[91] Addressed to the Editors of the New-York Evening Post and
National Intelligencer.
My attention has been called by a literary friend, to your
notice of Mr. Brantz Mayer’s report on the subject of a
national name, or distinctive synonyme for our country. Mr.
Mayer having chosen to reflect upon the antiquarian value of
the historical research involved in the inquiry, I feel called
upon, as a member of the committee of the New-York Historical
Society, before whom this question was discussed, to say a few
words in reply.
“The following quotation from my ‘Glossary of Anglo-Indian
Words,' will best set forth my personal connection with the
subject as a member of the society, and a humble laborer
in the field of aboriginal antiquities, who is ready at all
suitable times, to give authority for the use of whatever
Indian terms he may employ.
”_Alleghan_, an obsolete aboriginal noun proper, applied
adjectively both in French and English, to an ancient and long
extinct people in North America, and likewise to the most
prominent chain of mountains within the regions over which they
are supposed to have borne sway.”
Our authorities respecting the ancient Alleghans, are not confined
to the very late period, _i. e._ 1819,[92] which is alone quoted,
and exclusively relied on by the learned secretary of the Maryland
Historical Society. Nor do they leave us in doubt, that this ancient
people, who occupy the foreground of our remote aboriginal history,
were a valiant, noble and populous race, who were advanced in arts
and the policy of government, and raised fortifications for their
defence. (N. Y. Hist. Col. vol. 2, p. 89, 91.) While they held a
high reputation as hunters, they cultivated maize extensively, which
enabled them to live in large towns; (Davies’ Hist. Car. Isds.) and
erected those antique fortifications which are extended over the entire
Mississippi valley, as high as latitude 43°, and the lake country,
reaching from Lake St. Clair (Am. Phil. Trans.) to the south side of
the Niagara ridge (the old shore of Lake Ontario) and the country of
the Onondagas and Oneidas (Clinton’s Dis. N. Y. Hist. Soc. vol. 2.)
Towards the south, they extended as far as the borders of the Cherokees
and Muscogees.[93] From the traditions of Father Raymond, they were
worshippers of the sun, had an order of priesthood, and exercised a
sovereignty over a very wide area of country. (His. Carib. Isds. Paris,
1658. London ed. of 1666, p. 204, et seq.)
[92] Trans. Hist. and Lit. Com. Am. Phil. Soc. Vol. 1, Philadelphia,
1819.
[93] Seneca tradition, N. Y. Hist. Col. vol. 2.
At what era the Alleghan confederacy, thus shadowed forth, existed
and fell in North America, we do not know. Our Indian nations have
no certain chronology, and we must establish data by contemporaneous
tradition of the Mexican nations, or by internal antiquarian evidence.
The “Old Fort” discovered by Dr. Locke in Highland Co. Ohio in 1838,
denoted a period of 600 years from its abandonment,[94] that is, 284
years before Christopher Columbus first sailed boldly into the Western
ocean. The trees on Grave Creek mound denote the abandonment of the
trenches and stone look-outs in that vicinity to have been in 1338.
(Trans. Am. Ethnological Society, vol. 1, N. Y. 1845.) The ramparts
at Marietta had a tree decayed in the heart, but the concentric outer
circles, which could be counted, were 463. (Clinton’s Dis.) The live
oaks on the low mounds of Florida, where one of the Algonquin tribes,
namely, the Shawnees, aver that they once lived and had been preceded
by a people more advanced in arts (Vide Arch. Am. vol. 1.) denote their
abandonment about 1145. But even these data do not, probably reach back
sufficiently far, to denote the true period.
[94] Cincinnati Gazette.
If we fix upon the twelfth century as the era of the fall of the
Alleghan race, we shall not probably over estimate the event. They
had probably reached the Mississippi valley, a century or two before,
having felt, in their original position, west and south of that stream,
the great revolutionary movements which preceded the overthrow of the
Toltec and the establishment of the Aztec empire in Mexican America.
There are but two words left in our geography, supposed to be of the
ancient Alleghan language. These are Alleghany, and Yioghiogany, the
latter, being the name of a stream which falls into the Monongahela, on
its right bank, about twenty miles above Pittsburgh.
Tradition, not of the highest character, gives us the words Talligeu,
or Talligwee, as the name of this ancient nation, although it is
nearly identical in sounds with the existing and true name of the
Cherokees, which, according to the late Elias Boudinot, (a Cherokee,)
is TSALLAKEE. Col. Gibson, a plain man, an Indian trader and
no philologist, who furnished Mr. Jefferson with Indian vocabularies
of the dialects of his day, to be used in answer to the inquiries
of Catherine the Great, (vide Trans. Royal Academy, Petersburgh,)
expressed an opinion that this ancient people did not use a T before
the epithet, but were called Allegewee. Tradition has, however,
strictly speaking, preserved neither of these terms, although both
appear to have strong affinities with them. The word Alleghany has
come down to us, from the earliest times, as the name of the great
right-hand fork of the Ohio, and also as the name, from the same remote
period of antiquity, of the chain of mountains of which the stream
itself may be said to be the most remote northeasterly tributary.
In this form it is evidently a local term, applied geographically,
according to the general principles of the Indian languages, like
_hanna_ in the Susquehanna, and _hannock_ in the Rappahannock, which
appear to denote, in each case, a river, or torrent of water. By
removing this local inflection, we have Alleghan as the proper term for
the people, and I have felt sustained, by this inductive process, in
regarding Alleghan as the original cognomen of the “_mound builders_”
of North America.
Having thus given my views with respect to the particular word which
awakened this discussion, permit me now to turn to the other matters,
so confidently brought forward by the secretary of the Maryland
Historical Society.
The Iroquois affirm that they formerly lived in the area of the
Cherokee country. (Clin. Dis. N. Y. H. Soc., vol.) Captain Smith met a
war party of this nation, in exploring one of the rivers of Virginia
in 1608. So late as the era of the settlement of North Carolina, they
brought off to the north the last of their cantons, in the tribe
of the Tuscaroras. They sold the lands as far south as Kentucky
river. (Imlay’s Hist. Kent.) They _quitclaimed_ the soil in northern
Virginia and Maryland, and they quite forbid all sales of land by the
Delawares. All authorities, indeed, concur in showing the track of
their migration, prior to 1600, to have been from the south to the
north and northeast. Affiliation of language is also thought to denote
their origin in the south. (Vide Gallatin, 2 vol. Archa. Amer.) The
Hurons, who are of the same stock, affirm that they were originally the
first of all the nations, and call the Lenapees, who have assumed the
same distinction, _nephews_, denoting inferiority in the chronological
and ethnological chain. In this term of nephews, so applied to the
Delawares, all the Iroquois tribes concur. (Vide Oneota.)
Algonquin tradition, recorded by Mr. Heckewelder in the Am. Phi. Trans.
in 1819, on the part of the Lenapees, denotes that a confederation of
these two stocks, namely, the political uncles and nephews, defeated
the Alleghans, and drove them from the country. This tradition is
referred to a time when the Delawares or Lenapees, were shorn of all
power and consequence, “having been degraded,” according to their
phrase, to assume the petticoat, and found a refuge in a new country,
to them, on the Muskingum, where they were taken under the care,
as they had previously been east of the mountains, of the Moravian
brethren. In their reminiscences they would consequently be prone to
give prominence to such events as would reflect the most favorable
lights on their history. They are speaking of events which we see
by the preceding references, must have transpired 500 or 600 years
before, and in a very distant quarter of the Union. Yet they add some
particulars which written history alone could preserve; and they
ascribe to themselves such a degree of foresight, prudence, wisdom,
valor and sense of Christian justice, as no Indian tribe in America
ever evinced. These traditions are recorded by Mr. Heckewelder in
a spirit of Christian kindness on his part, but he does not vouch
for them; they are to be judged, like other traditions, by their
probabilities and their conformity to other and known traditions. It is
on this account that I have adduced the preceding data. Every Indian
nation is prone to exalt itself, and if we would admit fully the claims
of each, the rest would be sorry persons indeed.
The first thing to be borne in mind is, that the tradition is a very
ancient one, and must have come down shorn of many particulars, which
there appears to have been great carefulness to re-state. The scene
also is remote from the place of narration. No such fact as the
principal one of the crossing, on which great stress is laid by Mr.
Mayer, on the part of the Maryland Historical Society, could have taken
place in the Ohio valley, or within one thousand miles of Pittsburgh,
where alone, it must be remembered, we have any evidence in the
existing names of the country of the residence of the Alleghans.
The Algonquins, (we include the Lenapees in their proper groupe,)
attempting to cross the Mississippi, into the territories of a foreign
nation, with a large body of men, are defeated and driven back. They
show themselves pacifically, in a moderate number, and the foreigners
say, come! but turning out a multitude, are assailed. Whether this was
an original stratagem, or an after thought, we are left to infer, but
in either case, it would be quite conformable to Indian policy. For the
sake of clearness, we will locate this event in the section of this
great river, between the Chickasaw bluffs and Natchez, its probable
site. On this defeat they form an alliance with their uncles, the
Iroquois, who were already east of the Mississippi, and were located
north of the Alleghans. A long war begins, in the course of which the
latter erect the fortifications which have excited so much curiosity in
the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, and after proving themselves valiant
men, are finally overpowered and driven off. The Lenapees are in 1819
the historians of their enemies, and berate them as faithless. The
Maryland Historical Society, twenty-six years later, endorse the whole
story, and pronounce the Alleghans pusillanimous, not so much it would
seem for their heroic struggle and defence, as for the cause of it,
namely, not letting the Algonquin hordes march into or through their
country, as the superior forecast and judgment of the latter might, on
further progress, dictate.
Does any sound historian? does any one acquainted with Indian life,
character or history, as it exists, and has always existed in North
America, believe that the pacific and Christian request, put forth
by Mr. Heckewelder, as the chronicler of his Delaware converts at
Gnadenhutton, namely, that they might be allowed to explore a country
east of them, to select it out and dwell therein, or that they had
previously had the prudence, energy and forecast to send spies,
like Moses, to spy it out—as if they were seeking a country for an
agricultural settlement, with flocks and implements of husbandry—I
repeat it, does any one, who reads this detailed part of the tradition
as told to and believed by the good old missionary, credit a syllable
of it? If he does, his good-natured credulity must be greater than that
of the committee of the New-York Historical Society, whose suggestive
report on the discussion of a distinctive national name has been the
theme of so much misconception—may I not add, of so truly Pickwickian
a degree of patriotism.
The truth is, this suggestion of a peaceful passage for the great
Algonquin army, is to be found originally in the 20th chapter of
Numbers, in the demand made, by divine direction, by the Jewish leader
for a safe passport through the land of Edom, for the faithful
performance of which there was a divine guaranty. And when the kind
father had taught this historical lesson to his peaceable disciples on
the banks of the Muskingum, he did not perceive, in afterwards putting
down the traditions of his favorite Delawares, how completely they had
adapted a sacred event to the exigencies of savage life, in a host of
lawless invaders in the American wilderness, in the 12th century.
But we are not only to take this entire tradition of 1819, of an event
happening 600 years before, in extenso, with all its moral exactness of
motive, in the original actors, without any abatements or corrections
required by other traditions or history, but the good father, whose
moral excellence is pure and unimpeachable, but who was no philologist,
aims to make the existing lexicography of the Delaware _prove_ the
tradition; and we have, in a footnote, a forced etymology of the name
of the river Mississippi, to demonstrate that this is a Delaware name.
Now, the name of this river is not “Namaesa Sipu,” that is, sturgeon,
trout, or as he gives it, “fish river,” but MISSI-SIPPI—a
derivative from the adjective _great_, in an aboriginal sense, and
sippi, a river. Mr. Gallatin (Archa. Am. vol. 2) is inclined to believe
that it should be translated “the whole river,” or a unity of waters,
but neither he nor any other commentator, has been able to make
“fish” out of “missi.” The merest tyro in the Indian languages, must
perceive that the etymology does not bear the meaning of Fish river,
and if it did, it would prove, contrary to their reputation, that the
Indians give the most inappropriate geographical names, of all men in
existence. Fish river would be the most malappropriate name for the
Mississippi. Its turbid waters and rushing channel, surcharged with
floating trees, and subject to a thousand physical mutations every
season, is absolutely forbidding to the larger number of species, and
favorable only to the coarser kinds which are rejected from the table
of the epicure.
A single remark more. The Delawares have never lived, or held an acre
of land on the Mississippi, in its whole course between Itasca lake
and the Balize. When Penn came to America, they lived on the Delaware,
in central Pennsylvania. They were ordered to quit the sources of
the Delaware river by the Iroquois in 1742, and go to Wyoming or
Shamoken.[95] They found their way across the Alleghanies, in time to
burn Col. Crawford at the stake,[96] and oppose the settlement of the
Ohio valley, prior to the revolution; they settled on the Muskingum,
and after some afflictions and mutations, chiefly brought upon
themselves, they accepted lands, and began to recross the Mississippi
in 1818[97]. They are now located on the west banks of the Missouri,
on the Konza. Yet the etymology adverted to attributes to this tribe,
not only the naming of the river upon which they never lived, and never
held any lands, but presupposes, that the Illinois and other Algonquin
nations living on its banks, above the influx of the Ohio and the
Missouri, to whom, with the influence of the French, the actual name is
due, preserved the Delaware term “Namæsa Sepu,” although it is neither
used by their descendants nor by Europeans.
[95] Colden’s Hist. Five Nations, vol. 1. p. 31.
[96] Metcalf’s Indian Wars in the West.
[97] This is the first time that this tribe ever by history, or
tradition, other than their own, saw this river.
[_d._] War with the Kah Kwahs.
Some inquiries have been made in a prior paper, on the strong
probabilities of this people, being identical with the Ererions or
Eries. While this question is one that appears to be within the grasp
of modern inquiry, and may be resumed at leisure, the war itself, with
the people whom _they_ call Kah-Kwahs, and _we_ Eries is a matter of
popular tradition, and is alluded to with so many details, that its
termination may be supposed to have been an event of not the most
ancient date. Some of these reminiscences having found their way into
the newspapers during the summer[98] in a shape and literary garniture,
which was suited to take them from the custody of sober tradition, and
transfer them to that of romance, there was the more interest attached
to the subject, which led me to take some pains to ascertain how
general or fresh their recollections of this war might be.
[98] See Buffalo Com. Adv. 12th July, 1845, article “Indian Tradition.”
My inquiries were answered one evening at the mission house at Buffalo,
by the Allegany chief, HA-YEK-DYOH-KUNH, or the Woodcutter,
better known by his English name of Jacob Blacksnake. He stated that
the Kah-Kwahs had their chief residence at the time of their final
defeat, on the Eighteen-mile creek. The name by which he referred to
them, in this last place of their residence, might be written perhaps
with more exactitude to the native tongue, Gah Gwah-ge-o-nuh—but as
this compound word embraces the ideas of locality and existence along
with their peculiar name, there is a species of tautology in retaining
the two inflections. They are not necessary in the English, and besides
in common use, I found them to be generally dropt, while the sound of G
naturally changed in common pronunciation into that of K.
Blacksnake commenced by saying, that while the Senecas lived east of
the Genesee, they received a challenge from the Kah-Kwahs, to try their
skill in ball playing and athletic sports. It was accepted, and after
due preliminaries, the challengers came, accompanied by their prime
young men, who were held in great repute as wrestlers and ball-players.
The old men merely came as witnesses, while this trial was made.
The first trial consisted of ball playing, in which, after a sharp
contest, the young Senecas came off victorious. The next trial
consisted of a foot race between two, which terminated also in favor of
the Senecas. The spirit of the Kah-Kwahs was galled by these defeats.
They immediately got up another race on the instant, which was hotly
contested by new runners, but it ended in their losing the race. Fired
by these defeats, and still confident of their superior strength, they
proposed wrestling, with the sanguinary condition, that each of the
seconds should hold a drawn knife, and if his principal was thrown, he
should instantly plunge it into his throat, and cut off his head. Under
this terrible penalty, the struggle commenced. The wrestlers were to
catch their hold as best they could, but to observe fair principles of
wrestling. At length the Kah-Kwah was thrown, and his head immediately
severed and tossed into the air. It fell with a rebound, and loud
shouts proclaimed the Senecas victors in four trials. This terminated
the sports, and the tribes returned to their respective villages.
Some time after this event, two Seneca hunters went out to hunt west
of the Genesee river, and as the custom is, built a hunting lodge of
boughs, where they rested at night. One day, one of them went out
alone, and having walked a long distance, was belated on his return.
He saw, as he cast his eye to a distant ridge, a large body of the
Kah-Kwahs marching in the direction of the Seneca towns. He ran to his
companion, and they instantly fled and alarmed the Senecas. They sent
off a messenger post-haste to inform their confederates towards the
east, and immediately prepared to meet their enemies. After about a
day’s march, they met them. It was near sunset when they descried their
camp, and they went and encamped in the vicinity. A conference ensued,
in which they settled the terms of the battle.
The next morning the Senecas advanced. Their order of battle was
this. They concealed their young men, who were called by the narrator
burnt-knives,[99] telling them to lie flat, and not rise and join the
battle until they received the war cry, and were ordered forward.
With these were left the rolls of peeled bark to tie their prisoners.
Having made this arrangement, the old warriors advanced, and began the
battle. The contest was fierce and long, and it varied much. Sometimes
they were driven back, or faltered in their line—again they advanced,
and again faltered. This waving of the lines to and fro, formed a
most striking feature in the battle for a long time. At length the
Senecas were driven back near to the point where the young men were
concealed. The latter were alarmed, and cried out “now, we are killed!”
At this moment, the Seneca leader gave the concerted war whoop, and
they arose and joined in battle. The effects of this reinforcement,
at the time that the enemy were fatigued with the day’s fight, were
instantaneously felt. The young Senecas pressed on their enemies with
resistless energy, and after receiving a shower of arrows beat down
their opponents with their war clubs, and took a great many prisoners.
The prisoners were immediately bound with their arms behind, and tied
to trees. Nothing could resist their impetuosity.
[99] A term to denote their being quite young, and used here as a cant
phrase for prime young warriors.
The Kah-Kwah chiefs determined to fly, and leave the Senecas masters of
the field. In this hard and disastrous battle, which was fought by the
Senecas alone, and without aid from their confederates, the Kah-Kwahs
lost a very great number of their men, in slain and prisoners. But
those who fled were not permitted to escape unpursued, and having been
reinforced from the east, they followed them and attacked them in their
residence on the Deoseowa (Buffalo creek) and Eighteen mile creek,
which they were obliged to abandon, and fly to the Ohio, [the Seneca
name for the Alleghany.].
The Senecas pursued them, in their canoes, in the descent of this
stream. They discovered their encampment on an island in numbers
superior to their own. To deceive them, the Senecas, on putting ashore,
carried their canoes across a narrow peninsula, by means of which they
again entered the river above. New parties appeared to the enemy, to be
thus continually arriving, and led them greatly to over-estimate their
numbers.
This was at the close of day. In the morning not an enemy was to be
seen. They had fled down the river and have never since appeared. It is
supposed they yet exist west of the Mississippi.[100]
[100] We may here venture to inquire, whether the Kah-Kwahs were not
a remnant, or at least allies of the ancient Alleghans, who gave name
to the river, and thus to the mountains. The French idea, that the
Eries were exterminated, is exploded by this tradition of Blacksnake,
at least if we concede that Erie and Kah-Kwah, were synonyms, which is
questionable. A people who were called Ererions by the Wyandots, and
Kah-Kwahs by the Iroquois, may have had many other names, from other
tribes. It would contradict all Indian history, if they had not as many
names as there were diverse nations, to whom they were known.
Two characteristic traits of boasting happened in the first great
battle above described. The Kah-Kwah women carried along, in the rear
of the warriors, packs of moccasins, for the women and children, whom
they expected to be made captives in the Seneca villages. The Senecas,
on the other hand, said, as they went out to battle, “let us not fight
them too near for fear of the stench”—alluding to the anticipated
heaps of slain.
[_22nd August_, 1845.]