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Observations on the Leech Lake Chippewas.—Data respecting the former state of the fur trade.—Their turbulent character.—Assassination of Relle by Puganoc.—Causes of the emigration of the North-western Indians.—The unsatisfactory character of their traditions.—Their language.—Brief synopsis of its grammatical structure.

Leech Lake has been one of the principal posts of trade in the northwest since the region was first laid open to the enterprise of the fur trade, and it has probably yielded more wealth in furs and skins, than one of the richest mines of silver would have produced. European goods were extremely high at the period referred to, at the same time, that furs were abundant, and the ability of the Indians to pay, consequently, ample. The standard of value and computation in this trade, is an abiminikwa, or prime beaver, called plus by the French. A plus, tradition states, was given for as much vermilion as would cover the point of a case knife, and the same price was paid respectively for four charges of powder, or four charges of shot, or fifteen balls, or two branches of wampum. It is related that an outfit of six bales of goods, worth, say $2000, brought from Athabasca, ninety-six packs of beaver, each of which would weigh ninety pounds, at a time when prime beaver was worth four dollars per pound. A fine gun, worth ten guineas, was sold to a chief at one of the northern posts, for one hundred and twenty pounds of beaver, say four hundred and eighty dollars. The post of the Pic, alone, is said to have yielded one hundred packs of beaver, during a single season. From the MSS. of M. Perrault, now before us, referred to in a previous part of our narrative, the rates at which furs were reduced to the plus, at this lake, in 1784, were the following. A bear was estimated to be one plus, an otter, three martens, a lynx, fifteen muskrats, respectively, one plus. A buffalo robe, two plus. A keg of mixed rum, which was then the kind of spirits used in the trade, was sold at thirty plus, and the Indians, when they commenced trading, first put out the furs they intended as pay for their liquor.

The Leech Lake Indians were then stated to be numerous, although, in common with other northern bands, they had also suffered from the general ravages of the small pox, in this region, two years previous. They were, however, then, as now, deemed a turbulent band, and such was the fear of giving additional excitement to their passions, that the liquor which was sold to them, was put in cache at the entrance of the river, that it might not be delivered to them, until the traders had finished their traffic, (which on that occasion, occupied but a single day,) and embarked on their return for Michilimackinac. Besides the original robbery of a principal trader, which drew upon them the name of Pillagers, their intercourse with the traders has been of a character to require perpetual caution to avoid the recurrence of serious difficulties. It is but two years ago that they confined a trader to his lodge, and threatened him, in such a manner, that he was happy to escape from the country with his life, and has not since returned to it.

During the winter of 1821-22, a man named Relle, who was employed at Leech Lake, to collect credits, as it is termed, entered the lodge of a hunter named Puganoc i. e. Nutwood, and without much ceremony, obtained the Indian’s furs. He had as he conceived, got consent which the Indian afterwards withdrew. Relle, however, whose business it was to collect furs for his employer, and who had, from long usage, become expert in that employment, did not pay that deference to the Indian’s wishes, which he probably would have done, could we suppose that he considered them to indicate any more, than a mere reluctance to part with the furs. On this point we are without particular information. Be this as it may, Relle took up the furs, and proceeded homewards. Puganoc followed him but without any demonstrations of anger. It might be supposed that he intended in make a friendly visit to the post, for the purpose of further trading, and Relle evidently so considered the circumstance of his accompanying him, for he was wholly unsuspicious of latent revenge. Silent as this passion was kept, it burned, however, in the Indian’s breast, and, in crossing a lake, on the ice, the Indian treading in the hindmost step, (a practice in walking with snow shoes,) he suddenly discharged his piece. The ball entered his victim’s back below the shoulders. He fell dead. Puganoc then drew his knife, cut off two of the voyageur’s fingers, to make it appear that he had been struggling with an adversary, then threw down the knife on the snow, and returned with a report that the man had been killed by the Sioux.

It may be interesting to notice the fate of Puganoc. Attempts for his surrender to the civil authorities were made, but without success. Meantime he was regarded as having forfeited his life by a young Chippewa of his own band, a relative, perhaps, of the deceased voyageur’s Indian wife. While assembled to amuse themselves by firing at a mark, this young man, as it became his turn to fire, saw Puganoc lifting the cloth door of his tent, and wheeling half a circle in his aim, fired his ball through the neck of the assassin, and killed him on the spot.

Pride, and the desire of personal distinction, as in other tribes which have not the light of christianity to guide them, may be considered as lying at the foundation of the Indian character. For there are no tribes so poor and remote as not to have pride. And this passion seems always to be coupled with a desire of applause, and with the wish on the part of its possessors to be thought better than they really are. We have found pride in the remotest Indian lodge we ever visited, and have hardly ever engaged in ten minutes conversation with a northern Indian, without discovering it not only to exist, but, where there was moral energy at all, as constituting the primary motive to action. It has always been found, however, unaccompanied by one of its most constant concomitants, in civilised life—namely, the desire of wealth.

The workings of this principle may, indeed, be looked upon as the chief motive of Indian emigration, and as causing tribe to secede from tribe, and leading to that multiplication of petty nations, each with some peculiarities of language, which marks the face of the northern regions. Did we possess any thing like a clear and connected tradition of these migrations, even for a few hundred years, we should perhaps have cause to blush that so many blunders had been committed in assigning so many primitive stocks, when, in fact, there is great reason to believe, that the primitive stocks are few.

Tradition does not reach far, where there is neither pen nor pencil to perpetuate the memory of events. People who are constantly and habitually concerned, how they shall subsist, and what they shall wear, will soon forget, in the realities before them, occurrences which can no longer produce fear or excite hope. And were it otherwise,—were they as prone to reflect as they are to act, the very misery in which they live, would take away the pleasure of historical reminiscence. Oral history is very uncertain at best. Every repetition varies the language at least, and it must be a very stoical people, indeed, who, in repeating their own story, do not add to the coloring, if not the number of circumstances, which serve to give pleasure or to flatter pride. Unfortunately such appears to have been the state of the north-western Indians, as far as we know any thing of them, that they could not, in strict truth, repeat very little of their history, without giving pain, or exciting feelings, often of pity, and often of humiliation. The few favorable points would naturally grow by the process of repetition, out of all proportion. And fiction would often be called on, to supply lapses. Hence it is, perhaps, that in looking over our printed materials for Indian history, we are so apt to find that every tribe arrogates to itself the honor of being original, great, brave, magnanimous, above its neighbors. Indeed we regard all unrecorded Indian tradition, referring to events beyond the close of the sixteenth century, as entitled to no confidence.

The names the Indians bestowed upon themselves, contain no clue to their early history. They were, for the most part purely accidental, as they are at this day. They do not refer to their origin. They do not in some cases, even signify their peculiarities. This is, we think, emphatically true of the various tribes of Algonquins. To part of the people composing this stock, who were settled in a country abounding in lakes and streams, they gave the local name of Nipissings, i. e. People of the Place of Waters. Part, who lived on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, subsisting on fish, they called Popinoshees, alluding to a kind of fish. Those who dwelt in swampy grounds, (as between that point and Lake Superior,) were called Mushkeegos, from the name for swamp. Those who lived in plains, south-west of Lake Michigan, Muscotins, from plain. Others having a peculiarity of intonation, were called Ojibwas, or Chippewas; a band who lit up a council fire for themselves, Pottawattomies; another band, given to trading. Ottawas; another who inflicted cruelties in their northern wars, Kenistonos; another who lived inland, Nopimings. Others might be added to the list. These were all identical people; but not one of the name referred to their origin. The French, on their arrival increased the confusion, by bestowing a new name upon each, rendering the thread of history more entangled, and utterly confounding all attempts to trace their affiliation by etymology. They called the first band whom they found speaking this language, on the St. Lawrence, Algonquins, probably because they subsisted on the oga. This term has become generic. But there is no light thrown by it on the history of the race. Nay, there is not a particle of proof that the Indians had bestowed it upon themselves, or that it was not given like all their other appellations, as a mere nom de guerre. No wonder should therefore be expressed, that classifications founded on etymological proofs should have been found defective.

But we shall not pursue the subject. The Leech Lake Indians, like others of the stock, derive their distinctive appellation from a mere accident. They are not, however, separated by any distinctive feature, from the rest of the more favorably located Chippewas. Their prominent manners and customs, ceremonies and opinions, are the same. They migrated by the same track, adopted the same means of living, sought the attainment of the same general objects, and speak the same language. There are minor peculiarities of speech in most of the bands of this nation, separated by a few hundred miles. But they consist mostly in accent, with some interchanges of the labial and liquid consonants. The vowel sounds are identical. Whatever remarks could be made, therefore, on the principles of the language, would be equally applicable to the current language of other Chippewa bands.

This language covers an extensive area in the west, and the north-west. It is emphatically the court language of the Indians, being the medium of communication, in all general councils. Its copiousness and freedom from the barbarities which disfigure many of the native languages, were remarked at an early day, and have led to its being more studied and spoken, than perhaps any other native American language. The regret has been expressed, that where so many good points exist, there should be found any defects to mar them. In its grammatical structure, it exhibits some peculiarities, which do not, perhaps, admit of being strictly classed with other transpositive languages, although it has most features in coincidence with them. Originally, simple in its character, and consisting of scarcely any distinctions of speech, beyond the verb and substantive, and the pronominal and other primary particles, the tendency of usage and invention has been, to increase the length of words by combination, rendering them formidable to the eye, and pompous to the ear. These combinations assume almost every shape, in which words can be made to coalesce. And the primitives when thus united, are still further compounded by inflections for time and person, for number and quality, and sometimes to indicate other circumstances, as if it were the chief scope of the speaker to concentrate all the offices of speech in a single word, or a single expression. But in this process of accretion, as might be expected, clearness and simplicity are often sacrificed to sound, and the distinctions of person, and number, and tense, are not, perhaps, always accurately preserved. So many letters, and even whole syllables, are also dropped, to effect the purposes of a harmonious coalescence, agreeably to the Indian ear, that it becomes extremely difficult to trace analogies, and one of the usual helps to comparison, is thus withdrawn. Number is entirely wanting in the third person of the declension of their pronouns and nouns, and in the conjugation of their verbs. Nor is there any distinction to mark the sex of the third person, although the first and second persons, are uniformly and scrupulously thus marked. He and she, him and her, are expressed by the same word, or the same pronominal sign. Although there is a positive and a conditional future, in the conjugation of their verbs, the compound tenses, are generally thought to be defective.

Notwithstanding these deficiencies, the language admits of many fine turns of expression, and pointed terms of irony, and in its general simplicity, and nervous brevity, will admit of a comparison with some terms of scripture phraseology. Among its grammatical forms, there are several, which exhibit beautiful and succinct modes of conveying thought. All its active verbs can be multiplied as often as there are distinct objects of their action, and they are conjugated both negatively, as well as positively. Substantives admit of adjective terminations, and adjectives of substantive terminations. Both can be turned into verbs, and both are endowed with number. Pronouns are inflected for time, and in this shape, supply the want of our auxiliary verbs. The verb, to be, may be said to characterize this language, as differing from some of the Indian languages, although its use is restricted, and there is no declarative existence indicated in the ordinary conjugation of verbs. As all nouns assume verbal terminations, they undergo all the modifications of other verbs. Possession is indicated by an inflection analogous to, but differing from case. Locality, diminution, and derogation, may be, either separately, or all together, denoted by inflections of the noun. Particles, are very copiously used. And this part of speech is very important, making the use of words definite or exact, which without these adjuncts, would often lack both coherence and exactitude. Adverbs are liberally employed, and by their help, the degrees of comparison are formed. There is but one degree of comparison formed by an inflection of the substantive. There is a numerous list of prepositions, which are not, however, disjunctively used, but always as the prefixed syllable or syllables, to substantives. Conjunctions, of which the language has a number, are not thus restricted, and cannot thus be used. The most important distinction, however, which belongs to the language, and that which most rigidly pervades its forms, is the separation of words into two classes, distinguished as animate and inanimate, or personal and impersonal, carrying also, the idea of noble and ignoble. This principle, merges the ordinary distinctions of gender, and imparts a two-fold character to the verb, substantive, and adjective, and consequently creates the necessity of double conjugations and declensions. This results from the transitive character of the whole language, and its habitual application to material objects. The verb which would be used to imply vision, is made to indicate the presence or absence of vitality, creating the distinction of the animate and inanimate forms. The same principle interdicts the promiscuous use of adjectives. A strong man and a strong house, require different modifications of the word strong. All its concords are directed to the upholding of this rule. This novel and curious principle, appears to lie at the foundation of the syntax, and imparts to the language its most marked characteristic feature. Whatever modifications other rules require, they all coincide in this. It is a point which every good speaker pays attention to. And as the rule may be arbitrarily employed, it enables him to invest the whole inanimate creation with life, and thus to throw a charm over the most barren waste; an advantage which is very freely resorted to, in their oral tales and mythological fables.

In contemplating such a language, it is impossible to avoid the observation of many beauties and many defects. But its beauties do not appear to be of a character to entitle them to the enthusiastic encomiums which have been bestowed upon some of our Indian languages; nor do its defects and barbarisms merit the depreciating terms which have been applied to others. Truth, in this, as in many other metaphysical investigations, will be found to lie in a mean. If there are forms and expressions suited to call forth the applause of the speculative philologist, there are also many features for him to rectify or condemn. Like the character of the people by whom it is spoken, its principles are perpetually verging to extremes. There is either a redundancy of forms creating distinctions, not, in all cases, of very obvious utility, or an absolute want of them. And the inquirer is often led to wonder, how a people who require the nice distinctions in the one case, should be able to dispense with distinctions altogether in the other.

From this vacillation between barbarism and refinement, poverty and redundance, a method strictly philosophical or purely accidental, there might be reason to infer that the people themselves, by whom the language is spoken, were formerly in a more advanced and cultivated state. And that a language once copious and exact, partaking of the fortunes of the people, degenerated further and further into barbarism and confusion, as one tribe after another separated from the parent stock. Change of accent would alone produce a great diversity of sound. Accident would give some generic peculiarities: and that permutation of the consonants, which we see among the Algonquin bands, would, in the end, leave little besides the vowel sounds, and the interchangeable consonants, to identify tribes long separated by time and by distance, without means of intercommunication, without letters, and without arts. If compared by these principles there is reason to believe, philologists would find the primitive languages of America extremely few, and their grammatical principles, either identical or partaking largely of the same features. And to this result, the tendency of inquiry on this side the Atlantic is slowly verging, however it may contravene the theories of learned and ingenious philologists in Europe. The inquiry is fraught with deep interest to the philosophical mind; and it offers a field for intellectual achievement, which it may be hoped will not be left uncultivated by the pens of piety, philosophy, or genius.