|
|
Incidents of the year 1824--Indian researches--Diverse idioms of
the Ottowa and Chippewa--Conflict of opinion between the civil and
military authorities of the place--A winter of seclusion well
spent--St. Paul's idea of languages--Examples in the Chippewa--The
Chippewa a pure form of the Algonquin--Religion in the
wilderness--Incidents--Congressional excitements--Commercial view of
the copper mine question--Trip to Tackwymenon Falls, in Lake
Superior.
1824. Jan. 1st. As soon as the business season closed, I
resumed my Indian researches.
General C. writes: "The result of your inquiries into the Indian
language is highly valuable and satisfactory. I return you my
sincere thanks for the papers. I have examined them attentively. I
should be happy to have you prosecute your inquiries into the
manners, customs, &c., of the Indians. You are favorably situated,
and have withal such unconquerable perseverance, that I must tax you
more than other persons. My stock of materials, already ample, is
rapidly increasing, and many new and important facts have been
disclosed. It is really surprising that so little valuable
information has been given to the world on this subject."
Mr. B.F. Stickney, formerly an agent at Fort Wayne, Indiana, writes
from Depot (now Toledo): "I am pleased to see that your mind is
engaged on the Chippewa language. It affords a field sufficiently
extensive for the range of all the intellect and industry that the
nation can bring into action. If the materials already collected
should, after a scrutiny and arrangement, be thrown upon the
literary world, it would excite so much interest as not to permit
the inquiry thus to stop at the threshold. It is really an original
inquiry concerning the operations of the human mind, wherein a
portion of the human race, living apart from the rest, have
independently devised means for the interchange of thoughts and
ideas. Their grammatical rules are so widely different from all our
European forms that it forces the mind to a retrospective view of
first principles.
"I have observed the differences you mention between the Ottowa and
Chippewa dialects. Notwithstanding I conceive them to be (as you
observe) radically the same language, I think there is less
difference between the band of Ottowas you mention, of L'Arbre
Croche, than the Ottowas of this vicinity. It appears that their
languages are subject to very rapid changes. From not being written,
they have no standard to resort to, and I have observed it
demonstrated in bands of the same tribe, residing at considerable
distances from each other, and having but little intercourse for
half a century; these have with difficulty been able to understand
each other.
"I am pleased to learn that you are still advancing the sciences of
mineralogy and conchology. Your discovery of native silver imbedded
in native copper is certainly a very extraordinary one."
28th. Major E. Cutler, commanding officer, applies to me, as
a magistrate, to prosecute all citizens who have settled on the
reserve at St. Mary's, and opened "shops for the sale of liquor."
Not being a public prosecuting attorney, it does not appear how this
can at all be done, without his designating the names of the
offenders, and the offences for which they are to be tried.
30th. The same officer reports that his duties will not
permit him to erect quarters for the Indian agent, which he is
required to put up, till another year. If this step is to be
regarded, as it seems, as a retaliatory measure for my not issuing
process, en masse, against the citizens, without he or his
subordinates condescending to name individuals, it manifests an
utter ignorance of the first principles of law, and is certainly a
queer request to be made of a justice of the peace. Nor does it
appear how the adoption of such whims or assumptions is compatible
with a just official comity or an enlarged sense of public duty, on
his part, and pointed instructions, to boot, in co-operating with
the Indian department on a remote and exposed frontier.
There seems to be a period, on the history of the frontiers, where
conflicts between the military and civil authorities are almost
inevitable; but there are, perhaps, few examples to be found where
the former power has been more aggressively and offensively
exercised than it has been under the martinet who is now in command
at this post. It is an ancient point of settlement by the French,
who are generally a mild and obliging people, and disposed to submit
to authorities. Some of these are descended from persons who settled
here under Louis XIV. That a few Americans have followed the troops
with more rigid views of private rights, and who cannot be easily
trampled on, is true. And the military have, justly, no doubt, felt
annoyances from a freedom of trade with the soldiery, who cannot be
kept within their pickets by bayonets and commands. But he must be
far gone in his sublimated notions of self-complacency and temporary
importance who supposes that a magistrate would surrender his sense
of independence, and impartiality between man and man, by assuming
new and unheard-of duties, at the beck of a military functionary who
happens to overrate his own, or misjudge another's position.
March 31st. I have given no little part of the winter to a
revision of my manuscript journal of travels through the Miami and
Wabash Valleys in 1821. The season has been severe, and offered few
inducements to go beyond the pale of the usual walk to my office,
the cantonment, and to the village seated at the foot of the rapids.
Variety, in this pursuit, has been sought, in turning from the
transcription of these records of a tourist to the discussion of the
principles of the Indian languages--a labor, if literary amusement
can be deemed a labor, which was generally adjourned from my office,
to be resumed in the domestic circle during the long winter
evenings. A moral enjoyment has seldom yielded more of the fruits of
pleasure. In truth, the winter has passed almost imperceptibly away.
Tempests howled around us, without diminishing our comforts. We
often stood, in the clear winter evenings, to gaze at the splendid
displays of the Aurora Borealis. The cariole was sometimes put in
requisition. We sometimes tied on the augim, or snow-shoe, and
ventured over drifts of snow, whose depth rendered them impassable
to the horse. We assembled twice a week, at a room, to listen to the
chaste preaching of a man of deep-toned piety and sound judgment,
whose life and manners resemble an apostle's.
In looking back at the scenes and studies of such a season, there
was little to regret, and much to excite in the mind pleasing vistas
of hope and anticipation. The spring came with less observation than
had been devoted to the winter previous; and the usual harbingers of
advancing warmth--the small singing birds and northern flowers--were
present ere we were well aware of their welcome appearance.
Hope is a
flower that fills the sentient mind
With sweets
of rapturous and of heavenly kind;
And those,
who in her gardens love to tread,
Alone can
tell how soft the odors spread.
HETHERWOLD.
April 20th. "There are, it may be," says Paul, "many kinds of
voices in the world, and none of them is without signification." It
could easily be proved that many of these voices are very rude; but
it would take more philological acumen than was possessed by Horne
Tooke to prove that any of them are without "signification." By the
way, Tooke's "Diversions of Purley" does not seem to me so odd a
title as it once appeared.
C. writes to me, under this date, "I pray you to push your
philological inquiries as far as possible; and to them, add such
views as you may be able to collect of the various topics embraced
in my plan."
There is, undoubtedly, some danger that, in making the Indian
history and languages a topic of investigation, the great
practicable objects of their reclamation may be overlooked. We
should be careful, while cultivating the mere literary element, not
to palliate our delinquencies in philanthropic efforts in their
behalf, under the notion that nothing can be effectively done, that
the Indian is not accessible to moral truths, and that former
efforts having failed of general results, such as those of Eliot and
Brainerd, they are beyond the reach of ordinary means. I am
inclined to believe that the error lies just here--that is, in the
belief that some extraordinary effort is thought to be necessary,
that their sons must be cooped up in boarding-schools and colleges,
where they are taught many things wholly unsuited to their condition
and wants, while the mass of the tribes is left at home, in the
forests, in their ignorance and vices, untaught and neglected.
In the exemplification of St. Paul's idea, that all languages are
given to men, with an exact significance of words and forms, and
therefore not vaguely, there is the highest warrant for their study;
and the time thus devoted cannot be deemed as wasted or thrown away.
How shall a man say "raca," or "that fox," if there be no
equivalents for the words in barbarous languages? The truth is that
this people find no-difficulty in expressing the exact meanings,
although the form of the words is peculiar. The derogative sense of
sly and cunning, which is, in the original, implied by the
demonstrative pronoun "that," a Chippewa would express by a mere
inflection of the word fox, conveying a bad or reproachful idea; and
the pronoun cannot be charged with an ironical meaning.
In ke-bau-diz-ze, which is an equivalent for raca,
there is a personal pronominal prefix, and an objective pronominal
suffix. The radix, in baud, has thus the second person thou
in ke; and the objective inflection, iz-ze, means a
person in a general sense. This reveals two forms of the Chippewa
substantive, which are applicable to all words, and leaves nothing
superfluous or without "significance." In fact, the whole language
is susceptible of the most clear and exact analysis. This language
is one of the most pure, clear, and comprehensive forms of the
Algonquin.
May 20th. The Rev. Robert McMurtrie Laird, of Princess Anne,
Maryland, but now temporarily at Detroit, writes to me in a spirit
of affectionate kindness and Christian solicitude. The history of
this pious man's labors on the remotest frontiers of Michigan is
probably recorded where it will be known and acknowledged, in hymns
of gladness, when this feeble and frail memorial of ink and paper
has long perished.
Late in the autumn of 1823, he came, an unheralded stranger, to St.
Mary's. No power but God's, it would seem, could have directed his
footsteps there. There was everything to render them repulsive. The
Indian wabene drum, proclaiming the forest tribes to be under
the influence of their native diviners and jossakeeds, was nightly
sending forth its monotonous sounds. But he did not come to them.
His object was the soldiery and settlement, to whom he could utter
truths in the English tongue. He was assigned quarters in the
cantonment, where an entire battalion of infantry-was then
stationed. To all these, but one single family, it may be said that
his preaching was received as "sounding brass, or a tinkling
cymbal." Certainly, there were the elements of almost everything
else there but religion. And, while occupying a room in the fort,
his fervent and holy spirit was often tried
"By most
unseemly mirth and wassail rife."
He came to see me, at my office and at my lodgings, frequently
during the season, and never came when he did not appear to me to be
one of the purest and most devoted, yet gentle and most
unostentatious, of human beings. It is hoped his labors were not
without some witness to the truths which he so faithfully taught.
But, as soon as the straits were relieved from the icy fetters of
winter, he went away, never, perhaps, to see us more. He now writes
to apprise me of the spread of a rumor respecting my personal
interest in the theme of his labors, which had, without permission
from his lips, reached the ears of some of my friends at Detroit.
Blessed sensitiveness to rumor, how few possess it!
Having said this much, I may add that, in the course of the winter,
my mind was arrested by his mode of exhibiting truth. The doctrine
of the Trinity, which had seemed to me the mere jingle of a triad,
as deduced from him, appeared to be a unity, which derived all its
coherence and vitality from a belief in the Second Person. The word
"Lord" became clothed with a majesty and power which rendered it
inapplicable, in my views, to any human person. The assiduity that I
had devoted, night and day, to my manuscripts, in the search after
scientific truths, and the knowledge arising from study, did not
appear to me to be wrong in itself, but was thought to be pursued
with an intensity that withdrew my mind from, or, rather, had never
allowed it properly to contemplate and appreciate the character of
God.
23d. A literary friend writes: "I am rejoiced to learn that
you have made such progress in your new work. I hope and trust that
the celerity with which you have written has not withdrawn your
attention from those subjects connected with literary success, which
are more important than even time itself."
"My prospects of seeing you at the Sault, this season," writes the
same hand, "grows weaker and weaker every day. I cannot ascertain in
what situation Col. Benton's bill is, for the purchase of the copper
country upon Lake Superior, nor the prospects of its eventual
passage. Our last Washington dates are of the 8th instant, and at
that time there was a vast mass of business pending before both
Houses, and the period of adjournment was uncertain. Mr. Lowrie and
Governor Edwards have furnished abundant matter for congressional
excitement. It really appears to me that, as soon as two or three
hundred men are associated together to talk at, and about one
another, and everything else, their passions and feelings usurp the
place of their reason. Like children, they are excited by every
question having a local or personal aspect. Their powers of
dispassionate deliberation are lost, and everything is forgotten but
the momentary excitement."
25th. Commercial View of Copper Mine Question.--M.M. Dox,
Esq., Collector at Buffalo, writes:--
I have long had it in contemplation to write to you, not only on the
score of old friendship, but also to learn the feasibility of a
scheme relating to the copper mines of Lake Superior. This subject
has so often annoyed my meditations, or rather taken up so
considerable a proportion of them, that I have been disposed, with
the poet, to exclaim--
'Visions of
(copper1) spare my aching sight.'
"I have just met Mr. Griswold, from whom I learn that you made some
inquiries in reference to the price of transportation, &c. I will
answer them for him. Copper in pig, or unmanufactured, is free of
duty, on entry into the United States; its price in the New York
market is, at this time (very low), sixteen cents per pound. Copper
in sheets for sheeting of vessels (also free), about twenty-five
cents per pound, and brazier's copper (paying a duty of fifteen per
cent, on its cost in England), equal to about two and a half cents
per pound. Until this year, and a few previous, the article has
uniformly been from thirty to forty per cent, higher than the prices
now quoted, that is, in time of peace. In time of war (in Europe)
the price is enhanced ten or twenty per cent. above peace prices:
and in this country, during the Late War, the price was, at one
time, as high as $1.50 to $2.00 per pound.
"The history of England and this country does not furnish a period
when copper was as low as at the present time, according to its
relative value with the medium of exchange. Time and invention have
developed richer mines and produced greater facilities for obtaining
it; but the world does not probably know a region from whence the
article can be furnished so cheaply as from the shores of Lake
Superior. All accounts concur in representing the metal in that
quarter of a superior quality, and furnish strong indications that
it may be obtained, in quantities, with more than ordinary facility.
When obtained, if on the navigable waters of the lake, the
transportation to the strait will be easy and cheap, and the
smelting not cost to exceed $20 per ton (for copper), and the
transportation thence to New York one or one and a half cent per
pound; one cent per pound, in addition, will carry it to any market
in the world.
"If the difficulties to be incurred in obtaining the ore should
prove to be no greater than may be reasonably anticipated, it is
evident that it must be a very profitable business. Will the
government then have the mines worked? I answer for them, No.
The experience had by Congress in regard to the Indian trade (the
Factory System) will, for many years at least, prevent that body
from making any appropriation for such a purpose. The most safe and
judicious course for the government is to draw private enterprise
into the business; and, by holding out proper inducements, it will
be enabled, without a dollar of extra expense, to derive, before
many years, a handsome revenue from this source."
* * * * *
30th. Trip to Tacquimenon Falls, Lake Superior.--Accounts
from the Indians represented the falls of the Tacquimenon River of
Lake Superior as presenting picturesque features which were
eminently worthy of a visit. Confined to the house during the
winter, I thought an excursion proper. I determined to take the
earliest opportunity, when the ice had left the lake, and before the
turmoil of the summer's business began, to execute this wish. For
this purpose, I took a canoe, with a crew of Chippewa Indians, with
whom I was well acquainted, and who were familiar with the scene. I
provisioned myself well, and took along my office interpreter. I
found this arrangement was one which was agreeable to them, and it
put them perfectly at their ease. They traveled along in the Indian
manner, talking and laughing as they pleased with each other, and
with the interpreter. Nothing could have been better suited to
obtain an insight into their manners and opinions. One of their most
common topics of talk was the flight of birds, particularly the
carnivorous species, to which they addressed talks as they flew.
This subject, I perceived, connected itself with the notions of war
and the enemy's country.
On one occasion after we had entered Lake Superior, and were
leisurely paddling, not remote from the shore, one of the Indians
fired at, and wounded a duck. The bird could not rise so as to fly,
but swam ashore, and, by the time we reached land, was completely
missing. A white man would have been nonplused. Not so the Indian.
He saw a fallen tree, and carefully looked for an orifice in the
under side, and, when he found one, thrust in his hand and drew out
of it the poor wounded bird. Frightened and in pain, it appeared to
roll its eyeballs completely round.
By their conversation and familiar remarks, I observed that they
were habitually under the influence of their peculiar mythology and
religion. They referred to classes of monetos, which are
spirits, in a manner which disclosed the belief that the woods and
waters were replete with their agency. On the second day, we reached
and entered the Tacquimenon River. It carried a deep and strong
current to the foot of the first falls, which they call Fairy Rocks.
This Indian word denotes a species of little men or fairies, which,
they say, love to dwell on rocks. The falls are broken into
innumerable cascades, which give them a peculiarly sylvan air. From
the brink of these falls to the upper falls, a distance of about six
miles, the channel of the river is a perfect torrent, and would seem
to defy navigation. But before I was well aware of it, they had the
canoe in it, with a single man with a long pole in the bow and
stern. I took my seat between the centre bars, and was in admiration
at the perfect composure and sangfroid with which these two
men managed it--now shooting across the stream to find better water,
and always putting in their poles exactly at the right instant, and
singing some Indian cantata all the while. The upper falls at length
burst on our view, on rounding a point. The river has a complete
drop, of some forty feet, over a formation of sandstone. The water
forms a complete curtain. There is nothing to break the sheet, or
intercept it, till it reaches the deep water below. They said there
was some danger of the canoe's being drawn under the sheet, by a
kind of suction. This' stream in fact, geologically considered,
crosses through, and falls over, the high ridge of sandstone rock
which stretches from Point Iroquois to the Pictured Rocks. I took
sketches of both the upper and lower falls.
Being connected by marriage with an educated and intelligent lady,
who is descended, by her mother's side, from the former ruler of the
Chippewa nation--a man of renown--I was received, on this trip, with
a degree of confidence and cordiality by the Indians, which I had
not expected. I threw myself, naked handed, into their midst, and
was received with a noble spirit of hospitality and welcome. And the
incidents of this trip revealed to me some of the most interesting
scenes of Indian domestic life.
1: "Glory."--Gray.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language
of a particular period or place. These items are presented as part of the
historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in
any way endorse the stereotypes implied.
Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the
Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers, 1851
Thirty
Years with the Indians
|
