Columbia, and in the territories of the United States, abundantly
illustrates the effect of a multiplicity of languages among nomad
savages. The Blackfeet are in reality a political and not an ethnical
confederation, with at least three distinct languages, and numerous
dialects spoken among their dispersed tribes. The same condition is
found among the Kiawakaskaia Indians, beyond the Rocky Mountains. In the
confluence of the nomad hunters to common centres of trade, speech
accordingly fails them for all purposes of intercommunication; and
travellers and fur-traders have long been familiar with the growth of a
common language at more than one of the chief meeting-places of diverse
tribes and races on the Pacific coast. The Clatsop, in so far as it is
native, is a dialect of the Cowlitz language; but, as now in use, it is
one of the jargons or “trade languages” of the Pacific. But Fort
Vancouver, long one of the largest trading-posts of the Hudson Bay
Company, has been the special Babel where, out of the strangest
confusion of tongues, a new language has been evolved.
The organisation of part of the territory west of the Rocky Mountains
into the province of British Columbia is rapidly modifying the character
of its native population. But in recent years there were frequently to
be found at Fort Vancouver upwards of two hundred _voyageurs_ with their
Indian wives and families, in addition to the factors and clerks.
Thither also resorted for trading purposes, Chinook, Nootka, Nisqually,
Walla-walla, Klikatat, Kalapurgas, Klackamuss, Cowlitz, and other
Indians. A discordant Babel of languages accordingly prevailed; and
hence the growth of a _patois_ by which all could hold intercourse
together. The principal native tribe of the locality is the Chinook, a
branch of the Flathead Indians on the Columbia river. They speak a
language rivalling that of the Hottentots in its seemingly inarticulate
character. Some of its sounds, according to Dr. Charles Pickering, could
scarcely be represented by any combination of known letters; and Paul
Kane, who travelled as an artist among them, described it to me as
consisting of harsh spluttering sounds proceeding from the throat,
apparently unguided either by the tongue or lips. This language
accordingly repelled every attempt at its mastery by others. The Cree is
the native language most familiar to the traders, many of their wives
being Cree women. Both French and English are spoken among themselves;
while, in addition to the tribes already named, natives of the Sandwich
Islands, Chinese, and other foreigners, add to the strange character and
speech of this miscellaneous community. Out of all those elements the
“Chinook jargon” or trade-language of the locality has fashioned itself.
Vocabularies of the Oregon or Chinook jargon have been repeatedly
published since 1838, when the Rev. Samuel Parker made the first attempt
to reduce it to writing. But it is necessarily in an unstable condition,
with local variations and a changing vocabulary. The latest _Dictionary
of the Chinook Jargon, or Trade Language of Oregon_, is that of Mr.
George Gibbs, published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1863, and
includes nearly five hundred words. When studied in all its bearings, it
is a singularly interesting example of the effort at the development of
a means of intercommunication among such a strange gathering of
heterogeneous races. In an analysis of the various sources of its
vocabulary, Mr. Gibbs assigns about two-fifths of the words to the
Chinook and Clatsop languages. But in this he includes one of the most
characteristic elements of the jargon. The representatives of so many
widely dissimilar peoples, in their efforts at mutual communication,
naturally resorted to diverse forms of imitation; foremost among which
was onomatopœia. There are such mimetic words as _he-he_, “laughter”;
_hoh-hoh_, “to cough”; _tish-tish_, “to drive”; _lip-lip_, “to boil”;
_poh_, “to blow out”; _tik-tik_, “a watch”; _tin-lin_ or _ting-ling_, “a
bell”; _tum-tum_, “the heart,” from its pulsation; and hence a number of
modifications in which the heart is used as equivalent to mind or will,
etc. Again, varying intonations are resorted to in order to express
different shades of meaning, as _sey-yaw_, “far off,” in which the first
syllable is lengthened out according to the idea of greater or less
distance indicated. Many of their words, as in all interjectional
utterances, depend for their specific meaning on the intonations of the
speaker. Such utterances play so small a part in our own speech, that we
are apt to overlook the force of the interrogative, affirmative, and
negative tones, and even the change of meaning that is often produced by
the transfer of emphasis from one to another word.[99] But with such an
imperfect means of intercommunication as the trade jargon, there is a
constant motive not only to help out the meaning by expressive
intonation, but also by signs or gesture-language. “A horse” for
example, is _kuatan_; but “riding” or “on horseback” is expressed by
accompanying the word with the gesture of two fingers placed astride
over the other hand. _Tenas_ is “little” or “a child,”—in the latter
case, accompanied by the gesture suggestive of its size,—or it may mean
“an infant,” by the first syllable being prolonged to indicate that it
is very small. In addition to all this, words are borrowed from all
sources; and the miscellaneous vocabulary is completed from English,
French, Cree, Ojibway, Nootka, Chihalis, Nisqually, Kalapuy, and other
tongues.
The late Paul Kane is my authority for some of the details of intonation
and gesture-language. He brought back with him a valuable collection of
studies of the different races in British North America; and, by means
of the jargon, he learned in a short time to converse without difficulty
with the chiefs of most of the tribes around Fort Vancouver. But as an
artist he was in constant use of his pencil; and, as he told me, he
frequently appealed to it, sketching himself, or at times putting his
pencil and note-book into their hands, with considerable success in thus
supplementing less definite signs. The gesture-language furnishes
Cheyenne, Dakota, Apache, and other signs for “paint, colour, draw,” and
“write”; the act of writing or drawing being expressed by holding up the
palm of one hand and moving the forefinger of the other over it, as if
drawing. The jargon has also its word _pent_, “paint,” transformed to a
verb by prefixing the word _mamook_, “to do, to make”; and its _tzum_,
“painting,” or “mixed colours”; _mamooktzum_, “to paint.” In the
gesture-language of the Dakotas and Apaches the equivalent sign is
primarily indicative of daubing the face with colour; but the tribes of
the Pacific coast paint their masks, boats, and houses in diverse
coloured devices, with some degree of taste. There is, therefore, reason
to look for terms expressive of the art in any language in use among
them; though the habitual employment of signs may in some cases check
the evolution of phonetic equivalents. But among many tribes
gesture-language has been systematised into universally recognised
pictographs, and so developed into a native system of hieroglyphics.
Among the Algonkin, Lenape, Iroquois, and other northern tribes, and in
the region comprising New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and other
south-western territory, rock-carvings and pictographs abound. Wherever
large surfaces of rock, or slabs of stone, offer a favourable
opportunity for such records, they are found, at times executed with
great elaboration of detail. But less durable records are in use,
dependent on the materials most available to the scribe. The Algonkins
and Iroquois ordinarily resort to birch-bark; the Crees, Blackfeet, and
other prairie Indians, substitute the dressed skins of the buffalo;
while, as already noted, the tribes on the Pacific coast, as well as the
Innuit and Eskimo, employ deerhorn and ivory. In the South-West, in the
Sierra Nevada and Southern California, the sculptured pictograph, after
being incised on the surface of a rock, or the wall of a cave, is
frequently finished by colouring in much the same way as was the custom
with the ancient Egyptian chroniclers.
Among a series of reports to the Topographical Bureau, issued from the
War Department at Washington, in 1850, is the journal of a military
reconnaissance from Santa Fé, New Mexico, to the Navajo Country, by
Lieutenant James K. Simpson of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. His
narrative is accompanied with a map and illustrations of a remarkable
series of inscriptions, engraved on the smooth surface of a rock called
the Moro. They are of two classes, the native pictographs, and also
numerous Spanish inscriptions and devices; one of which records the
hasty visit of an old Spanish explorer to the Moro Rock in 1606. The
route of Lieutenant Simpson lay up the valley of the Rio de Zuñi, where
he met an old trader among the Navajos, who was waiting to offer his
services as guide to a rock, upon the face of which were, according to
his repeated assertions, “half an acre of inscriptions.” After
travelling about eight miles, through a country diversified by cliffs of
basalt and red and white sandstone, in every variety of bold and
fantastic form, they came in sight of a quadrangular mass of white
sandstone rock, from 200 feet to 250 feet in height. This was the Moro,
or Inscription Rock, on ascending a low mound at the base of which, the
journalist states, “sure enough here were inscriptions, and some of them
very beautiful; and although, with those we afterwards examined on the
south face of the rock, there could not be said to be half an acre of
them, yet the hyperbole was not near so extravagant as I was prepared to
find it.” The inscriptions, some in Spanish, and others in, Latin,
apparently include examples nearly coeval with the conquest of this
region, by Juan de Onate, in 1595; and from their historical interest
they naturally received greater attention from the Topographical Corps
than the Indian hieroglyphics. But the same locality was visited at a
later date by surveyors appointed to ascertain the most practicable
route for a railroad to the Pacific coast; and in a Report of
explorations and surveys, published by the Senate of the United States
in 1856, Lieutenant Whipple furnishes an interesting series of Indian
hieroglyphics or pictographs seen on his route. “The first of the Indian
hieroglyphics,” he remarks, “were at Rocky Dell Creek, between the edge
of the Llano Estacado and the Canadian. The stream flows through a
gorge, upon one side of which a shelving sandstone rock forms a sort of
cave. The roof is covered with paintings, some evidently ancient; and
beneath are innumerable carvings of footprints, animals, and symmetrical
lines.”[100] Examples of these are given; but of one series, the
sketches of which had been lost, Lieutenant Whipple remarks: “This
series, more than the others, seems to represent a chain of historical
events, being embraced by serpentine lines. First is a rude sketch,
resembling a ship with sails; then comes a horse with gay trappings, a
man with a long speaking-trumpet being mounted upon him, while a little
bare-legged Indian stands in wonder behind. Below this group are several
singular-looking figures: men with the horns of an ox, with arms, hands,
and fingers extended as if in astonishment, and with clawed feet.
Following the curved line we come to the circle, enclosing a Spanish
caballero, who extends his hands in amity to the naked Indian standing
without. Next appears a group with an officer, and a priest bearing the
emblem of Christianity.” The Pueblo Indians, who still worship the sun,
recognised in those picturings records of the thoughts and deeds of
their ancestors. They pointed to representations of Montezuma, whom they
still expect to return, and who is regarded as a divine power; and
recognised in the horned men a representation of the buffalo-dance, from
time immemorial a national festival, at which they crowned themselves
with horns and corn-shucks. The drawing is in all probability an
historical record executed at a date not long subsequent to the first
intrusion of the Spaniards.
Lieutenant Whipple next describes the carvings found at El Moro
inscription rock where, he says, “Spanish adventurers and explorers,
from as early a period as the first settlement of Plymouth, have been in
the habit of recording their expeditions to and from Zuñi.” He refers
for those to Captain Simpson’s report upon the Navajo expedition; but
specimens of the Indian drawings are given, which, he says, “are
evidently more ancient than the oldest of the Spanish
inscriptions.”[101] The latter are, for the most part, regular literal
records in the Spanish or Latin language, with names, and, in a few
instances, the date of their engraving. But the European epigraphists
appear at times to have borrowed the ideographic art of their Indian
guides, from the way several of their inscriptions are accompanied with
pictorial devices, or rebuses, somewhat after the native fashion of
writing. One, for example, which reads _Pito Vaca ye Jarde_, has also
the symbol of the _Vaca_, or “cow.” Another group, consisting of certain
initials interwoven into a monogram, accompanied by an open hand with a
double thumb, all enclosed in cartouche-fashion, is supposed by the
transcriber to be, even more than the previous bit of pictorial
symbolism, a pictured pun. “The characters,” he remarks, “in the double
rectangle seem to be literally a sign-_manual_, and may possibly be
symbolical of Francisco Manuel, though the double thumb would seem to
indicate something more.” The Provincial Secretary, Donaciano Vigil,
after noting for Lieutenant Simpson some data relative to the Spanish
inscriptions, adds: “The other signs or characters are traditional
remembrances, by means of which the Indians transmit historical accounts
of all their remarkable successes. To discover (or interpret) these sets
by themselves, is very difficult. Some of the Indians make trifling
indications, which divulge, with a great deal of reserve, something of
the history, to persons in whom they have entire confidence.”
On the summit of the cliff the ruins of a pueblo of bold native masonry
formed a rectangle of 206 feet by 307 feet, around which lay an immense
accumulation of broken pottery of novel and curious patterns. At Los
Ojos Calientes, Lieutenant Simpson visited the _estuffas_, buildings one
story high, called the churches of Montezuma. “On the walls were
representations of plants, birds, and animals; the turkey, the deer, the
wolf, the fox, and the dog, being plainly depicted; none of them,
however, approaching to exactness except the deer, the outline of which
showed certainly a good eye for proportion.” These are the work of the
Jemez Indians, who worshipped the sun, moon, and fire; representations
of which in circular form, and with zigzag barbed lines for lightning,
also occur on the walls.[102] Lieutenant Simpson remarks that he asked a
Jemez Indian “Whether they still worshipped the Sun, as God, with
contrition of heart.” His reply was: “Why not? He governs the World!”
Dr. Hoffman figures and interprets a curious rock-painting, copied by
him from a granite boulder at Tulare river, California. It covers an
area of about twelve feet by eight; and the largest figure is about six
feet in length, and appears to be the work of an advanced party of
native explorers, intended for the guidance of those who followed on
their trail.[103] Dr. Hoffman also furnishes some interesting
illustrations of the reproduction of gesture-language in native
pictographs preserved in the Museum of San Francisco. Certain symbols
are in very general use. But the description of an Innuit drawing on a
slat of wood, as interpreted by a native, partly in his own dialect, but
largely supplemented by gestures, will best illustrate this development
of a system of picture-writing among a savage people. A human figure
directs his right hand to his own side, while, with his left, he points
away from him. This is the _Ego_, the personal pronoun _I_. Again, a
simple tracing of the like figure, successively with a boat-paddle over
his head; his right hand to the side of his head; one finger elevated;
his hand stretched out in the direction indicated, with his harpoon, or
his bow and arrow, expresses his various actions. A spot enclosed in a
circle, and again a blank circle, mark the islands—inhabited or
uninhabited,—to which he is bound. A canoe, with two persons in it,
defines the number going and the mode of transport; a phoca, or other
animal, indicates the prey; and the record closes with an outline of the
house, or tent, towards which the canoe is directed. The whole is
equivalent to a written memorandum left behind, to inform the members of
his family that he has gone in his boat to a particular island, where he
will pass the night,—the right hand to the side of the head being a
symbol of sleep. From thence he will proceed to another island, where he
purposes to catch a seal or sea-lion, and then he will return home. It
is in no degree surprising to find that nearly the same symbols are in
use by widely different tribes; for, alike in their pictographs and
gestures, they naturally aim at the most familiar and literal
representations. The Eskimo and Alaskans represent death, in their
drawings and bone carvings, by the symbol of a headless body, in nearly
the same way as the Iroquois, the Algonkins, and the Blackfeet. To this
is added the spear, the bow and arrow, or the gun, to indicate the mode
of death by violence. The ordinary symbol of sepulchral memorial is the
reversing of the totem and other objects pictured on the grave-post. A
succession of lines in rows or columns is the simplest mode of primitive
numeration, perpetuated among the Egyptians even so late as the
Ptolemaic dynasty. It appears to have been in use among the cave-men of
the Vézère in palæolithic times, and is common to all such records. But
in the Eskimo and Indian pictographs the elevated hand, with one or more
fingers extended, serves for numeration; and where the extended fingers
and thumbs of both hands are represented on an exaggerated scale, it
signifies _multitude_. The native gestures, drawings, and spoken
languages, have indeed to be studied together to understand fully the
processes resorted to for the expression and interchange of ideas.
To the philologist, the efforts at supplying equivalent terms for
objects and ideas common to the many diverse races furnish a study full
of interest. A Chinook or Clatsop word modified to _saghalie_,
signifying “above,” or “high,” is compounded with the Nootka _tyee_, as
the name of the High Chief, or God. _Elip_, a Chihalis word, signifies
“first,” or “before”; _tilikum_, Chinook, is “people, a tribe,” or
“band”; but the two words conjoined, _elip-tilikum_, lit. “the first
people,” is employed in reference to a race of beings who preceded the
Indians as inhabitants of the world, just as we speak of the
Antediluvians. _Ipsoot_ is the Chinook word for “to hide,” _ipsoot
wau-wau_ is “to hide one’s speech,” _i.e._ “to whisper.” Or, again,
_opitsah_ is a modification of the Chinook for “a knife”;
_opitsah-yakka-sikha_, literally, “the knife’s friend,” is “a fork.” The
same word is also applied to a sweetheart. Such economic use of words is
indeed by no means rare. But this branch of the subject lies apart from
the aim of the present paper. It may be noted, however, in passing, that
many of the jargon words, according to Mr. Gibbs, “have been adopted
into ordinary conversation in Oregon, and threaten to become permanently
incorporated as a local addition to the English.” Mr. Horatio Hale, long
ago, stated as a result of his own observations, at an earlier date:
“There are Canadians and half-breeds married to Chinook women, who can
only converse with their wives in this speech; and it is the fact,
strange as it may seem, that many young children are growing up to whom
this factitious language is really the mother-tongue, and who speak it
with more readiness and perfection than any other.”[104] As to grammar,
the jargon has no more than the inevitable rudiments involved in the
necessity for expressing in some way ideas relating to time and number;
and in these directions there is frequent resort to signs. But this,
which accords with the first stage of picture-writing, is true of the
speech of many Indian tribes. Their gesture-language is being reduced to
the equivalent of a vocabulary, and is much more copious than that of
the Oregon jargon. In 1880 the United States Bureau of Ethnology issued
“A Collection of the gesture-signs and signals of the North American
Indians”; and although this was only designed as a preliminary step
towards the complete elucidation of the subject, it suffices to show how
important a part signs and gestures play in the dialogue of many rude
tribes. The Arapahoes, for example, according to Burton, “possess a very
scanty vocabulary, and can hardly converse with one another in the dark.
To make a stranger understand them they must always repair to the
camp-fire for pow-wow.”[105] We are not without some due appreciation,
even now, of the eloquence of action, as well as of speech, in the
effective orator; and Charles Lamb, in one of the _Essays of Elia_,
aptly reminds us how much even ordinary dialogue owes to expression for
its full effect. Candle-light, “our peculiar and household planet,” is
the theme of the quaint humorist. “Wanting it,” he says, “what savage
unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in caves and
unillumined fastnesses! . . . What repartees could have passed, when you
must have felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbour’s cheek to be
sure that he understood it?” And so the grave humorist goes on to
picture the privations of a supper party in “those unlanterned nights.”