Algonquin

“ He viewed his impatient guest a moment with gravity, and added, "yes, much further."
"And you trust her all alone?"
"She is an Algonquin maiden. She fears nothing."
"And why is an Algonquin superior to a Huron, for instance?" The young man, leaning idly back, and caressing the Indian dog of the chief, pursued his questions without any definite purpose, but merely to draw out his reserved-looking host.
"Why is the fleet deer that spurns the soil better than the dull ox that tills it? Or why is the eagle better than the hen that picks up corn in your doorway? ”

“ The little coxswain of the Atalanta was the last to step on board. As she took her place she carefully deposited at her feet a white handkerchief wrapped about something or other, perhaps a sponge, in case the boat should take in water.
At last the Algonquin shot out from the little nook where she lay, —long, narrow, shining, swift as a pickerel when he darts from the reedy shore. It was a beautiful sight to see the eight young fellows in their close-fitting suits, their brown muscular arms bare, bending their backs for the stroke and recovering, as if they were parts of a single machine. ”

“ As regards legends and folk-lore, no one can read the Eskimo tales and those of this volume and not feel that the Algonquin is to the man of the icy north what the gypsy is to the Hindoo. As regards the early religion of both races, it is simply identical, and it is far too peculiar in its many similar details to have simply sprung up, as many might assume, from the common likeness in customs of all savages. For there is in both a great deal of "literary" culture, especially in the Algonquin, and it would be little less than miraculous that this too should have assimilated by chance. ”

“ Yes, I have heard that the Algonquins stand even closer to you than your Hurons here. They are more than brothers. Indeed, it is said that your Count Frontenac calls them his children. Well, they did you credit. It took ten of them to silence Goodman Ellwood's musket, but they butchered him in the end. If you find a scalp with long silky white hair, monsieur, it belongs to John Ellwood. Value it, and nail it among your trophies, for it cost you the lives of a full half-dozen Algonquin braves. ”

“ At the present day, the traveller, perchance, may find them pitching their bark lodges along the beach at Mackinaw, spearing fish among the rapids of St. Mary’s, or skimming the waves of Lake Superior in their birch canoes.
Of all the members of the Algonquin family, those called by the English the Delawares, by the French the Loups, and by themselves Lenni Lenape, or Original Men, hold the first claim to attention; for their traditions declare them to be the parent stem whence other Algonquin tribes have sprung. ”

“ As well as the Indians of the Huron language who inhabit land to the South, where they till the land and winter wheat, horse-beans, pease, and other similar seeds to subsist; they are sedentary and the Algonquin follow fish and game.
However, this nation has always passed for the noblest, proudest and hardest to manage when prosperous. When the French came here the true Algonquin owned land from Tadoussac to Quebec, and I have always thought they were issued from the Saguenay. ”

“ Eight Algonquins, in one of those fits of desperate valor which sometimes occur in Indians, entered at midnight a camp where thirty or forty Iroquois warriors were buried in sleep, and with quick, sharp blows of their tomahawks began to brain them as they lay. They killed ten of them on the spot, and wounded many more. The rest, panic-stricken and bewildered by the surprise and the thick darkness, fled into the forest, leaving all they had in the hands of the victors, including a number of Algonquin captives, of whom one had been unwittingly killed by his countrymen in the confusion. ”

“ The Indians with whom the French explorers first came in contact were of the Algonquin family. Under different tribal names this race spread itself over the Atlantic seaboard from Carolina to Hudson's Bay, and farther west than the Great Lakes. In the comparatively small area now forming northern New York lived the Iroquois, or Five Nation Indians, who, like the Helvetii of old, out-stripped all the other tribes in valour, and at the time of the arrival of the Europeans were engaged in reducing their Algonquin foes to subjection. ”

“ Above all, he cannot read the English version of the Bible.
23d. A friend asked me to furnish him an aboriginal name for a new town. I gave him the choice of several. He selected Algonac. In this word the particle ac, is taken from ace, land or earth; and its prefixed dissyllable Algon, from the word Algonquin. This system, by which a part of a word is made to stand for, and carry the meaning of a whole word, is common to Indian compound substantives. Thus Wa-we-a-tun-ong, the Algonquin name for Detroit, is made up from the term wa-we, a roundabout course, atun a channel, and ong, locality. ”

“ And indeed The Woman made such a fine story for the visitors, encouraging them along any and every bypath that their imagination might suggest, that not even Auntie Elspie could recognise her quiet, unassuming, reticent boy in the prancing warrior that Mrs. Johnnie Dunn permitted the representatives of the press to create.
The discovery of the perfidy of Algonquin in trying to steal Gavin made some re-arrangement for his reception necessary. As he was to be met at the quiet little nook in the swamp, instead of the noisy station at Algonquin, young Mrs. Martin made her second suggestion. ”

“ The word Algonquin is still applied to a small local band, at the Lake of Two Mountains, on the Utawas river, near Montreal, but this term, first bestowed by the French, has long been a generic phrase for the entire race, who are identified by the ties of a common original language in the United States and British America.
One of the most curious opinions of this people is their belief in the mysterious and sacred character of fire. They obtain sacred fire, for all national and ecclesiastical purposes, from the flint. Their national pipes are lighted with this fire. ”

“ Algonquin is a poor artist, who paints lovely sunsets and things, nights, and cuts cordwood during the day, struggling to win a competence so that he can sue for the hand of Sciataca, the wealthy daughter of a plumber.
She does not love him much, and treats him coldly; but he perseveres till one of his exquisite pictures is egorly snapt up by a wealthy man at $2. ”

“ In February of 1643 a band of Algonquin braves came by, leaving their wives and children in camp while they went forth on the warpath against their enemies, the Iroquois. A few days later they were visited by Algonquin hunters, for there was much sport around. The chief of this band stayed behind with his wife, desirous to live a civilized life, and the parish register records their baptism and their Christian marriage, on March 7th, of that year, the first to be recorded in the marriage book. ”

“ I have thus passed in brief review the more prominent of the Algonquin tribes; those whose struggles and sufferings form the theme of the ensuing History. In speaking of the Iroquois, some of the distinctive peculiarities of the Algonquins have already been hinted at. It must be admitted that, in moral stability and intellectual vigor, they are inferior to the former; though some of the most conspicuous offspring of the wilderness, Metacom, Tecumseh, and Pontiac himself, owned their blood and language. ”

“ Now for the first time the Algonquin notices that others in the same cabin are putting their heads together and talking in low voices. The very air seems full of mystery. The busy ones have dropped their accustomed occupations, and the idle ones have ceased their noisy talk and their games. All are wondering at the strange news from the Indian capital, telling of the unaccountable disappearance of the Frenchmen who formed the little colony at Onondaga. ”

“ And when the chief saw him coming near and standing up on his toboggan, he lost his temper and let fly an arrow straight at the young man’s heart; but the arrow stuck in Goose-cap’s bead, and the Algonquin left it sticking there and took no notice. Only when he got to the top he said to the chief, “Now it’s your turn,” and put [Pg 340] him on the toboggan and sent him spinning down into the valley. And whether the chief ever came up again we don’t know; but at any rate his daughter married the Algonquin without any more fuss, and went home with him. ”

“ The Northeastern Algonquin always distinguish very accurately between their ancient lore and that derived from the whites. I have often heard French fairy tales and Aesop's fables Indianized to perfection, but the narrator always knew that they were not N'Karnayoo, "of the old time."
Glooskap is now living in a Norse-like Asa-heim; but there is to come a day when the arrows will be ready, and he will go forth and slay all the wicked. Malsum the Wolf, his twin brother, the typical colossal type of all Evil, will come to life, with all the giant cannibals, witches, and wild devils slain of old ”

“ We look down on the mountains,
This is the Song of the Mountains.
And there is a similar strange charm in many another song of the Algonquin (New England) Red Indians, whose legends and traditions, orally chanted from generation to generation, have been saved from oblivion by the literal translations of Professor Dyneley Prince and the late Charles Leland. [1] They constitute an uncommonly interesting bit of aboriginal literature, and of a race now so rapidly perishing that “in fifty years there will be hardly a single representative left.” ”

“ I had an Iroquois prisoner last year whom I delivered to you. Here is a pipe that I give you to give to the Iroquois if you wish, so that we may smoke together when we meet.
The Algonquins: I do not have any prisoners to deliver to you, my father. The Algonquin is one of your children who has always clung to you, and who will be there as long as he lives. I pray the Master of Life that what you do here today will endure. ”

“ The very trees about the unfortunate Algonquins seemed to turn into frenzied warriors, who, brandishing their tomahawks, rushed upon their foe. The canoes were thrown to the ground, and in the confusion which followed, brave deeds were done. A fierce hand-to-hand fight ensued, but the Algonquins, mowed down by that first fire, and hopelessly outclassed, were driven nearer and nearer to that perilous brink, where leapt the mighty cataract into the foaming rapids and whirlpools below. ”

“ Abnaki, Algonquin, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Conoy, Cree, Delaware, Fox, Illinois, Kickapoo, Mahican, Massachuset, Menominee, Miami, Micmac, Mohegan, Montagnais, Montauk, Munsee, Nanticoke, Narraganset, Nauset, Nipmuc, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Pamlico, Pennacook, Pequot, Piankishaw, Pottawotomi, Powhatan, Sac, Shawnee, Siksika, Wampanoag, Wappinger. The present number of the Algonquian stock is about 95,600, of whom about 60,000 are in Canada and the remainder in the United States. ”

“ This story is told by La Potherie, I. 299, and, more briefly, by Perrot, 107. La Potherie, writing more than half a century after the time in question, represents the Iroquois as habitually in awe of the Algonquins. In this all the contemporary writers contradict him.
This is but one of several stories that tradition has preserved of his exploits; and, with all reasonable allowances, it is certain that the crafty and valiant Algonquin was the model of an Indian warrior. That which follows rests on a far safer basis. ”

“ There has always been intercourse between Greenland and Labrador, and in this latter country we find the first Algonquin Indians. Even at the present day there are men among the Micmacs and Passamaquoddies who have gone on their hunting excursions even to the Eskimo. ”

“ Another party of this Algonquin force, which conquered the country lying round the sources of the Mississippi, proceeded through the Turtle River to Red Lake, and thence descended into the valley of the Red River of Hudson's Bay, where their descendants still reside. Large portions of these mingled with the Canadian stock, forming that remarkable people called Boisbrules. These advanced parties pressed into the buffalo plains, along the Rivers Assinabwoin and Saskatchawine, which is the ultimate western area of the spread of the Algonquin language. ”

“ There is the Algonquin camp, and their scouts are close to us; watching both the lake and the forest. A singing-bird has spoken to them, and they think White Eagle is behind them. Before daybreak, they will enter the Seneca River, at the outlet of the lake, on their way back to the Canadas."
"But must we remain here till they are gone?" asked Jamie.
"No," smiled the youth. "Swift Arrow will now lead his paleface friends out of danger, and pilot them safely to the spot where the White Eagle awaits the Algonquins, at the portage by the Seneca Falls." ”

“ IX. Algonquin Family.—This ethnical and linguistic group, next in extent to the Tinneys, but far more important historically and numerically, stretches from the Tinney domain southwards to the latitude of South Carolina, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. Most of the tribes on the Atlantic seaboard have either disappeared, migrated westwards, or been collected into the reserves. But many have acquired such celebrity in the stirring records of Indian warfare that the more noted with their original geographical domain will be included in the subjoined list of all the Algonquin races. ”

“ And she replied, laughing, "Because they were all begotten (or born) in the night-time, but you are a child of the day and of light." [Footnote: There is probably an allusion in this to the Wabanaki, or Children of Light; that is, the Algonquin. This story was told me by Noel Josephs, a Passamaquoddy. I have been told by an old Passamaquoddy woman that the descendants of Pook-jin-skwess were the 'Nmmok-skwess. This stealing the white boy is related in another tale more folly. It may refer to the early dark Eskimo.]
How Glooskap became friendly to the Loons, and made them his Messengers. ”