Part 68 (1/2)

Seventeen years have pa.s.sed since I first began them--not that anything like this time, or the half of it, has been devoted to it. It was one of my amus.e.m.e.nts in the long winter evenings--the only time of the year when Indians will tell stories and legends. They required pruning and dressing, like wild vines in a garden. But they are, exclusively (with the exception of the allegory of the vine and oak), wild vines, and not pumpings up of my own fancy. The attempts to lop off excrescences are not, perhaps, always happy. There might, perhaps, have been a fuller adherence to the original language and expressions; but if so, what a world of verbiage must have been retained. The Indians are prolix, and attach value to many minutiae in the relation which not only does not help forward the denouement, but is tedious and witless to the last degree. The gems of the legends--the essential points--the invention and thought-work are all preserved.

Their chief value I have ever thought to consist in the insight they give into the dark cave of the Indian mind--its beliefs, dogmas, and opinions--its secret modes of turning over thought--its real philosophy; and it is for this trait that I believe posterity will sustain the book.

A literary friend, of good judgment, of Detroit, writes (19th): ”Your tales have reached me, and I have read them over with a deep interest, arising from a double source--the intrinsic value of such stories and the insight they give of Indian intellect and modes of thought. They form a truly important acquisition to our literary treasures, as they throw a light oft the Indian character which has been imparted from no other quarter. They form a standard by which to determine what is true and what is false in the representations made heretofore of the aboriginal nations on most prominent subjects. No one will doubt that you render the genuine Indian mind and heart. Those who conform to these renderings will pa.s.s muster; the rest will be rejected. Let Mr.

Cooper and others be thus measured.”

_24th_. Muk-kud-da Ka-niew (or the Black War Eagle), chief of the coasts of Arenac, brought me an antique pipe of peculiar construction, disinterred at Thunder Bay. It was found about six feet underground; and was disclosed by the blowing down of a large pine, which tore up a quant.i.ty of earth by its roots. The tree was two fathoms round, and would make a large canoe. With the pipe were found two earthen vases, which broke on taking them up. In these vases were some small bones of the pickerel's spine. He saw also the leg bones of an Indian, but the upper part of the skeleton appeared to be decomposed, and was not visible. He thinks the tree must have grown up on an old grave. The pipe consisted of a squared and ornamented bowl, with a curved and tapering handle, all made solid from a sort of coa.r.s.e _terra cotta_. He says it was used by taking the small end in the mouth, and thinks such was the practice of the ancient Indians, although the mode is now so different by their descendants. The chief ornament consists of eight dots on each face, separated by longitudinal strokes, leaving four in a compartment.

If the tree was four feet diameter, as he states, it denotes an ancient occupation of the sh.o.r.es of Lake Huron, which was probably of the old era of the mining for copper in Lake Superior.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

American antiquities--Michilimackinack a summer resort--Death of Ogimau Keegido--Brothertons--An Indian election--Cherokee murders--Board of Regents of the Michigan University--Archaeological facts and rumors--Woman of the Green Valley--A new variety of fish--Visits of the Austrian and Sardinian Ministers to the U.S.--Mr. Gallup--Sioux murders--A remarkable display of aurora borealis--Ottawas of Maumee--Extent of auroral phenomena--Potawattomie cruelty--Mineralogy--Death of Ondiaka--Chippewa tradition--Fruit trees--Stone's preparation of the Life and Times of Sir William Johnson--Dialectic difference between the language of the Ottawas and the Chippewas--Philological remarks on the Indian languages--Mr.

T. Hulbert.

1839. _June 25th_. ALEX V.V. BRADFORD, Esq., of New York, being about to publish a work on American antiquities,[93] solicits permission to use some of my engravings. I am glad to see an increasing interest in our archaeology, and hope to live to see the day when the popular tastes will permit books to be published on the subject.

[Footnote 93: This work was published, I think, in 1841.]

_26th_. Mrs. Morris brings a letter from Hon. A.E. Wing, of Monroe. She contemplates spending the summer on the island on account of impaired health. The pure air and fine summer climate of Mackinack begin to be appreciated within a year or two by valetudinarians. It is a perfect Montpelier to them. The inhaling of its pure and dry atmosphere in midsummer is found to act very favorably on the digestive organs. No process of _health-making gymnastics_ is prescribed by physicians. They merely direct persons to walk about and enjoy the sights and scenes about them, to saunter along its winding paths, or go fis.h.i.+ng or gunning. Its woods are delightful, and its cliffs command the sublimest views. One would think that if the muses are ever routed from the bare hills of Olympus and the springs of Helicon, they would take shelter in the glens of Michilimackinack, where the Indian _pukwees_, or _fairies_, danced of old. I received intelligence of the death of Ogimau Keegido (Speaker Chief), the head sachem of the Saginaws. He had indulged some time in drinking, and, after getting out of this debauch, was confined by sickness three days. Death came to his relief. Some years ago this man met with an accident by the discharge of a gun, by which his liver protruded; he took his knife and cut off a small piece, which he ate as a panacea. He was a man of strong pa.s.sions and ungoverned will. He visited Was.h.i.+ngton in 1836, and, with other chiefs, sold the Saginaw reservations.

The party of Saginaws who brought me the above information had among them twenty-two orphan children, whose parents had died of small-pox.

They were on their way to the Manitoulines.

_28th_. Mud-je-ke-wis, a minor chief of Grand Traverse Bay, surrenders a belt of blue and white wampum, and a gilt gorget, which he had received from some officer of the British Indian Department in Canada, saying he renounces allegiance to that government, and reports himself, from this day, as an American.

_29th_. Chingossamo (Big Sail), of Cheboigan, having migrated to the Manitouline Islands with thirteen families, about seventy-nine souls, an election was this day held, at this office, by the Indians, to supply the place of ruling chief. Sticks, of two colors, were prepared as ballots for the two candidates. Of these, Keeshowa received two-thirds, and was declared duly elected. I granted a certificate of this election.

The present population is reduced to forty-four souls, who live in thirteen families. This band are Chippewas.

Gen. Scott arrives at this post, on a general tour of inspection of the northern posts, and proceeds the same day to Sault St. Marie, accompanied by Maj. Whiting.

_July 2d_. The _Wisconsin Democrat_, of this date, contains an interesting sketch of the history of the Brotherton Indians, which is represented to be ”composed of the descendants of the six following named tribes of Indians, viz., the Naragansetts, of Rhode Island; the Stoningtons, or Pequoits, of Groton, Connecticut; the Montauks, of Long Island; the Mohegans, Nianticks, and Farmington Indians, also of Connecticut. Several years before the American Revolution, a single Indian of the Montauk tribe left his nation and traveled into the State of New York. He had no fixed purpose in view more than (as he expressed it) to see the world. During his absence, however, he fortunately paid a visit to the Oneidas, then a very large and powerful tribe of Indians residing in the State of New York. With them he concluded to rest a short time. They, discovering that he possessed 'some of the white man's learning,' employed him to teach a common reading and writing school among them. He remained with them longer than he at first intended.

During this time the Oneida chief made many inquiries respecting his (the Montauk) tribe, and the other tribes before mentioned, and received, for answer, 'that they had almost become extinct--that their game was fast disappearing--that their landed possessions were very small--that the pure blood of their ancestors had become mixed with both the blood of the white man and the African---that new and fatal diseases had appeared among them--that the curse of all curses, the white man's stream of liquid fire, was inundating their very existence, and the gloomy prospect of inevitable annihilation seemed to stare them in the face--that no 'hope with a goodly prospect fed the eye.' The Oneida chief, actuated partly with a desire to extend the hand of brotherly affection to rescue the above tribes from the melancholy fate that seemed to await them, and partly with a desire to manifest his deep sense of the valuable services rendered to him and his nation in his having taught among them a school, gave to the schoolteacher a tract of land twelve miles square for the use and benefit of his tribe, and the other tribes mentioned.”

The treaty of the 14th of January, 1837, with the Saginaws, is confirmed by the Senate.

_3d_. The _Arkansas Little Rock Gazette_, of this date, states that the long existing feud in the Cherokee nation, which has divided its old and new settlers, has terminated in a series of frightful murders. Its language is this:--

”We briefly alluded in our last to a report from the west that John Ridge, one of the princ.i.p.al chiefs of the Cherokee nation, had been a.s.sa.s.sinated. More recent accounts confirm the fact, and bring news of the murder of Ridge's father, together with Elias Boudinot and some ten or twelve men of less distinction (some accounts say thirty or forty), all belonging to Ridge's party.

”These murders are acknowledged to have been committed by the partisans of John Boss, between whom and Ridge a difference has for a long time subsisted, growing out of the removal of the Cherokees from the old nation to the west, Ridge having uniformly been favorable to that course and Ross opposing it.”

A council was recently held to consult in relation to the laws to be adopted by the united nation in their present country, there being some essential differences between the code by which that portion of the nation recently emigrated from the east had been governed, and the laws adopted by the old settlers in the west. Each party contended for the adoption of its own code, and neither would concede to the other, and the council finally broke up without being able to come to any understanding on the subject. On his way from this council, Ridge was murdered. Ridge, although a recent emigrant, we understand agreed with the old settlers in regard to the adoption of their laws, while Ross contended for those of the old nation east.

After the murder of Ridge, General Arbuckle, the commander of the United States forces on this frontier, sent a detachment of dragoons to Ross, with a request that he would come to the garrison, who declined unless he could be allowed to bring with him some six or seven hundred of his armed partisans, and take them into the garrison with him. This, of course, could not be allowed, and so the detachment returned to the garrison, and after that the murders subsequent to that of Ridge were committed. One of them was perpetrated within the bounds of Was.h.i.+ngton County, in this State, and we hope the necessary steps will be taken by our authorities to secure and bring to trial the murderer, and thus preserve inviolate the jurisdiction of our State over her own soil. ”We learn that a council was called of the whole nation, to be held yesterday, with a view of settling the existing difficulties, and we hope it may result in establis.h.i.+ng peace among them.”

_3d_. I received a letter introducing Mr. and Mrs. Kane, of Albany. We love an agreeable surprise. I recognized in Mrs. K. the daughter of an old friend--a most lady-like, agreeable, and talented woman; and deemed my time agreeably devoted in showing my visitors the curiosities of the island.

_6th_. The business of my superintendency calls me to Detroit. Fiscal questions, the employment of special agents, the collection of treasury drafts, the payment of annuities; these are some of the constant cares, full of responsibilities, which call for incessant vigilance. I reached the city in the steamer ”Gen. Wayne,” at 8 o'clock, in the morning.