north of Mexico. This power and this worship were kept up with an oriental display of honor and ceremony long after the French had settled in the valley of the Mississippi, and indeed up to the destruction of the nation by them in 1729. 'The Sun has eaten,' proclaimed an official functionary daily, before the Ruling Sun, after his morning's repast; the rest of the princes of the earth may now eat.'

From this interesting extract we may gather, that the Algic race were much more advanced in the forms of government and association of tribes than the more northern nations, and especially than the 'Tinnè, who had no villages when first known to Europeans. Cultivation of the earth was not carried on to the north of the Chippeway country, since maize does not prosper in America beyond the 52d parallel.

M'Kenney relates that a Chippeway widow must carry a bundle of rags, or a doll, which is called her husband, constantly in her arms, until the relations of the deceased think that she has mourned long enough, when one of them releases her from it. This occurs generally at the expiration of a year, and the widow is then allowed to marry again; but the probation may be extended much longer, if her husband's relations choose.

The use of the Uspogan, or Calumet, which forms so important a part of every ceremony among the Eythinyuwuk, was not an original practice of the 'Tinnè, but was introduced to that people by Europeans along with tobacco, whereas this weed must have been grown from the most ancient times by the Chippeways, if the traditions which Mr. Schoolcraft collected during his long residence with that people are to be trusted. Maize is more used on the Missouri than in the proper Chippeway country, its cultivation forming a part of the regular economy of the Dakota tribes; the Chippeways, however, do not admit that they received it from that quarter; but, in a legend related by Mr. Schoolcraft, ascribe its origin to one of their own chiefs, who received it as the prize of a victory he obtained over a spirit. Hence its name of Mondamin, or the Spirit's Grain. The Delawares had extensive fields of maize at the time of the discovery of America, and to them the early Virginian colonists were indebted on their first landing for food, which being afterward withheld, produced extreme misery and famine.

From some of the details of Mr. Schoolcraft's account of the

rites of Kagagish'koda, we may infer that the national polity and social condition of the Chippeways have greatly deteriorated since their acquaintance with Europeans. The contact with civilized man has induced among them an incontrollable desire for intoxication, unaccompanied by any real benefit. For though missionaries have made a number of nominal converts, the blessings of vital Christianity are confined, as far as I could ascertain, to only a few Chippeway communities on Lake Huron, and to some of the Crees in the Hudson's Bay Company's territory. The wellfed Sauteurs of the River Winipeg, who are independent of the traders, repel the missionaries; and the same is the case with the bison-hunters on the prairies.

Throughout the whole eastern wooded and barren country, down to the 42d parallel of latitude, the reindeer was, three centuries ago, the most abundant of the deer kind, and, being the most easily approached, furnished the staple provision for the Eskimos, "Tinnè, and Eythinyuwuk. On the wide prairies of the Missouri and Saskatchewan, the populous Sioux, Stone-Indians, or Assini-poytŭk, and other Dakota tribes, fed on the countless herds of bison which pasture there. Next to the reindeer in importance in the eastern districts, is the species of Coregonus, named “white-fish," to which the Chippeways and Nithè-wuk have given the figurative appellation of "reindeer of the waters," Adikumaig or Atih-hameg.* On referring to Strachey's account of Virginia, I do not find this word, nor the name of the reindeer, in his vocabulary of the Delaware tongue; the white-fish indeed not being an inhabitant of the southern waters. The Chippeways have a legend, which relates that the white-fish sprung first into existence at the outlet of Lake Superior, being produced from the scattered brains of a woman, whose head, for some very guilty conduct, was doomed to wander through the country, but, coming in its travels to the Falls of St. Mary, was there dashed in pieces. A crane, by virtue of that inherent power so frequently attributed to birds and beasts by the aboriginies of America, instantly transformed the particles of brain into the roe of a whitefish, to the wide-spread benefit of the Indian nations.†

Though the earth-works already alluded to are supposed to

* Adikumaig, from adik, a "reindeer," and guma, a generic word for "water" in composition, and the animate plural ig, (Schoolcraft). Athik or atik, a reindeer," in Cree.

† Schoolcraft.

POTTERY.-LANGUAGE.

273

have been raised by a people more ancient than the Eythinyuwuk, yet the fact of their northern limits being within the Chippeway lands is worthy of note; and vestiges of pottery works, apparenty of a rude kind, have been found on the south branch of the Saskatchewan within the Nithè-wuk bounds, but not further north, the substitute for earthenware among the Eskimos being vessels of potstone, and among the Tinnè water-tight baskets, in which the fluid was warmed by hot stones dropped into it.

*

I have already alluded to the softness and harmony of the Cree language. It differs in construction from the Eskimo tongue, in the personal pronouns being prefixes, not suffixes, and in other particulars; but both have the polysynthetic character of the other American idioms. The sounds of the English ƒ and v do not occur in the Cree; l and r are also wanting in the pure Cree of the plains. Other Algic tribes substitute y, n, or l, for the Cree th, and instead of k, the inhabitants of East Maine use the sound of tch. The Chippeway is distinguished from the Cree by the frequent omission of s before k and t, and the insertion of m before b, and of n before d and g. The permutations of the Cree and its cognate dialects chiefly affect the linguals; but the Mohawk and Huron languages have none of the labials, neither b, P, f, v, nor m. When conversing, the teeth of these people are always visible; the auxiliary office usually performed by the lips being by them transferred, or superadded, to that of the tongue and throat. Of the grammar of the 'Tinnè I know little, but the nouns seem to be much more frequently monosyllabic than in the Algonkin dialects. The Appendix contains some portions of a Cree vocabulary, which I formed in 1819-20.

It is from among the Eythinyuwuk that most of the servants of the Fur Companies, who have married native women, have selected their wives; few of them having chosen Chepewyan. females, and no one, I believe, an Eskimo maiden. From these marriages a large half-breed population has arisen, which will ere long work a change in the fur trade, and in the condition of the whole native population. In character, the half-breeds vary ac

*On the east side of the Rocky Mountains. The Eskimos on the western coast of Russian America manufactured a very rude pottery when first visited by the Russians.

† Mr. Howse, from whose Grammar much of this paragraph has been borrowed.

M*

cording to their paternity; the descendants of the Orkney laborers, in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, being generally steady, provident agriculturists of the Protestant faith; while the children of the Roman Catholic Canadian voyagers have much of the levity and thoughtlessness of their fathers, combined with that inability to resist temptation, which is common to the two races from whence they are sprung. Most of the half-breeds have been settled by the Hudson's Bay Company in the colony of Osnaboya, which extends for fifty miles along the banks of the Red River of Lake Winipeg. Of the six thousand souls, to which the mixed population of this settlement is said to amount, three-fifths are stated by Mr. Simpson to be Roman Catholics; while the valuable property is mostly in the hands of the remaining twofifths, who own sixteen out of eighteen wind and water mills, erected within the precincts of the colony.

The settlement is under the government (it can scarcely be said the control) of a governor, council, and recorder, all nominated by the Hudson's Bay Company. The recorder is the civil and criminal judge, presides at jury trials, and is aided by justices of the peace, and a constabulary in the Company's pay.

In 1849 a bishop was sent from England to oversee the Episcopal church. There are also some ministers of the Wesleyan persuasion; and the Roman Catholic worship is maintained by two bishops, a staff of priests, and a nunnery. The Hudson's Bay Company aid the clergymen of all the persuasions by free passages, rations, and other advantages, besides granting salaries to those employed at their fur posts, whether Protestants or Roman Catholics. There are also various educational establishments in the colony for the settlers and native population; and most of the children, both male and female, of the Company's officers are now instructed in a boarding-school in the colony, of a high character, a few of them only being sent to Great Britain or Canada. Many of the young men so educated have entered the Hudson's Bay Company's service as clerks, and some have attained the rank of chief traders and chief factors; while the young women, in their vocations as wives of the officers and clerks, diffuse a knowledge of Christianity, and a taste for domestic comfort and decorum, to the remotest posts. The present state of society in the fur countries contrasts most favorably with the almost general heathenism which prevailed during the murderous contests between the trad

ing companies by which the country was demoralized when I first traversed it thirty years ago.

The half-breeds, as a class, show great quickness in acquiring a knowledge of letters, as well as skill in the mechanical arts. As joiners, workers in iron, and boat-builders, many of them would rank high among European craftsmen; and, taught by necessity, they have generally the advantage of being able to work at all the several branches of the carpenter's and blacksmith's arts, even to the forging of their tools.

At the Wesleyan Missionary establishment of Rossville, near Norway House, and round the Episcopal church at the Pas on the Saskatchewan, native villages have sprung up, and agriculture to a small extent is practiced. Though the cerealia and leguminous vegetables thrive well at Red River, and horses, cattle, hogs, poultry, and sheep flourish, agriculture is eschewed by the large section of the population, who are descendants of the Canadian voyagers. The pleasures of the precarious chase are preferred by this part of the community to steady industry, and every summer there is accordingly an extensive movement to the plains to dry bison meat for winter use.

As to the effect of the colony on the neighboring natives, Mr. Simpson, who from his residence in the settlement had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the facts, speaks as follows: Nothing can overcome the insatiable desire of the Indian tribes for intoxicating liquors; and though they are interdicted from the use of spirits, and the settlers are fined when detected in supplying them with ale, yet, from the great extent of the colony, they too often contrive to gratify that debasing inclination, to which they are ready to sacrifice every thing they possess. They feel no gratitude to their benefactors or spiritual teachers; and while they lose the haughty independence of savage life, they acquire at once all the bad qualities of the white man, but are slow indeed in imitating his industry and virtues." It appears from this testimony that the Chippeways have not the friendly feelings toward their instructors which the 'Tinnè, according to Monsieur La Flèche, manifest; but Mr. Simpson speaks more favorably of the Crees, who are in general better disposed than the Chippeways. Goods for the use of the colonists are imported both by the Company and by individual store-keepers in the ships that come annually to York Factory; but the distance is too great, and the