Luke--Chippewayan group of languages--Home politics--Prospect of being appointed superintendent of the lead mines of Missouri.
1823. Jan. 22d. A pinching cold winter wears away slowly. The whole village seems to me like so many prescient beavers, in a vast snow-bank, who cut away the snow and make paths, every morning, from one lodge to another. In this reticulation of snow paths the drum is sounded and the flag raised. Most dignified bipeds we are. Hurrah for progress, and the extension of the Anglo-Saxon race!
I read the "Recluse," translated from D'Arlincourt's popular novel Le Solitaire, and think the commendations bestowed upon it, in the translator's preface, just in the main. It is precisely such a novel as I should suppose would be very popular in the highest circles of France, and consequently, owing to difference of character, would be less relished by the same circles in England. I suspect the author to be a great admirer of Chateaubriand's "Atala," whose death is brought to mind by the catastrophe of Elode's. Here, however, the similitude ends. There is nothing to be said respecting the comparative features of Charles the Bold and Chactas, except that the Indian possessed those qualities of the heart which most ennoble human nature.
To the readers of Scott's novels, however (for he is certainly the "Great Unknown"), this pleasing poetical romance, with all its sparkling passages, will present one glaring defect--it is not sufficiently descriptive. We rise from the perusal of it with no definite ideas of the scenery of the valley of Underlach. We suppose it to be sublime and picturesque, and are frequently told so by the author; but he fails in the description of particular scenes. Scott manages otherwise. When he sends Baillie Nicoll Jarvie into the Highlands, he does not content himself with generalities, but also brings before the mind such groups and scenes as make one fear and tremble. To produce this excitement is literary power.
23d. I devoted the time before breakfast, which, with us, happens at a late hour, to the Edinburgh Review. I read the articles on Greenough's "First Principles of Geology," and a new edition of Demosthenes. When shall we hear the last panegyric of the Grecian orator, who, in the two characteristics of his eloquence which have been most praised, simplicity and nature, is every day equalled, or excelled, by our Indian chiefs?
Greenough's Essays are bold and original, and evince no weak powers of observation and reasoning. But he is rather a leveler than a builder. It seems better that we should have a poor house over our heads than none at all. The facts mentioned on the authority of a traveler in Spain, that the pebbles in the rivers of that country are not carried down streams by the force of the current, are contradicted by all my observations on the rivers of the United States. The very reverse is true. Those streams which originate in, or run through districts of granite, limestone, graywacke, &c., present pebbles of these respective rocks abundantly along their banks, at points below the termination of the fixed strata. These pebbles, and even boulders, are found far below the termination of the rocky districts, and appear to owe their transportation to the force of existing currents. I have found the peculiar pebbles of the sources of the Mississippi as low down as St. Louis and St. Genevieve.
I resumed the perusal of Marshall's "Life of Washington," which I had laid by in the fall. Lieutenants Barnum and Bicker and Mr. Johnston came to visit me.
24th. I made one of a party of sixteen, who dined with Mr. Ermatinger. I here first tasted the flesh of the cariboo, which is a fine flavored venison. I do not recollect any wise or merry remark made during dinner, which is worth recording. As toasts show the temper of the times, and bespeak the sentiments of those who give them, a few of them may be mentioned. After several formal and national toasts, we had Mr. Calhoun, Governor Cass, General Brown, Mr. Sibley, the representative of Michigan, Colonel Brady, and Major Thayer, superintendent of the military academy. In coming home in the cariole, we all missed the balizes, and got completely upset and pitched into the snow.
25th. Mr. John Johnston returned me Silliman's Travels, and expressed himself highly pleased with them. Mr. Johnston evinces by his manners and conversation and liberal sentiments that he has passed many of his years in polished and refined circles. He told me he came to America during the presidency of General Washington, whom he esteems it a privilege to have seen at New York, in 1793. Having letters to Lord Dorchester, he went into Canada, and through a series of vicissitudes, finally settled at these falls about thirty years ago. In 1814, his property was plundered by the Americans, through the false representations of some low-minded persons, his neighbors and opponents in trade, with no more patriotism than he; in consequence of which he returned to Europe, and sold his patrimonial estate at "Craige," in the north of Ireland, within a short distance of the Giant's Causeway, and thus repaired, in part, his losses.
26th. Devoted to reading--a solid resource in the wilderness.
27th. Finished the perusal of Marshall's Washington, and took the notes contained in memorandums P. and R. The first volume of this work is intended as introductory, and contains the best recital of the political history of the colonies which I have read. The other four volumes embrace a wide mass of facts, but are rather diffuse and prolix, considered as biography, A good life of Washington, which shall comprise within a small compass all his prominent public and private acts, still remains a desideratum.
28th. Our express returned this morning, bringing me New York papers to the 11th of November. We are more than two months and a half behind the current news of the day. We have Washington dates to the 9th of November, but of course they convey nothing of the proceedings of Congress.
29th. I read St. Clair's "Narrative of his Campaign" against the Indians in 1791, and extracted the notes contained in memorandum A.A. The causes of its failure are explained in a satisfactory manner, and there is proof of Gen. St. Clair's vigilance and intrepidity. Dissensions in his camp crippled the old general's power.
30th. I took up the subject of the Indian language, after an interval of eight or nine days, and continued to transcribe into my vocabulary until after the hour of midnight. It comprises now rising of fifteen hundred words, including some synonyms.
31st. "Totem" is a word frequently heard in this quarter. In tracing its origin, it is found to be a corruption of the Indian "dodaim," signifying family mark, or armorial bearing. The word appears to be a derivative from odanah, a town or village. Hence neen dodaim, my townsman, or kindred-mark. Affinity in families is thus kept up, as in the feudal system, and the institution seems to be of some importance to the several bands. They often appeal to their "totem," as if it were a surname.
At three o'clock I went to dine at Col. Lawrence's. The party consisted of Capts. Thompson and Beal, Lieuts. Barnum, Smith, Waite, and Griswold, Mr. Johnston, Mr. Ermatinger and son, Dr. Foot and Mr. Siveright of the H.B. House. In the evening the party adjourned to Mr. Johnston's.
February 1st. Transpositive languages, like the Indian, do not appear to be well adapted to convey familiar, easy, flowing conversation. There seems to be something cumbrous and stately in the utterance of their long polysyllabic words, as if they could not readily be brought down to the minute distinctions of every day family conversation. This may arise, however, from a principle adverted to by Dr. Johnson, in speaking of the ancient languages, in which he says "nothing is familiar," and by the use of which "the writer conceals penury of thought and want of novelty, often from the reader, and often from himself." The Indian certainly has a very pompous way of expressing a common thought. He sets about it with an array of prefix and suffix, and polysyllabic strength, as if he were about to crush a cob-house with a crowbar.
2d. The languages of New Zealand, Tonga, and Malay have no declension of nouns, nor conjugation of verbs. The purposes of declension are answered by particles and prepositions. The distinctions of person, tense, and mode are expressed by adverbs, pronouns, and other parts of speech. This rigidity of the verb and noun is absolute, under every order of arrangement, in which their words can be placed, and their meaning is not helped out, by either prefixes or suffixes.
I read Plutarch's "Life of Marcellus," to observe whether it bore the points of resemblance to Washington's military character, suggested by Marshall.
3d. Abad signifies abode, in Persian. Abid denotes where he is, or dwells, in Chippewa.
I refused, on an invitation of Mr. Ermatinger, to alter the resolution formed on the seventh ultimo, as to one mode of evening's amusement.
4th. A loud meteoric report, as if from the explosion of some aerial body, was heard about noon this day. The sound seemed to proceed from the south-west. It was attended with a prolonged, or rumbling sound, and was generally heard. Popular surmise, which attempts to account for everything, has been very busy in assigning the cause of this phenomenon.
A high degree of cold has recently been experienced. The thermometer stood at 28° below zero at one o'clock this morning. It had risen to 18° at day-break--being the greatest observed degree of cold during the season. It did not exceed 4° above zero during any part of the day.
5th. A year ago to-day, a literary friend wrote to me to join him in preparing a Gazetteer of the State of New York, to supplant Spafford's. Of the latter, he expresses himself in the letter, which is now before me, in unreserved terms of disapprobation. "It is wholly unworthy," he says, "of public patronage, and would not stand in the way of a good work of the kind; and such a one, I have the vanity to believe, our joint efforts could produce. It would be a permanent work, with slight alterations, as the State might undergo changes. My plan would be for you to travel over the State, and make a complete geological, mineralogical, and statistical survey of it, which would probably take you a year or more. In the mean time, I would devote all my leisure to the collection and arrangement of such other materials as we should need in the compilation of the work. I doubt not we could obtain the prompt assistance of the first men in the State, in furnishing all the information required. Our State is rapidly increasing in wealth and population, and I am full in the faith that such a work would sell well in different parts of the country."
6th. I did nothing to-day, by which I mean that it was given up to visiting and talking. It is Dr. Johnson, I think, who draws a distinction between "talk and conversation." It is necessary, however, to assign a portion of time in this way. "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly," is a Bible maxim.
7th. The garrison library was this morning removed from my office, where it had been placed in my charge on the arrival of the troops in July, the state of preparations in the cantonment being now sufficiently advanced to admit its reception. A party of gentlemen from the British garrison on Drummond Island came up on a visit, on snow shoes. The distance is about 45 miles.
8th. I commenced reading Holmes on "The Fulfilment of the Revelation of St. John," a London work of 1819. The author says "that his explanation of the symbols is founded upon one fixed and universal rule--that the interpretation of a symbol is ever maintained; that the chronological succession of the seals, trumpets, and vials is strictly preserved; and that the history contained under them is a uniform and homogeneous history of the Roman empire, at once comprehensive and complete."--Attended a dining-party at Mr. Johnston's.
9th. Continued the reading of Holmes, who is an energetic writer, and appears to have looked closely into his subject. The least pleasing trait in the work is a polemic spirit which is quite a clog to the inquiry, especially to those who, like myself, have never read the authors Faber, Cunningham, and Frere, whose interpretations he combats. For a clergyman, he certainly handles them without gloves.
10th. The principal Indian chief of the vicinity, Shingabawossin, sent to inquire of me the cause of the aerial explosion, heard on the 4th. At four I went to dine with Mr. Ermatinger on the British shore.
11th. I did something, although, from the round of visiting and gayety which, in consequence of our Drummond Isle visitors, has existed for a few days, but little, at my vocabulary. At half-past four, I went to dine with Lieutenants Morton and Folger in the cantonment. The party was nearly the same which has assembled for a few days, in honor of the foreign gentlemen with us. In the evening a large party, with dancing, at Mr. Johnston's.
12th. I read Lord Erskine's Letter to Lord Liverpool on the policy to be pursued by Great Britain in relation to Greece and Turkey. The arguments and sentiments do equal credit to his head and heart, and evince no less his judgment as a statesman, than they do his taste and erudition as a scholar. This interesting and valuable letter breathes the true sentiments of rational liberty, such as must be felt by the great body of the English nation, and such as must, sooner or later, prevail among the enlightened nations of the earth. How painful to reflect that this able appeal will produce no favorable effect on the British ministry, whose decision, it is to be feared, is already made in favor of the "legitimacy" of the Turkish government!
At four o'clock, I laid by my employments, and went to dine at the commanding officer's quarters, whence the party adjourned to a handsomely arranged supper table at Capt. Beal's. The necessity of complying with times and occasions, by accepting the current invitations of the day, is an impediment to any system of intellectual employment; and whatever the world may think of it, the time devoted to public dinners and suppers, routs and parties, is little better than time thrown away.
"And yet the fate of all extremes is such; Books may be read, as well as men, too much."
13th. I re-perused Mackenzie's "History of the Fur Trade," to enable me more fully to comprehend the allusions in a couple of volumes lately put into my hands, on the "Disputes between Lord Selkirk and the North West Company," and the "Report of Trials" for certain murders perpetrated in the course of a strenuous contest for commercial mastery in the country by the Hudson's Bay Company.
Finding an opportunity of sending north, I recollected that the surveyors of our northern boundary were passing the winter at Fort William, on the north shore of Lake Superior; and wrote to one of the gentlemen, enclosing him some of our latest papers.
14th. The gentlemen from the neighboring British post left us this morning. I devoted the day to my Indian inquiries.
15th. I commenced a vocabulary of conversation, in the Odjibwa.
17th. Native Mythology.--According to Indian mythology, Weeng is the God of sleep. He has numerous emissaries, who are armed with war clubs, of a tiny and unseen character. These fairy agents ascend the forehead, and knock the individual to sleep. Pope's creation of Gnomes, in the Rape of the Lock, is here prefigured.
18th. It has been said that the Indian languages possess no monosyllables. This remark is not borne out with regard to the Chippewa. Marked as it is with polysyllables, there are a considerable number of exceptions. Koan is snow, ais a shell, mong a loon, kaug a porcupine, &c. The number of dissyllables is numerous, and of trisyllables still more so. The Chippewa has no auxiliary verbs. The Chippewa primitive pronouns are, Neen, Keen, and Ween (I, Thou, He or She). They are rendered plural in wind and wau. They are also declined for tense, and thus, in the conjugation of verbs, take the place of our auxiliary verbs.
19th. Resumed the perusal of Holmes on "Revelations." He establishes a dictionary of symbols, which are universally interpreted. In this system, a day signifies a natural year; a week seven years; a month thirty years; a year a period of 360 years. The air means "church and state;" waters, "peoples, multitudes, tongues;" seven, the number of perfection; twelve, totality or all; hail storms, armies of northern invaders. If the work were divested of its controversial character, it would produce more effect. Agreeably to this author, the downfall of Popery will take place about the year 1866.
20th. I read "Esprella's Letters on England," a work attributed to Southey, whose object appears to have been to render English manners and customs familiar in Spain, at a time when the intercourse between the two countries had very much augmented, and their sympathies were drawn together by the common struggle against Napoleon Bonaparte.
21st. I commenced "Valerius, a Roman Story." In the evening the commanding officer (Col. L.) gave a party, in honor of Washington's birthday. That the time might not be wholly anticipated, dancing was introduced to give it wings, and continued until two o'clock of the morning of (the actual birthday) the twenty-second.
22d. Finished "Valerius." This is an interesting novel on the Waverley plan, and must certainly be considered a successful attempt to familiarize the class of novel-readers with Roman history and Roman domestic manners. The story turns on the persecution of the Christians under Trajan. The expression "of a truth," which is so abundantly used in the narrative, is a Scripture phrase, and is very properly put into the mouth of a converted Roman. I cannot say as much for the word "alongst" used for along. There are also some false epithets, as "drop," for run or flow, and "guesses" for conjectures. The only defect in the plot, which occurs to me, is, that Valerius, after his escape with Athanasia from Ostium, should have been landed safely in Britain, and thus completed the happiness of a disconsolate and affectionate mother, whom he left there, and who is never afterwards mentioned.
23d. From the mention which is made of it in "Valerius," I this day read the Gospel of Luke, and truly am surprised to find it so very important a part of the New Testament. Indeed, were all the rest of the volume lost, this alone would be sufficient for the guidance of the Christian. Divines tell us that Luke was the most learned of the evangelists. He is called "the beloved physician," by St. Paul. His style is more descriptive than the other evangelists, and his narrative more clear, methodical, and precise, and abounds equally with sublime conceptions.[31]
[Footnote 31: This opinion was thrown out from mere impulse, on a single perusal, and so far as it may be regarded as a literary criticism, the only possible light in which it can be considered, is vaguely hazarded, for I had not, at that time, read the other Gospels with any degree of care or understanding, so as to be capable thereby of judging of their style or merits as compositions. Spiritually considered, I did not understand Luke, or any of the Evangelists, for I regarded the Gospels as mere human compositions, without the aid of inspiration. They were deemed to be a true history of events, interspersed with moral axioms, but derived no part of their value, or the admiration above expressed, as revealing the only way of salvation through Christ.]
24th. Mr. Harman, from a long residence in the Indian country, in high northern latitudes, was qualified by his opportunities of observation, to speak of the comparative character of the Indian language in that quarter. He considers them as radically different from those of the Algonquin stock. The group which may be formed from his remarks, will embrace the Chippewayans, Beaver Indians, Sicaunies, Tacullies, and Nateotetains. If we may judge of this family of dialects by Mackenzie's vocabulary of the Chippewayan, it is very remote from the Chippewa, and abounds in those consonantal sounds which the latter studiously avoids.
Harman says, "The Sicaunies bury, while the Tacullies burn their dead." "Instances of suicide, by hanging, frequently occur among the women of all the tribes, with whom I have been acquainted; but the men are seldom known to take away their own lives."
These Indians entertain the same opinions respecting the dress of the dead, with the more southerly tribes. "Nothing," he says, "pleases an Indian better than to see his deceased relative handsomely attired, for he believes that they will arrive in the other world in the same dress with which they are clad, when they are consigned to the grave."
27th. Our second express arrived at dusk, this evening, bringing papers from the seaboard to the 14th of January, containing the President's message, proceedings of Congress, and foreign news, up to that date. A friend who is in Congress writes to me--"We go on slowly, but so far very harmoniously, in Congress. The Red Jackets [32] are very quiet, and I believe are very much disposed to cease their warfare against Mr. Monroe, as they find the nation do not relish it."
[Footnote 32: Opponents of the then existing administration, who looked to Gen. Cocke, of Tennessee, as a leader.]
Another friend at Washington writes (15th Dec.): "The message of the President you will have seen ere this reaches you. It is thought very well of here. He recommends the appointment of a Superintendent of the Western Lead Mines, skilled in mineralogy. If Congress should make provision for one, it is not to be doubted who will receive the situation. In fact, in a conversation a few days since with Mr. C., he told me he had you particularly in view when he recommended it to the President."
28th. Wrote an application to the Postmaster General for the appointment of S.B. Griswold as postmaster at this place.[33]
[Footnote 33: Mr. G. was appointed.]
Chapter XVII
Close of the winter solstice, and introduction of a northern spring--News from the world--The Indian languages--Narrative Journal--Semi-civilization of the ancient Aztec tribes--Their arts and languages--Hill's ironical review of the "Transactions of the Royal Society"--A test of modern civilization--Sugar making--Trip to one of the camps--Geology of Manhattan Island--Ontwa, an Indian poem--Northern ornithology--Dreams--The Indian apowa--Printed queries of General Cass--Prospect of the mineral agency--Exploration of the St. Peter's--Information on that head.
1823. March 1st. My reading hours, for the last few days, have been, in great part, devoted to the newspapers. So long an exclusion from the ordinary sources of information has the effect to increase the appetite for this kind of intellectual food, and the circumstance probably leads us to give up more time to it than we should were we not subject to these periodical exclusions. The great point of interest is the succession in the Presidential chair. Parties hinge upon this point. Economy and retrenchment are talismanic words, used to affect the populace, but used in reality only as means of affecting the balance of party power. Messrs. Calhoun, Crawford, and Adams are the prominent names which fill the papers.
There is danger that newspapers in America will too much supersede and usurp the place of books, and lead to a superficial knowledge of things. Gleaning the papers in search of that which is really useful, candid, and fair seems too much like hunting for grains of wheat in a chaos of chaff.
3d. Our third express went off this morning, freighted with our letters, and, of course, with our reasons, our sentiments, our thanks, our disappointments, our hopes, and our fears.
6th. I resumed the subject of the Indian language.
Osánimun is the word for vermilion. This word is compounded from unimun, or plant yielding a red dye, and asawa, yellow. The peculiar color of yellow-red is thus indicated. Bëizha is the neuter verb "to come." This verb appears to remain rigid in its conjugation, the tenses being indicated exclusively by inflections of the pronoun. Thus nim beizha, I come; ningee peizha, I came; ninguh peizha, I will come. The pronoun alone is declined for past and future tense, namely gee and guh.
There does not appear to be any definite article in the Chippewa language. Pazhik means one, or an. It may be doubtful whether the former sense is not the exclusive one. Ahow is this person in the animate form. Ihiw is the corresponding inanimate form. More care than I have devoted may, however, be required to determine this matter.
Verbs, in the Chippewa, must agree in number and tense with the noun. They must also agree in gender, that is, verbs animate must have nouns animate. They must also have animate pronouns and animate adjectives. Vitality, or the want of vitality, seems to be the distinction which the inventors of the language, seized upon, to set up the great rules of its syntax.
Verbs, in the Chippewa language, are converted into nouns by adding the particle win.
Kegido, to speak. Kegido-win, speech. This appears to be a general rule. The only doubt I have felt is, whether the noun formed is so purely elementary as not to partake of a participial character.
There are two plurals to express the word "we," one of which includes, and the other excludes, the person addressed. Neither of these forms is a dual.
Os signifies father; nos is my father; kos, thy father; osun, his or her father. The vowel in this word is sounded like the o, in note.
The language has two relative pronouns, which are much used--awanan, who; and wagonan, what. The vowel a, in these words, is the sound of a in fate.
There are two classes of adjectives, one of which applies to animate, the other to inanimate objects.
The Chippewa word for Sabbath is animea geezhig, and indicates prayer-day. There is no evidence, from inquiry, that the Indians divided their days into weeks. A moon was the measure of a month, but it is questionable whether they had acquired sufficient exactitude in the computation of time to have numbered the days comprehended in each moon. The phases of the moon were accurately noted.
8th. Professor S., of Yale College, writes to me under this date, enclosing opinions respecting my "Narrative Journal" of travels, contained in a familiar private letter from D. Wadsworth, Esq., of Hartford. They terminate with this remark: "All I regret about it (the work) is, that it was not consistent with his plans to tell us more of what might be considered the domestic part of the expedition--the character and conduct of those who were of the party, their health, difficulties, opinions, and treatment of each other, &c. As his book was a sort of official work, I suppose he thought it would not do, and I wish now, he would give his friends (and let us be amongst them) a manuscript of the particulars that are not for the public."
17th. Semi-civilization of the Mexican Tribes.--Nothing is more manifest, on reading the "Conquest of Mexico" by De Solis, than that the character and attainments of the ancient Mexicans are exalted far above the reality, to enhance the fame of Cortez, and give an air of splendor to the conquest. Superior as the Aztecs and some other tribes certainly were, in many things, to the most advanced of the North American tribes, they resemble the latter greatly, in their personal features, and mental traits, and in several of their arts.
The first presents sent by Montezuma to Cortez were "cotton cloths, plumes, bows, arrows and targets of wood, collars and rings of gold, precious stones, ornaments of gold in the shape of animals, and two round plates of the precious metals resembling the sun and moon."
The men had "rings in their ears and lips, which, though they were of gold, were a deformity instead of an ornament."
"Canoes and periogues" of wood were their usual means of conveyance by water. The "books" mentioned at p. 100, were well-dressed skins, dressed like parchment, and, after receiving the paintings observed, were accurately folded up, in squares or parallelograms.
The cacique of Zempoala, being the first dignitary who paid his respects personally to Cortez on his entry into the town, is described, in effect, as covered with a cotton blanket "flung over his naked body, enriched with various jewels and pendants, which he also wore in his ears and lips." This chief sent 200 men to carry the baggage of Cortez.
By the nearest route from St. Juan de Ulloa, the point of landing to Mexico, it was sixty leagues, or about 180 miles. This journey Montezuma's runners performed to and fro in seven days, being thirty-five to thirty-six miles per day. No great speed certainly; nothing to demand astonishment or excite incredulity.
Distance the Mexicans reckoned, like our Indians, by time, "A sun" was a day's journey.
De Solis says, "One of the points of his embassy (alluding to Cortez), and the principal motive which the king had to offer his friendship to Montezuma, was the obligation Christian princes lay under to oppose the errors of idolatry, and the desire he had to instruct him in the knowledge of the truth, and to help him to get rid of the slavery of the devil."
The empire of Mexico, according to this author, stretched "on the north as far as Panuco, including that province, but was straitened considerably by the mountains or hilly countries possessed by the Chichimecas and Ottomies, a barbarous people."
I have thought, on reading this work, that there is room for a literary essay, with something like this title: "Strictures on the Hyperbolical Accounts of the Ancient Mexicans given by the Spanish Historians," deduced from a comparison of the condition of those tribes with the Indians at the period of its settlement. Humboldt states that there are twenty languages at present in Mexico, fourteen of which have grammars and dictionaries tolerably complete. They are, Mexican or Aztec, Otomite, Tarase, Zapatec, Mistec, Maye or Yucatan, Tatonac, Popolauc, Matlazing, Huastec, Mixed, Caquiquel, Tarauma, Tepehuan, Cara.
20th. When the wind blows high, and the fine snow drifts, as it does about the vernal equinox, in these latitudes, the Indians smilingly say, "Ah! now Pup-puk-e-wiss is gathering his harvest," or words to this effect. There is a mythological tale connected with it, which I have sketched.
21st. I have amused myself in reading a rare old volume, just presented to me, entitled "A Review of the Works of the Royal Society of London, &c., by John Hill, M.D., London, 1751." It evinces an acute mind, ready wit, and a general acquaintance with the subjects of natural history, antiquities, and philosophical research, adverted to. It is a racy work, which all modern naturalists, and modern discoverers of secrets and inventions ought to read. I should think it must have made some of the contributors to the "Transactions" of the Royal Society wince in its day.
22d. Knowledge of foreign nations has increased most wonderfully in our day, and is one of the best tests of civilization. Josaphat Barbaro traveled into the East in 1436. He says of the Georgians, "They have the most horrid manners, and the worst customs of any people I ever met with." Surely this is vague enough for even the clerk who kept the log-book of Henry Hudson. Such items as the following were deemed "food" for books of travels in those days: "The people of Cathay, in China, believe that they are the only people in the world who have two eyes. To the Latins they allow one, and all the rest of the world none at all."
Marco Polo gives an account of a substance called "Andanicum," which he states to be an ore of steel. In those days, when everything relating to metallurgy and medicine was considered a secret, the populace did not probably know that steel was an artificial production. Or the mineral may have been sparry iron ore, which is readily converted into steel.
26th. It is now the season of making sugar from the rock maple by the Indians and Canadians in this quarter. And it seems to be a business in which almost every one is more or less interested. Winter has shown some signs of relaxing its iron grasp, although the quantity of snow upon the ground is still very great, and the streams appear to be as fast locked in the embraces of frost as if it were the slumber of ages. Sleighs and dog trains have been departing for the maple forests, in our neighborhood, since about the 10th instant, until but few, comparatively, of the resident inhabitants are left. Many buildings are entirely deserted and closed, and all are more or less thinned of their inhabitants. It is also the general season of sugar-making with the Indians.
I joined a party in visiting one of the camps. We had several carioles in company, and went down the river about eight or nine miles to Mrs. Johnston's camp. The party consisted of several officers and ladies from the fort, Captain Thompson [34] and lady, Lieutenant Bicker and lady and sister, the Miss Johnstons and Lieutenants Smith [35] and Folger. We pursued the river on the ice the greater part of the way, and then proceeded inland about a mile. We found a large temporary building, surrounded with piles of ready split wood for keeping a fire under the kettles, and large ox hides arranged in such a manner as to serve as vats for collecting the sap. About twenty kettles were boiling over an elongated central fire.
[Footnote 34: Killed in Florida, at the battle of Okechobbee, as Lt. Col. of the 6th U.S. Infantry.]
[Footnote 35: Died at Vera Cruz, Mexico, as Quarter-Master U.S.A.]
The whole air of the place resembled that of a manufactory. The custom on these occasions is to make up a pic-nic, in which each one contributes something in the way of cold viands or refreshments.
The principal amusement consisted in pulling candy, and eating the sugar in every form. Having done this, and received the hospitalities of our hostess, we tackled up our teams, and pursued our way back to the fort, having narrowly escaped breaking through the river at one or two points.
27th. I received a letter of this date from G.W. Rodgers, a gentleman of Bradford county, Pennsylvania, in behalf of himself and associates, proposing a number of queries respecting the copper-yielding region of Lake Superior, and the requisites and prospects of an expedition for obtaining the metal from the Indians. Wrote to him adversely to the project at this time. Doubtless the plan is feasible, but the Indians are at present the sole owners and occupants of the metalliferous region.
28th. Dies natalis.--A friend editing a paper on the seaboard writes (10 Jan. 1822)--"I wish you to give me an article on the geology and mineralogy of Manhattan Island, in the form of a letter purporting to be given by a foreign traveler. It is my intention to give a series of letters, partly by myself and partly by others, which shall take notice of everything in and about the city, which may be deemed interesting. I wish to begin at the foundation, by giving a geographical and geological sketch of the island." [36] He continues:--
[Footnote 36: Furnished the article, as desired, under the signature of "Germanicus." Vide "N.Y. Statesman."]
"I have read Ontwa, the Indian poem you spoke of last summer. The notes by Gov. Cass are extremely interesting, and written in a superior style. I shall notice the work in a few days." "I inform you, in confidence, that M.E., of this city, is preparing a notice of your 'Journal' for the next number of the Repository, which will appear on the first of next month."
29th. Novelty has the greatest attraction for the human mind. There is such a charm in novelty, says Dr. John Mason Good, that it often leads us captive in spite of the most glaring errors, and intoxicates the judgment as fatally as the cup of Circe. But is not variety at hand to contest the palm?
"The great source of pleasure," observes Dr. Johnson, "is variety. Uniformity must tire at last, though it be uniformity of excellence."
April 1st. The ice and snow begin to be burthensome to the eye. We were reconciled to winter, when it was the season of winter; but now our longing eyes are cast to the south, and we are anxious for the time when we can say, "Lo, the winter is past, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."
The Chippewas have quite a poetic allegory of winter and spring, personified by an old and a young man, who came from opposite points of the world, to pass a night together and boast of their respective powers. Winter blew his breath, and the streams were covered with ice. Spring blew his breath, and the land was covered with flowers. The old man is finally conquered, and vanishes into "thin air."
2d. We talked to-day of dreams. Dreams are often talked about, and have been often written about. But the subject is usually left where it was taken up. Herodotus says, "Dreams in general originate from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day." Locke betters the matter but little, by saying, "The dreams of sleeping men are all made up of waking men's ideas, though, for the most part, oddly put together." Solomon's idea of "the multitude of business" is embraced in this.
Sacred dreams were something by themselves. God chose in ancient times to communicate with the prophets in dreams and visions. But there is a very strong and clear line of distinction drawn on this subject in the 23d of Jeremiah, from the 25th to the 28th verses. "He that hath a dream, let him tell a dream, and he that hath my word let him speak my word." The sacred and the profane, or idle dream, are likened as "chaff" to "wheat."
The Indians, in this quarter, are very much besotted and spell-bound, as it were, by dreams. Their whole lives are rendered a perfect scene of doubts and fears and terrors by them. Their jugglers are both dreamers and dream interpreters. If the "prince of the power of the air" has any one hold upon them more sure and fast than another, it seems to be in their blind and implicit reliance upon dreams. There is, however, with them a sacred dream, distinct from common dreams. It is called a-po-wa.
I have had before me, during a considerable part of the season, a pamphlet of printed queries respecting the Indians and their languages, put into my hands by Gov. C. when passing through Detroit in the summer. Leaving to others the subjects connected with history and traditions, &c., I have attempted an analysis of the language. Reading has been resorted to as a refreshment from study. I used to read to gratify excitement, but I find the chief pleasure of my present reading is more and more turning to the acquisition and treasuring up of facts. This principle is probably all that sustains and renders pleasurable the inquiry into the Indian language.
One of the printed queries before me is, "Do they (the Indians) believe in ghosts?" I believe all ignorant and superstitious nations believe in apparitions. It seems to be one of the most natural consequences of ignorance; and we have seen, in the history of wise and learned men, that it requires a high intellectual effort to shake this belief out of the mind. If God possessed no other way of communicating with the living, it is reasonable to believe that he would send dead men, or dead men's souls. And this is the precise situation of the only well authenticated account we have, namely, that of Saul at Endor [vide 1st Samuel, 7th to 15th verses]. The Chippewas are apt to connect all their ghost stories with fire. A lighted fire on the grave has a strong connection with this idea, as if they deemed some mysterious analogy to exist between spirituality and fire. Their name for ghost is Jeebi, a word rendered plural in ug. Without nice attention, this word will be pronounced Chebi, or Tchebi.
Another is as follows: "Do they use any words equivalent to our habit of swearing?" Many things the Indians may be accused of, but of the practice of swearing they cannot. I have made many inquiries into the state of their vocabulary, and do not, as yet, find any word which is more bitter or reproachful than matchi annemoash, which indicates simply, bad-dog. Many of their nouns have, however, adjective inflections, by which they are rendered derogative. They have terms to indicate cheat, liar, thief, murderer, coward, fool, lazy man, drunkard, babbler. But I have never heard of an imprecation or oath. The genius of the language does not seem to favor the formation of terms to be used in oaths or for purposes of profanity. It is the result of the observation of others, as well as my own, to say, that an Indian cannot curse.
31st. The ornithology of the north is very limited in the winter. We have the white owl, the Canada jay, and some small species of woodpeckers. I have known the white partridge, or ptermigan, to wander thus far south. This bird is feathered to the toes. There are days when the snow-bird appears. There is a species of duck, the shingebis, that remains very late in the fall, and another, the ä-ä-wa, that comes very early in the spring.
The T. polyglottis, or buffoon-bird, is never found north of 46° N. latitude in the summer. This bird pours forth all sorts of notes in a short space of time, without any apparent order. The thrush, the wren, the jay, and the robin are imitated in as short a time as it takes to write these words.
7th. During severe winters, in the north, some species of birds extend their migrations farther south than usual. This appears to have been the case during the present season. A small bird, yellowish and cinereous, of the grosbec species, appeared this day in the neighborhood of one of the sugar-camps on the river below, and was shot with an arrow by an Indian boy, who brought it up to me. The Chippewas call it Pashcundamo, in allusion to the stoutness of its bill, and consequent capacity for breaking surfaces.[37]
[Footnote 37: This specimen was sent to the New York Lyceum, where it was determined to be an undescribed species, and named Fringilia vespertina, or evening grosbec.]
8th. The ice on the river still admits of the passage of horse trains, and the night temperature is quite wintry, although the power of the sun begins to be sensibly felt during the middle and after part of the day.
9th. A friend recently at Washington writes from Detroit under the date of the 12th March: "A proposition was submitted to a committee of the Senate, soon after my arrival in the city, by the Secretary of War, for the establishment of the office of Superintendent of Mines. To this office, had the project been carried into execution, you would have been appointed. But shortly before I left there, it was thought more expedient to sell all the mines than to retain them in the hands of the government. Of course, if this plan be adopted, as I think it will be, the other will be superseded." Here, then, drops a project, which I had conceived at Potosi, and which has been before my mind for some four years, and which I am still satisfied might have been carried through Congress, had I given my personal attention to the subject, during the present session. I have supposed myself more peculiarly qualified to fill the station indicated, than the one I now occupy. And I accepted the present office under the expectation that it would be temporary. When once a project of this kind, however, is superseded in the way this has been, it is like raising the dead to bring it up again; and it is therefore probable that my destiny is now fixed in the North-West instead of the South-West, for a number of years. I thought I had read Franklin's maxims to some purpose; but I now see that, although I have observed one of them in nine cases, I missed it in the tenth:--
"He that by the plough would thrive, Himself must either hold, or drive."
I trusted, in the fall, that I could safely look on, and see this matter accomplished.
As to the mines, they will still require a local superintendent. They cannot be sold until there are some persons to buy, and it is not probable such extensive tracts of barren lands can be disposed of in years. Meantime, the rents of the mines are an object. The preservation of the public timber is an object. And the duties connected with these objects cannot be performed, with justice to the government, and convenience to the lessees, without a local agent. In proportion as some of the districts of mineral lands are sold, others will claim attention; and it may be, and most probably will be, years before the intention of Congress, if expressed by law, can be fully carried into effect.
Life has more than one point of resemblance to a panorama. When one object is past, another is brought to view. The same correspondent adds: "Mr. Calhoun has come to the determination to authorize you to explore the River St. Peter's this season. I think you may safely make the necessary arrangements, as I feel confident the instructions will reach you soon after the opening of the navigation."
In consequence of this intimation, I have been casting about to find some authors who treat of the region of country which embraces the St. Peter's, but with little success. Hennipin's "Discovery of a large Country in the Northern America, extending above Four Thousand Miles," I have read with care. But care indeed it requires to separate truth from error, both in his descriptions and opinions. He thinks "Japan a part of the American Continent;" and describes the Wisconsin as "navigable for large vessels above one hundred leagues." Yet, notwithstanding this gross hyberbole, he describes the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin at "half a league," which is within the actual distance. It may be admitted that he was within the Sioux country, and went up the Mississippi as high as the St. Francis.
La Hontan, whose travels were published in London only a few years after the translation of Hennipin's, is entitled, it is believed, to no credit whatever, for all he relates of personal discoveries on the Mississippi. His fiction of observations on "River La Long," is quite preposterous. I once thought he had been as far as Prairie du Chien; but think it more probable he never went beyond Green Bay.
Carver, who went from Boston to the Mississippi in the latter part of the 18th century, is not an author to glean much from. I, however, re-perused his volume carefully, and extracted notes. Some of the stories inserted in his work have thrown an air of discredit over it, and caused the whole work to be regarded in rather an apocryphal light. I think there is internal evidence enough in his narrative to prove that he visited the chief portions of country described. But he probably neglected to keep diurnal notes. When in London, starvation stared him in the face. Those in office to whom he represented his plans probably listened to him awhile, and afterwards lost sight of, or neglected him. He naturally fell into the hands of the booksellers, who deemed him a good subject to get a book from. But his original journal did not probably afford matter enough, in point of bulk. In this exigency, the old French and English authors appear to have been drawn upon; and probably their works contributed by far the larger part of the volume after the 114th page (Philadelphia ed. 1796), which concludes the "Journal." I think it questionable whether some literary hack was not employed, by the booksellers, to draw up the part of the work "On the origin, manners, customs, religion, and language of the Indians." Considerable portions of the matter are nearly verbatim in the language of Charlevoix, La Hontan, and other authors of previous date. The "vocabulary of Chippewa," so far as it is Chippewa at all, has the French or a mixed orthography, which it is not probable that an Englishman or an American would, de novo, employ. CHAPTER XVIII.
Rapid advance of spring--Troops commence a stockade--Principles of the Chippewa tongue--Idea of a new language containing the native principles of syntax, with a monosyllabic method--Indian standard of value--Archaeological evidences in growing trees--Mount Vernon--Signs of spring in the appearance of birds--Expedition to St. Peter's--Lake Superior open--A peculiarity in the orthography of Jefferson--True sounds of the consonants--Philology--Advent of the arrival of a vessel.--Editors and editorials--Arrival from Fort William--A hope fled--Sudden completion of the spring, and ushering in of summer--Odjibwa language, and transmission of Inquiries.
1823. April 12th. Spring is gradually advancing. The deepened roar of the rapids indicates an increased volume of water. The state of the ice is so bad this day that no persons have ventured to cross the river. Yesterday, they still crossed. The bare ground begins to show itself in spots; but the body of snow is still deep in the woods.
14th. The T. migratorius or robin made its appearance. The Indians have a pretty tale of the origin of this bird and its fondness for domestic scenes.
16th. Gray duck appeared in the rapids.
17th. Large portions of the ground are now laid bare by the sun.
18th. A friend at New York, about to sail for Europe, writes me under this date: "I expect to sail for St. Petersburgh. I shall take with me some of our choicest specimens, in return for which I hope to procure something new and interesting. The truth is, we know very little of the mineralogy of Russia, and hence such specimens as can be procured will almost necessarily prove interesting."
"The Lyceum is about to publish its proceedings. The members are increasing in numbers and activity. It has been recently agreed that there shall be at least one paper read at every meeting; this will ensure attention, and much increase the interest of the meetings. I hope you may, before long, be able to add your personal attendance."
"I feel it my duty to inform you that the minerals intrusted to my care are situated in every respect as when left by you; they are, of course, entirely dependent upon any order you may give concerning them. I do not think it necessary that you should make any immediate provision for them, or that there is any cause for uneasiness on their account." [38]
[Footnote 38: Notwithstanding, the collection of specimens referred to was afterwards most sadly dealt with, and pillaged of its choicest specimens.]
19th. The troops began to set up the pickets of a stockade or fort, to which the name of "Brady" is given, in allusion to Col. Hugh Brady, U.S.A. The first canoe crossed the river to-day, although the ice still lines each shore of the river for several hundred yards in width.
20th. S. My sister Maria writes to me: "I fancy, by the description you have given of your residence and society at the Sault, that you have enjoyed yourself, and seen as much of the refinements of civilized life as you would have done in many places less remote. Who have you at the Sault that writes such pretty poetry? The piece I refer to is signed Alexina,[39] and is a death-song of an Indian woman at the grave of her murdered husband."
[Footnote 39: Mrs. Thompson.]
22d. One of the principal objections to be urged against the Indian languages, considered as media of communication, is their cumbrousness. There is certainly a great deal of verbiage and tautology about them. The paucity of terms leads not only to the use of figures and metaphors, but is the cause of circumlocution. This day we had a snow storm.
The Chippewa is, in its structure, what is denominated by Mr. Du Ponceau "polysynthetic." It seems the farthest removed possible from the monosyllabic class of languages. I have thought that, if some of its grammatical principles could be applied to monosyllables, a new language of great brevity, terseness, regularity, and poetic expressiveness, might be formed. It would be necessary to restore to its alphabet the consonants f, l, and r, and v. Its primitive pronouns might be retained, with simple inflections, instead of compound, for plural. It would be necessary to invent a pronoun for she, as there is, apparently, nothing of this kind in the language. The pronouns might take the following form:--
Ni, I. Nid, We. Niwin, Myself. Niwind, Ourselves.
Ki, Thou. Kid, Ye or you. Kiwin, Thyself. Kiwind, Yourselves.
Wi, He. Wid, They. Masculine. Wiwin, Yourselves. (Mas.) Wiwind.
Si, She. Sid, They. Feminine. Siwin, Yourselves. (Fem.) Siwind.
DECLENSION OF PRONOUNS.
Ni, Nin, Nee--I, Mine, Me. Nid, Nida, Nidim--We, Us, Ours.
Ki, Kin, Kee--Thou, Thine, Thee. Kid, Kida, Kidim--_Ye, You, Yours. _ Wi, Win, Wee--Him, His, His. Wid, Wida, Widim--They, Their, Theirs. (Mas.)
Si, Sin, See--Her, Hers, Hers. Sid, Sida, Sidim--They, Their, Theirs. (Fem.)
The full meaning of the present class of verbs and substantives of the language could be advantageously transferred to the first, or second, or third syllable of the words, converting them into monosyllables. The plural might be uniformly made in d, following a vowel, and if a word terminate in a consonant, then in ad. So the class of plural terminations would be ad, ed, id, od, ud. Many generic nouns would require to be invented, and could easily be drawn from existing roots. In the orthography of these, the initial consonant of the corresponding English word might serve as an index, Thus, from the word aindum, mind, might be derived,
Ain, Mind. Sain, Sorrow.
Tain, Thought. Jain, Joy, &c.
Main, Meditation.
So from taibwawin, truth, might be drawn taib, truth--faib, faith--raib, religion--vaib, virtue. A principle of euphony, or affinity of syllabication, might be applied in the abbreviation of a few of this class of generic words: as Eo, God, from monedo.
THE ORDINARY NOUNS WOULD RUN THUS:--
In, Man. Ind, Men.
Ee, Woman. Eed, Women.
Ab, Child. Abad, Children.
Kwi, Boy. Kwid, Boys.
Kwa, Girl. Kwad, Girls.
Os, Father. Osad, Fathers.
Gai, Mother. Gaid, Mothers.
All the existing monosyllables of the language would be retained, but subjected to new laws of construction and concordance. Thus the plural of Koan, snow, would be koanad; of ais, shell, aisad; moaz, moas, moazad, &c. Variety in the production of sounds, and of proper cadences in composition, might dictate retention of a certain class of the dissyllables--as ossin a stone, opin a potato, akki earth, mejim food, assub a net, aubo a liquid, _mittig _ a tree, &c., the plurals of which would be assinad, opinad, akkid, mejimad, assubad, aubad, mittigad. Every substantive would have a diminutive form in is, and an augmentative in chi, the vowel of the latter to be dropped where a vowel begins the word. Thus, chab, a grandchild; chigai, a grandmother. Inis, a little man; osis, a little father, &c.
Adjectives would come under the same rules of abbreviation as nouns and verbs. They would be deprived of their present accidents of number and gender.
Min, Good. Koona, Ugly.
Mon, Bad. Soan, Strong.
Bish, Handsome.
The colors, seasons, cardinal points, &c., would consist of the first syllable of the present words.
The demonstrative pronouns, this, that, there, those, would take the following forms: Mau, this; aho, that. By adding the common plural, the terms for these and those would be produced: Maud, these; ahod, those.
The prepositions would fall naturally under the rule of abbreviation applied to nouns, &c. Chi, by; peen, in; kish, if, &c.; li, of; ra, to; vi, is; af, at.
Ieau is the verb to be. The auxiliary verbs, have, shall, will, &c., taken from the tensal particles, are ge, gu, gei, go, ga.
Pa may stand for the definite article, being the first syllable of pazhik; and a comma for the indefinite article.
Ie is matter. Ishi, heaven.
EXAMPLES.
Ni sa Eo--I love God. Eo vi min--The Lord is good. Nin os ge pa min in--My father was a good man. Ishiod (Isheod)--The heavens.
Thus a new language might be formed.
24th. The standard of value with the Indians is various. At this place, a beaver skin is the standard of computation in accounts. When an Indian has made a purchase, he inquires, not how many dollars, but how many beaver skins he owes. Farther south, where racoon skins are plenty, they become the standard. Some years ago, desertion became so frequent at Chicago and other posts, that the commanding officer offered the customary reward to the Indians of the post, if they would secure the deserters. Five persons went in pursuit, and brought in the men, for which they received a certificate for the amount. They then divided the sum into five equal shares, and subdivided each share into its value in racoon skins. It was not until this division was completed, and the number of skins ascertained, that they could, by any fixed standard of comparison, determine the reward which each had received.
25th. It is stated in the newspapers that hacks of an axe were lately found in the central and solid parts of a large tree near Buffalo, which were supposed to have been made by La Salle's party. Other evidences of the early footsteps of Europeans on this continent have been mentioned. A trammel was found in the solid substance of a tree in Onondaga. A gun barrel in a similar position in the Wabash Valley.[40] Growing wood soon closes over articles left upon it, in the wilderness, where they are long undisturbed.
[Footnote 40: Hon. R.W. Thompson.]
27th. Monedo is strictly a term belonging to the Indian mythology and necromancy, and is constantly used to indicate a spirit. It has not the regular termination of the noun in win, and seems rather verbal in its aspect, and so far as we can decipher its meaning, mon is a syllable having a bad meaning generally, as in monaudud, &c. Edo may possibly be a derivation from ekedo, he speaks.
28th. It is a year ago to-day since I visited the tomb of Washington, at Mount Vernon. There were three representatives in Congress, in company. We left the city of Washington in the morning, in a private carriage, and drove down in good season. I looked about the tomb narrowly for some memento to bring away, and found some mineralogical fragments on the small mound over the tomb, which would bear the application of their book names. On coming back through Alexandria, we dined at a public hotel, where, among other productions of the season, we had cucumbers. What a contrast in climate to my present position! Here, as the eyes search the fields, heaps of snow are still seen in shaded situations, and the ice still disfigures the bays and indentations of the shore in some places, as if it were animated with a determination to hold out against the power of the sun to the utmost. Nature, however, indicates its great vernal throe. White fish were first taken during the season, this day, which is rare.
29th. A friend at Detroit writes under this date: "I had expected that before now, instructions would have reached here requiring you to repair to the St. Peter's. But as the season advances, and they do not arrive, I begin to fear that one of those mutations, to which of all governments upon this mundane sphere ours is the most exposed, has changed the intended disposition."
May 1st. Winter still holds its grasp upon the ice in the lower part of the river and straits.
The Claytonia Virginica observed in flower in favorable spots.
The bay opposite the fort on the north-west shore cleared of ice on the 2d, being the first day that the river has exhibited the appearance of being completely clear, a strong north-west wind blowing. It is just four months and ten days from the period of its final closing on the 22d of December.
The yellow sparrow, or boblinkin, appeared this day in the woods.
4th. The surface of the earth is undergoing a rapid transformation, although we are, at the same time, led to observe, that "winter lingering chills the lap of May." Sudden changes of temperature are experienced, which are governed very much by the course and changes of the wind. Nature appears suddenly to have been awakened from her torpid state.
All eyes are now directed to the east, not because the sun rises there, but it is the course from which, in our position, we expect intelligence by vessels. We expect a deliverance from our winter's incarceration.
6th. Lake Superior appears to be entirely open. A gentleman attached to the Boundary Survey at Fort William writes to me, under this date, that the bay at that place is free from ice, so as to permit them to resume their operations. They had been waiting for this occurrence for two weeks previously.
8th. It is a year since I received from the President (Mr. Monroe) a commission as agent for these tribes; and it is now more probable than it then was that my residence here may assume a character of permanency. I do not, however, cease to hope that Providence has a more eligible situation in reserve for me.
9th. "Little things," says Dr. Johnson, "are not valued, when they are done by those who cannot do greater." Thomas Jefferson uniformly spelled knowledge without a w, which might not be mentioned, had he not written the Notes on Virginia, and the Declaration of Independence.
10th. A trader proceeded with a boat into Lake Superior, which gives assurance that this great inland sea is open for navigation. White fish appeared in the rapids, which it is said they never do while there is running ice.
11th. Stearn sums up the points requisite for remembrance by posterity, in these four things--"Plant a tree, write a book, build a house, and get a child." Watts has a deeper tone of morality when he says--
"We should leave our names, our heirs. Old time and waning moons sweep all the rest away."
12th. When last at Washington, Dr. Thornton, of the Patent Office, detained me some time talking of the powers of the letters of the English alphabet. He drew a strong line of distinction between the names and the sounds of the consonants. L, for instance, called el, was sounded le, &c.
Philology is one of the keys of knowledge which, I think, admits of its being said that, although it is rather rusty, the rust is, however, a proof of its antiquity. I am inclined to think that more true light is destined to be thrown on the history of the Indians by a study of their languages than of their traditions, or any other feature.
The tendency of modern inquiries into languages seems rather to have been to multiply than to simplify. I do not believe we have more than three mother stocks of languages in all the United States east of the Mississippi, embracing also large portions of territory west of it, namely, the Algonquin, Iroquois, and what may be called Apallachian. Perhaps a little Dakota.
15th. Our first vessel for the season arrived this day. If by a patient series of inquiries, during the winter, we had calculated the appearance of a comet, and found our data verified by its actual appearance, it could not be a subject of deeper interest than the bringing ashore of the ship's mail. Had we not gone to so remote a position, we could not possibly ever have become aware how deeply we are indebted to the genius and discoveries of Cadmus and Faust, whose true worshippers are the corps editorial. Now for a carnival of letters.
Reading, reading, reading, "Big and small, scraps and all."
If editors of newspapers knew the avidity with which their articles are read by persons isolated as we are, I have the charity to believe they would devote a little more time, and exert a little more candor, in penning them. For, after all, how large a portion of all that a newspaper contains is, at least to remote readers, "flat, stale, and unprofitable." The mind soon reacts, and asks if this be valuable news.
I observed the Erythronium dens canis, and Panax trifolium appeared in flower on the 25th.
28th. The schooner "Recovery" arrived from Fort William on the north shore of Lake Superior, bringing letters and despatches, political and commercial. Mr. Siveright, the agent of the H. B. C., kindly sent over to me, for my perusal, a letter of intelligence from an American gentleman in the North.
29th. I have, for some time, relinquished the expectation of being selected to conduct the exploring party, intended to be ordered by government, into the region of the St. Peter's, at least the present season. A letter of this date terminates the uncertainty. "Major Delafield," says a correspondent, "informs me that an exploring party has been ordered under Major Long, to make the tour which was intended for you. Why this arrangement has been made, and the original plan abandoned, I cannot conjecture, unless it resulted from the necessity of placing a military officer at the head of the party. I presume this was the fact, for I am certain that the change in the project did not arise from any feeling in Mr. C.'s mind unfriendly, or even indifferent to you. Upon that subject I can speak definitely, and say to you, that you have a hold upon his esteem, not to be shaken." Thus falls another cherished hope, namely, that of leading an expedition to the North.
30th. Minute particulars are often indicative of general changes. This is the first day that the mosquito has appeared. The weather for a few days has been warm. Vegetation suddenly put forth; the wild cherry, &c., is now in bloom, and gardening has commenced with fine prospects.
31st. Odjibwa language.--There are two generic words in the concrete forms of the Chippewa for water or a liquid, in addition to the common term neebi. They are aubo and gomee. Both are manifestly compounds, but, in our present state of knowledge, they may be temporarily considered as elements of other compounds. Thus, if the letter n be prefixed to the former, and the sound of b suffixed, the result is the term for soup, nabob. If to the same element of aubo, the word for fire, iscoda, be prefixed, the result is their name for ardent spirits, iscodawabo, literally fire-water. In the latter case, the letter w is thrown in as a coalescent between the sound of a, as a in hate; and the a, as a in fall. This is out of a mere regard to euphony.
"If they (the Chippewas) say 'A man loves me,' or 'I love a man,' is there any variation in the word man?" They do not use the word man in either of these instances. The adjective white takes the animate pronoun form in iz zi, by which the object beloved is indicated, waub-ishk-iz-ze Saugiau.
"Does the object precede or follow the verb?" Generally, it precedes the verb. Fish, have you any? not, Have you any fish?
The substantive preceded the verb in the organization of the language. Things were before the motion of things, or the acts or passions of men which led to motion and emotion. Hence, all substances are changed into and used as verbs.
I this day completed and transmitted the results of my philological inquiries, hoping they might prove acceptable to the distinguished individual to whom they were addressed, and help to advance the subject. This subject is only laid aside by the call of business, and to be effectual must be again resumed with the recurrence of our long winter evenings.