Part 6

Schoolcraft, who has been more explicit than other writers respecting the picture-writings of the North American Indians, speaks of two distinct pictographic systems among the Algonkin tribes, called by them respectively _Kekeewin_ and _Kekeenowin_. The first appeared to be their method of recording facts of every-day occurrence, and embraced the heraldic devices used upon the grave posts--the communications written upon birch bark, and the caution marks, itinerary, hunting, and war records inscribed upon the trunks of blazed trees by travelling bands, to communicate intelligence to their comrades in the forest. These writings, the signs of which were carefully taught to the young, like the language of signs common at present to a majority of the Western tribes, could be understood by any Indian. Loskiel, the Moravian missionary, who makes frequent mention of picture records, states that "it gave the Indians great pleasure if one halted on coming to such a tree, and listened to their description of the great chief and his exploits thereon inscribed."

The Kekeenowin, on the other hand,--the pictographic system of the prophets, jugglers, and medicine-men,--was far less generally understood by the Indians themselves. It was the method used in the historical records, sung before the tribe at religious feasts and dances, and was likewise invariably employed in the incantations of the priests, prophets, and medicine-men, of which Schoolcraft gives seven kinds relating to medicine, necromancy, revelry, hunting, prophecy, war, and love.

The chief characteristic of the Kekeenowin is the fact that in it each symbol recalled to the mind of the reader learned in the art a song, previously committed to memory by him in connection with the symbol, and the general idea of which was more or less arbitrarily connected with it. "The words of the song," says James, in his appendix to Tanner's narrative, "were not variable, but must be learned by heart, otherwise though from an inspection of the figure the idea might be comprehended, no one would know what to sing." The main object, however, was the preservation of the songs, which the priests, on consulting their birch-bark scrolls or painted wooden tablets, were thus enabled to sing at the great feasts, giving the many verses in their proper order. The connection between the symbol and the idea expressed by the song was often beyond the power of divination to the uninitiated, and the key to these sacred incantations, a knowledge of the songs, once lost, could never be recovered, as it was doubtless far from the intention of the priests that the uninitiated Indian should divine their mysteries from an inspection of the symbols. It was only upon the payment of many beaver skins, says Tanner in his narrative, that he was permitted to learn the mystic signification of the twenty-seven symbols of the Chippeway song for medicine hunting, which it took him more than a year to learn.

The historical records, however, were sometimes, it appears, written in Kekeewin and sometimes in Kekeenowin; some were related in songs, others were not. Those inscribed upon painted wooden tablets, or the bark scrolls, and pieces of slate alluded to by George Copway, were doubtless generally sung at stated occasions before the tribe, while the Muzzinabicks or rock-writings upon the face of cliffs and boulders, as at "Bald Friars" and "Miles Island" on the Susquehanna or West River, and Bellows Falls, Vermont, at the Cunningham Islands, Lake Erie, or upon the famous Dighton Rock at Fall River, Mass., although including many of the characters seen in the song records were probably not expressed in songs.

TRADITION OF THE GREAT BUFFALO.

Another version of the big-buffalo tradition is found in Rembrandt Peale's pamphlet on the mammoth, published in Philadelphia in 1803. Notwithstanding the highly colored style of the translation the ideas expressed seem to be those of the Indian. It reads as follows: "Ten thousand moons ago, when naught but gloomy forests covered this land of the sleeping sun, and long before the pale men, with thunder and fire at their command, rushed on the wings of the wind to ruin this garden of nature, when naught but the untamed wanderers of the woods, and men as unrestrained as they, were lords of the soil, a race of animals existed, huge as the frowning precipice, cruel as the bloody panther, swift as the descending eagle, and terrible as the angel of night. The pines crashed beneath their feet, and the lake shrunk when they slaked their thirst; the forceful javelin in vain was hurled, and the barbed arrow fell harmless by their side. Forests were laid waste at a meal, the groans of expiring animals were everywhere heard, and whole villages, inhabited by men, were destroyed in a moment. The cry of universal distress extended even to the region of peace in the west, and the Good Spirit interposed to save the unhappy. The forked lightning gleamed aloud, and loudest thunder rocked the globe. The bolts of heaven were hurled upon the cruel destroyers alone, and the mountains echoed with the bellowings of death. All were killed except one male, the fiercest of the race, and him even the artillery of the skies assailed in vain. He ascended the bluest summit which shades the source of the Monongahela, and roaring, aloud, bid defiance to every vengeance. The red lightning scorched the lofty firs, and rived the knotty oaks, but only glanced upon the enraged monster. At length, maddened with fury, he leaped over the waves of the west at a bound, and at this moment reigns the uncontrolled monarch of the wilderness, even in despite of omnipotence itself."

THE CHEROKEES AND CHOCTAWS DESCENDANTS OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS.

If the account of Cusic and the Lenape traditions concur in solving the mystery of the mound-builders, and proving their identity with the Allegewi of the Lenape tradition, the evidence is strengthened by the concurrent testimony of language, which, as Mr. Hale and others have shown, renders it probable that the conquered race, fleeing down the Mississippi, were received and adopted by the Choctaws and Cherokees, who thus became in part their descendants. Both the language of the Cherokees lying to the southeast of the mound-builders' dominions, and who claim to have built the Grave Creek mound, and that of the Choctaws lying to the southwest, have in their vocabularies been largely recruited from a similar foreign linguistic element. One remnant of the Allegewi mingling with their conquerors, the Talamatan or Hurons, became in part the ancestors of the Cherokees. Living to the southeast of the mound-builders' dominions, the Cherokees had their council lodge on the summit of a vast mound, the construction of which they ascribed to a people who had preceded them. In grammar their language resembled the Huron-Iroquois, while in vocabulary it has been largely recruited from some foreign source.

The other remnant of the vanquished Allegewi, fleeing down the Mississippi "to the southward," would have been received and protected by the warlike Choctaws, themselves a mound-building people in comparatively recent times, and the peculiar foreign element in whose language, which differs considerably from that of the sister Creek and Chicasaw nations, would thus be explained.

CARVED "GORGET" FOUND ON THE HANSELL FARM, JANUARY 8, 1885.

While the foregoing pages were in course of publication, the carved "gorget" (fig. 23) was found on the Hansell farm, on Thursday, January 8, 1885.

The circumstances of the discovery were as follows: Late in the autumn of last year--1884--the writer had caused an excavation to be made at a spot in one of the fields on the Hansell property, where the carved stone (fig. 19) had been found. At this place the soil of the field, a yellowish clay, was very noticeably discolored as if by the fires and decayed refuse of aboriginal dwellings; the discolored spot was of a dark brown color, and covered an area of about twenty square yards.

The excavation measured about 25 feet in length by 4-1/2 feet in width, and about 3 feet in depth. The dark brown stratum had a depth of 1-1/2 to 2 feet, and beneath it appeared the yellow clay of the surrounding field. The place was at a distance of about a quarter of a mile from the spot where the Lenape Stone had been found. In digging the trench many small stones were thrown up, but no human remains or implements were discovered. The earth was not thrown through a sieve. As the excavation was to have been continued in the spring, the trench and pile of earth were left undisturbed.

Bernard Hansell, the discoverer of the Lenape Stone, states that he found the carved gorget (fig. 23) in this heap of earth on Thursday the 8th of last month; his brother had previously found there several flint chips, and Hansell had gone to the spot, on the day in question, expressly to look for "Indian relics."

The day was warm and the trench full of water. The field was very muddy. Hansell found the stone, the perforation in which had attracted his attention, protruding a little from the mud on the outside of the heap, and in the yellow earth last thrown out. Without displacing it, he returned to the house, and brought his brother, William Hansell, to the spot, that the latter might witness his discovery. Then removing the stone from the mud, he washed it in the water of the trench, not rubbing it, but holding it in the water for about five minutes. The mud clinging to it, having melted and frozen several times within a few days, was very soft and dissolved easily. On the same day Hansell informed the writer of his discovery in a letter.

The stone is a soft, red shale, similar in appearance to the Lenape Stone. Unlike the specimens (figs. 19 and 20) found on the surface of the ground, its surface presents a very polished and rubbed appearance, as if it had been subjected to long wear after the carvings had been made. The lines, the edges of which are much worn and rubbed, do not seem sharply and deeply cut, as those of fig. 20 or the Lenape Stone, and the bottoms of the grooves, to which the soil still clings, appear rounded, as if cut with a dull point--as in the case of the shallow incisions upon fig. 19.

The discovery of this stone in the clayey soil, beneath the black stratum above mentioned, and where it had lain for an indefinite period beyond the reach of the ploughshare, would account for its polished appearance and the absence of weathering upon its surface--the conditions of its discovery generally corresponding with those in the case of highly polished implements found in the mounds.

The design consists of: (_a_) three waving lines representative of water; (_b_) three points between the perforations, referring probably to wigwams--possibly an allusion to the triple clanship of the Lenapes and their settlement by the _Lenape whittuck_ or Delaware River; (_c_) a bow; (_d_) an arrow; and (_e_) a quiver.

The design on the reverse side, of which we here give a rough outline (fig. 24) consists mainly of a series of circular waving lines, representative probably of water; numerical dots and "tallies"; and three triangular outlines, common Indian symbols for the human figure, and again suggestive perhaps of the Wolf, Turtle, and Turkey brotherhood of the Lenapes.

FOOTNOTES: ----------

[A] See Hansell's sworn statement in the appendix.

[B] Nothing seems to contribute so much to the problem of their use as the absence, in most cases, of any sign of friction around the holes. Similar stones have been recently seen in use by the Pah-Utes of Southern Nevada, "for giving uniform size to their bow-strings," yet the clean edges of the perforations make it impossible to believe that these stones could have been used for such a purpose, while the difficulty of supposing they could have been used as buttons, or that they could have been suspended at all is almost as great, unless we adopt the very ingenious theory of Dr. F. W. Putnam, _i. e._, that the raw deer thong used for suspending them, and forced tightly through the holes, becoming hard when dry, remained motionless in its place, and rendered friction impossible.

[C] See an interesting little book, from which we here quote, entitled "Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man." By J. P. McLean. Cincinnati, 1880.

[D] A term, says Filson (Imlays' Topographical Description of the Western Territory, 2d Ed., p. 276) formerly applied by the Indians "to the fertile region now called Kentucky."

[E] A word meaning "hog" in modern Iroquois.

[F] "Notes of a Military Reconnaissance from Fort Leavenworth to San Diego, Cal.," Col. W. H. Emory, Washington, 1848, p. 90.

[G] See article on Indian picture-writing, appendix, p. 87

[H] Heckewelder states that he had himself seen "many of these fortifications,"--of course the works of the mound-builders. He mentions in particular two "entrenchments" along the Huron River, and several large flat mounds near them, in which were buried, as he learned from the Indians, hundreds of the Alligewi, slain in the bloody wars which the narrative proceeds to mention.

[I] This view coincides with the opinion of the Indians who have seen the carving since the above was written.

[J] The point projecting behind the handle in the figure reminds us forcibly of the shape of the modern iron tomahawk; yet that stone axes of this shape were anciently in use among the Indians was proved by the discovery of the "Thorndale Axe" with a similar projection, and found in the original wooden handle, now at the Museum of Natural History in New York.

[K] The word Namaesi Sipu (Fish River) given by Heckewelder, but published _Messussipu_ (Great River) in Mr. Squier's version of the _Wallum Olum_, appears _Namasipi_ in the Rafinesque version of 1836, and in the original manuscript now in Dr. Brinton's possession it seems that the latter word has been written over the word _Messussipu_ by the author, who probably had been comparing the account with Heckewelder.

[L] See article on "Indian Migrations" by Horatio Hale, _American Antiquarian_, Jan.-April, 1883.

[M] On the other hand, how shall we account for the occurrence of the word _Messusipu_ in the Wallum Olum, or, more exactly, in the Rafinesque copy of it--the only version we possess?

_Messusipu_ is derived, says Squier, from the Algonkin words _Messu_, _Messi_, or _Michi_ (great), and _Sipu_ (river).

The name _Mississippi_ is of Algonkin origin, and has the same etymology,--it means "great river." Among the Algonkin tribes living to the north and along the eastern shore of the Mississippi, the Sauks called it _Mecha-sapo_, the Menomonees _Mecha-sepua_, the Kicapoos _Meche-sepe_, the Chippeways _Meze-zebe_, and the Ottawas _Missis-sepi_; _Mecha_, _Meche_, _Meze_, _Missis_, meaning "great," and _sapo_, _sepua_, _sepe_, _zebe_, and _sepi_, "river." (Wisconsin Hist. Col., ix., 301.)

The Lenape word _Messusipu_ must therefore refer to the Mississippi. Yet we may suppose that Rafinesque had written the word by mistake in his copy of the Wallum Olum, a supposition which gains strength from the fact that _Messusipu_ plainly appears in his manuscript to have been changed to _Namasipi_. Had he been comparing his copy with the original "painted sticks" or some other Indian authority not mentioned? or did he merely borrow the word _Namasipi_ from Heckewelder? Again we may suppose the word _Messusipu_ to have been an indefinite term applied by the Lenape to more than one of the great streams crossed by them in their migrations.

[N] See Appendix.