USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood > Part 4
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panied by two hostile witnesses, of opposing political parties, who shall be examined under oath as to the results of the work.
When Count Volney visited this country, in 1795, he met and inter- viewed at length the great Miami chief, The Little Turtle. Volney explained to him his theory that the Indians were descendants of Tartars who had made their way to this continent. The Little Turtle inquired what was to prevent the Indians from going over to Asia, and becoming the ancestors of the Tartars, and Volney replied that he knew of no objection except that the Black Gowns would not allow it. With true Hoosier independence, The Little Turtle expressed his opinion that the Black Gowns did not know any more about it than other people. The situation is not greatly changed today. Among ethnologists the general tendency is to the belief that the Mound Builders were the ancestors of some of the Indian tribes, probably the Muscogeans. This faith is largely based on the mention of Indian mound building by the De Soto chronicles, but it must be confessed that the claims that they record any earth work approaching that of the Mound Builders in extent is not well founded.
The strongest statement in them is that of the Knight of Elvas, as to the town of Ucita: "The chief's house stood near the beach, upon a very high mount made by hand for defense." 41 De Biedma, speak- ing of the town of Icasqui, says: "It is the custom of the Caciques to have near their houses a high hill, made by hand, some having the houses placed thereon." 42 Ranjel says: "This Talimeco was a village holding extensive sway, and this house of worship was on a high mound and much revered." 43 He also says of the town of Athahachi, "The chief was on a kind of balcony, on a mound at one end of the square." 44 Garcilaso de la Vega, "the Inca", says these Indians built mounds to escape floods, which would have been a "thoughtful Gretchen" performance in a country with as many superfluous hills as the United States. But he was not with the expedition, and he says that only the caciques and their attendants had houses on the mounds. This is the sum of the mounds mentioned and there is not a word about any of them being used for defense in any way. This is very significant, for the chroniclers were all soldiers, and they described all the defenses they met in their repeated conflicts. Thus, the Knight of Elvas says of the town of Ullibahali: "The place was enclosed, and near by ran a small stream. The fence, which was like that seen afterwards to other
41 Bourne's Narratives of De Soto, Vol. 1, p. 23.
42 Ib. Vol. 2, p. 27.
43 Ib. p. 101.
44 Ib. p. 120.
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INDIANA AND INDIANANS
towns, was of large timber sunk deep and firmly into the earth, having many long poles the size of the arm, placed crosswise to nearly the height of a lance, with embrasures, and coated with mud inside and out, having loop-holes for archery." 45 And Ranjel says: "They came to an old village that had two fences and good towers, and these walls are after this fashion: They drive many thick stakes tall and straight close to one another. These are then interlaced with long withes, and then overlaid with clay, within and without. They make loop-holes at intervals and they make their towers and turrets separated by the curtain and parts of the wall as seems best. And at a distance it looks like a fine wall or rampart and such stockades are very strong." 46 He also says as to the town of Pacaha: "This town was a very good one, thoroughly well stockaded; and the walls were furnished with towers and a ditch round about, for the most part full of water which flows by a canal from the river. * * In Aquixo and Casqui and Pacha, they saw the best villages seen up to that time, better stockaded and fortified." 47
It is quite safe to assume that the real purpose of these mounds was the same as that stated by Father LePetit as to similar mounds in the villages of the Natchez. He says: "The Sun is the principal object of veneration to these people; as they cannot conceive of anything which can be above this heavenly body, nothing else appears to them more worthy of their homage. It is for this reason that the great Chief of this nation, who knows nothing on the earth more dignified than him- self, takes the title of brother of the Sun, and the credulity of the people maintains him in the despotic authority which he claims. To enable them better to converse together, they raise a mound of artificial soil, on which they build his cabin, which is of the same construction as the temple. * * When the great Chief dies, they demolish his cabin, and then raise a new mound, on which they build the cabin of him who is to replace him in this dignity, for he never lodges in that of his prede- cessor. '' 48 It is much more probable that the mound in the Randolph County inclosure, previously described, which is 100 feet in diameter and only 9 feet high, was intended for the Chief's cabin and the temple than that it was designed for observation purposes.
But the fact that the southern Indians did not build fortifications of earth is no more argument that they were not descendants of the Mound Builders than would be the fact that we build houses of brick
45 Vol. 1, p. 85.
46 Ib. Vol. 2, p. 115.
47 Ib. p. 139.
48 Jesuit Relations, Vol. 68, pp. 127, 129.
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INDIANA AND INDIANANS
and stone, instead of the log houses of a century ago, an argument that we were not descendants of the log house builders. The defences they did build were the same as those commonly built by the northern Indians, except that their stockades were coated with clay, which pro- tected them from fire. They may have learned from their enemies that stockades were more easily constructed and more easily defended than earth walls. The fact that they built mounds, and that the building was connected with their religion; coupled with the fact that their mortuary customs furnish the rational explanation of our burial mounds, and their games furnish an explanation for our discoidal stones, puts them in closer relation to the Mound Builders than any other living people. Of course it is possible that the Mound Builders were entirely exterminated; or, what would be more probable by Indian custom, that the adults were killed, and the children adopted by the conquerors; but if not exterminated, their most probable descendants are among these tribes of the southern states.
With our present light, which may never be increased, the origin and fate of these people are merely matters of conjecture; and in that line there is an interesting suggestion in the tribal legends of the southern Indians. The Muscogees and the Choctaws have traditions that their ancestors came out of a hole in the ground-not a lone father and mother of a future people, but, as Captain Romans recorded it: "their whole, very numerous nation, walked forth at once, without so much as warning any neighbor." All traditions have some sort of foundation, and Indian traditions are commonly based on a perversion of some word. This is due to the fact that instead of compounding entire words, as we do, they make compounds of syllables of the primary words, or even represent them by a single letter. In consequence a very slight change in the pronunciation of a compound word may make as startling a change in the meaning as was made in the historic poem when the printer dropped the "r" from "friend", and the poet lamented that "so slight a change should change a friend into a fiend." It would be simple and natural for a tribe that had formerly lived in caves to develop such a tradition as that above from the fact that they had come out of the caves for future residence. An exactly similar perversion of this concept, "coming out", will be found in the following chapter in a legend of the origin of the Miamis. If we assume that the Mound Builders of Ohio and Indiana were driven into Kentucky and Tennessee, where part or all of them took refuge in caves; and that centuries later they migrated or were driven into the Gulf States, we have at least a basis for explanation of a large part of the known facts.
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But more forcible than all of these considerations is the considera- tion of language. The most astounding delusion as to Indian languages is the idea, constantly repeated by ethnologists and anthropologists, that they "are not inflected as European languages are." In reality the Algonkin languages are more highly inflected than any existing European language, as may be shown by two simple Miami sentences, as follows :
na-wa'-ka wa-př'-si-ta läm'-wa, I see a dog.
na-ma'-ni wa-pi'-ki sä'-ni, I see a white stone.
It will be noted that each of these words ends with a vowel, and in the Miami every word ends in a vowel sound when fully pronounced, although these vowel endings are commonly dropped in many cases in ordinary conversation. The basic grammatical distinction of the lan- guage is between the animate and the inanimate, the animate including those things that have, or are supposed to have, sentient life. Things of the vegetable world are not animate unless personified for some suffi- cient reason. To coordinate it with Gender, Number and Person, we will call this quality, or distinction "Sentience". The ending "a" of läm'-wa indicates that the object named is animate; the ending "i" of sá'-ni indicates that the object named is inanimate; and these two objects control the inflection of the remaining words in the sentences. In Miami no verb is transitive unless the action actually passes over to some other person or thing, and when transitive, the inflection indi- cates the Sentience, and usually the Person and Number of the object. Na-wa'-ka, of itself, means I see him, or her, i. e. something animate, third Person, singular Number. Na-ma'-ni, of itself, means I see it, something inanimate, and therefore necessarily third Person. All ad- jectives are verbs in form, conjugated as other intransitive verbs. Wa-pi'-si-ta, of itself, means he or she is white. Wa-pi'-ki, of itself, means it is white. If I wish to say "I am white", I cannot use either of these forms, but must say wa-pi'-si-a'-ni.
The distinguishing characteristic of most of the languages of North and South America is not "agglutination", or "polysynthesis", which exist to some extent in all languages, but this basic grammatical dis- tinction of Sentience. In all inflected Old World languages, Aryan, Semitic, or any other, the basic grammatical distinction is of sex. Any- one who has attended a high school is familiar with the "hic, haec, hoc," and "meus, mea, meum," of the Latin, and the others are similar. After wide investigation, and inquiry of missionaries, I have been un- able to find any Old World language that has this distinction of Sen- tience-not even the Eskimo, which is common to both continents. It
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is an universally recognized rule of philology that no language ever loses its grammar on account of contact with other languages. Thus, English has changed in words and pronunciation until the original Anglo-Saxon is like a foreign language. It has adopted thousands of words from Latin and various other languages, but it has naturalized them, and English grammar is still Teutonic. Under this rule, it is impossible that a people having the basic grammatical distinction of sex should change it to a basic distinction of Sentience; and this appeals to common understanding, for it is impossible to conceive how such a change could occur in a language handed down from father to son.
The most notable exception to this American characteristic is in the Muscogean languages. The Choctaw, for example, has no inflection whatever, its place being supplied by adjuncts. The Choctaw word ha-tak means man or men, with no change of form for Person, Number or Case, and Gender shown only by the meaning of the word itself. Neither does it affect in any way the form of the verb. On the principle stated, such a language could not be derived from an Algonkin source, or vice versa. We have then at least two independent origins of lan- guage on this continent, both independent of the Old World; and this would be accounted for on the hypothesis that the southern Indians were descendants of the Mound Builders. It is to be regretted that the exist- ing records of Indian languages do not furnish sufficient material for the full development of this theory. Max Muller expressed his surprise that Americans had not given more attention to the record and study of Indian languages, and so have a few Americans; but the work has made little progress, and the opportunity for it is rapidly passing away, all for the lack of money by those who see its importance. If any American of wealth desires a monument more imperishable than stone or brass, he could not secure it more certainly, or more economically, than by endowing a Society for the Preservation of Indian Languages.
But an independent origin of language on this continent implies an independent origin of man; and here we come into opposition to both the Black Gown and the Darwinian. What of it? Both of them ought to concede the Divine origin of at least one teaching of the Bible, and that is: "The truth shall make you free." In this case the difference between the Old and the New Worlds is even deeper than language. It reaches to the habits of thought of the people. Whether you regard the Old Testament as a Divine revelation or a compilation of tradition, you must admit its antiquity. From the first it is full of the sex idea- "male and female created he them"; "male and female" they went into the ark; the promise "Thou shalt be blessed above all people : there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your
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cattle"; and the curse of childlessness which caused the mother of John the Baptist to speak of "my reproach among men". On the other hand, the Indian, without domestic animals, cared little for the sex of the animal he pursued for food. The important thing to him was what was alive and what was not. There is a large, and probably growing, class who, with conscious superiority, dismiss any suggestion of a direct ac+ of creation with the statement that it is not scientific. Very well. To all such I offer this nut to crack. On what scientific principle will you account for the unquestionable fact that from the Hebrews, whose lan- guage, religion, and daily habit of thought were saturated with the sex idea, there suddenly developed the three unprecedented and ab- solutely unique concepts of a Sexless Trinity, a Sexless Heaven, and a Virgin Birth ?
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CHAPTER II
THE INDIANA INDIANS
In the last quarter of a century, the best Miami interpreter in Indiana was Gabriel Godfroy. He was a son of Francois Godfroy, a French Miami half blood and his wife Sakwata, a Miami woman. It is stated in local histories that Francois Godfroy's Indian name was Pah-lons'-wa, but he had no Indian name, and this is merely the Miami effort to pro- nounce his French name. They have no sound of "f", "r", or "v" in their language, and substitute "p" for "f", and "l" for "r". Gabriel was born near Hartford City, in Blackford County, January 1, 1834, and a few days later his mother asked an old Indian friend to give him a name, as is often done by the Indians. The old man gave him his own name, Wa'-pa-na-ki'-ka-pwa, or White Blossoms. The old man held the tribal office of Ka'-pi-a, which they usually translate "overseer", but which is more nearly equivalent to umpire or judge. His chief function was, in case of a receipt of annuity goods, or on a joint hunt, to see that an equitable distribution was made of the proceeds. Gabriel was sometimes called Ka'-pi-a on this account, but the title did not be- long to him. Neither was he a chief, but simply an amiable, honorable gentleman, who bore adversity bravely, and was universally respected.
Indeed his good-heartedness was his financial ruin. His father's family was one of those left in Indiana when the rest of the tribe was moved to Kansas, and was given several reservation tracts, one half section of which was in the Mississinewa valley, opposite Peru, near which Francois had a trading house. To this Gabriel succeeded, and on it he erected a fine brick home, where he kept open house for all his Indian and white acquaintances; and he never lacked for company. He held one office-that of road supervisor-and he blamed politics for his reverses. Politicians persuaded the Indians that they had the right of suffrage, and ought to vote; and after they began voting the County Commissioners decided that they ought to be taxed, and put the Indian lands on the tax-duplicate. At that time the national government was not giving as much care to its "wards" as it does now, and the Indians had to look out for themselves. The brunt of the litigation fell on God- froy ; and after the case had dragged along for thirteen years, and what
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was left of his property had gone for costs and attorney's fees, it was dismissed.
He had no schooling. When he was about ten years old his father sent him to Vincennes for instruction by M. Villier, the village peda- gogue, but within a week the youthful student was so homesick that he was packed back home. However he had a bright mind and a fine memory. The book of nature was very attractive to him, and he be- came an encyclopedia of forest lore and local history. His excellence as an interpreter was due to his general information and the fact that he knew English so well that he could think in it as well as in Miami. No Indian interpreter is very reliable until he reaches that point. I did considerable language work with him in the last five years of his life-he died on August 14, 1910-and one day, when we were talking about the early history of the Miamis, he gave me the following legend of the origin of the tribe, which he had learned from Ki-tun'-ga (i. e. Sleepy, commonly known to the whites as Charley.) who used to take the boys fishing at night, and tell them stories while waiting for a bite :
Ä-HON'-DJ KIN-DO'-KÌ PI-A'-WATC MI-A'-MI-A'-KĨ. WHENCE FIRST THEY CAME THE MIAMIS.
Mi-ta'-mì
Mi-aʼ-mi-a'-kř ni-pin-gonʼ-djř
In the beginning
the Miamis from the water
sa-ka'-tci-wä-tcik'.
Ä-hon'-djï sa-ka'-tci-wä-watc'
they came out.
From where they came out
Sa'-kï-wä-yun'-gì
I-ta'-ming. Ni-pin-gon'-dji
Coming Out Place
it is named. From the water
nä-wã-yo'-sa-tcik'
mo-kř-tcř'-kř. “Pá-mit'-ta-nok
the first ones they came to the top. "Limbs of trees
sä-ka'-kwe-lo'"".
ìl-l'-tř-tcik'. Ná'-hỗ
catch hold of" they told each other. And when
sa-ka'-tcă-wã-tcik'; nunʼ-gă ni-a'-hř a-min-o'-tã-tcik'.
they came out now
there they made a town.
Ni-an'-djì
ma'-tcă-ka-tik';
măn-o'-tä-nă na-ka-tan'-gk.
From there they went away the town they left it.
Ka-pot'-wä nʼgoʼ-tă a-pwa'-yat. A-pw'-pi-at
After a while one he went back
When he came
kwǐ-ta-ka'-kř
to-sän'-ì-a'-kř na-waʼ-kik
other
Indians he saw them
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INDIANA AND INDIANANS
Saʼ-kř-wä-yun'-gì. Ná-pa'-sa naʼ-př
(at) Coming Out Place.
He was surprised but
il-la-ta'-wa-tcik'
il-la-ta'-wai-ang'. Nä-hi'-sa wěn'-da-watc'
they talked (as) we talk. And then he called them
Ma-ta'-kis-sa'-na-ka'-na
il-la-tcř'-kř i'-na to-sán' -- a'-kř.
Old Moccasins
he named them those Indians.
Mot'-yŤ n'gìʼ-k-liʼ-ma-soʼ
wän'-dj-na-ko'-sì-watc'.
Not I do not know
of what tribe they were.
Mot-yŤ-wã-yák
kř-ká-li'-mű-wat' ä'-hř i-a'-watc. O-ni'-nă
Nobody
he knows
where
they went. This
năn-găʼ-kř
I-ci'-mì-wa'-tcă,
nănʼ-gă-a Sä'-ka-kwät'
my mothers
they told me,
my mother
She Takes Hold
a-mī-sa'-lī
Wa-pan'-gì-kwä. Tcűʼ-kï
to-sän'-Ť-a'-kï
her elder sister Swan woman. All
the Indians
ki-o'-ca-kř
á-lam'-tan-gik'.
Si-pi'-wi Sa'-kì-wã-sì-pi'-wÌ
old they believe it.
The river Coming Out River
wěn'-dan-gìk'
ä-honʼ-djì
sa'-ka-tci-wä-watc'. Ī-niʼ-nă
they call it.
from where
they came out. That
wi-on-gon'-djì
năn‘-jí wěn-dř'-tcí-tcă'-kř Sä'-ka-kwät',
on account of often
they give names
She Takes Hold,
Sá-ka'-ko-nang'
Sá-kaʼ-ko-kwa.
He Grasps It,
Holding Woman.
The river referred to is the St. Joseph's, of Lake Michigan, and Sa-ki-wa-yun-gi is the name of South Bend. This fable teaches many things, and first the tendency of mankind to make stories to fit names. The obvious source of the story is the fact that in the early period the site of South Bend was the beginning of the portage to the Kankakee, and consequently the coming out place for travelers going that way, while the chief distinction of the river was that it was the way to reach the portage. Godfroy started with the statement that he got the story from Ki-tun'-ga; but he winds up with the statement that his mother and aunt told him about it, and that all the old Indians be- lieved it. It was a general tradition, and yet the common use of the portage had not been discontinued as much as a century when Godfroy was a boy. It was not used by the Miamis after they settled in Indiana, for they were never a "canoe people". La Potherie says of them : "'They travel by water very rarely but are great walkers, which has
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INDIANA AND INDIANANS
caused them to be called Metousceptinioueks, or Pilgrims". They did not use birchbark canoes in Indiana, partly because suitable birch did not grow here, and partly because a boat of that kind would soon be made useless by the stones and snags of our rivers. An Indiana Indian
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GABRIEL GODFROY (Wa'-pa-na-kî'-ka-pwa-or White Blossoms)
had little use for a boat except for hunting and fishing, and a dug-out was entirely satisfactory for these purposes. The French fur traders used bateaux or the large dug-outs called pirogues. In emergency, In- dians, French and pioneer Americans would make a raft of logs tied together with vines, which the Canadians called a "cajeu."
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INDIANA AND INDIANANS
The story also illustrates a habit of mind of the Indian. The first essential of wood-craft is to know "the reason of things", and he was constantly seeking them. An Indian will revert to anything unusual or strange again and again, until he works out some explanation for it. In this case the story is confirmed not only by the names of the place and the river, but also by the personal names. Indian babies were often named on account of some little peculiarity manifested in the first few days of their lives, and such names as these were originally adopted for infants that showed a disposition to clutch at objects, as many babies do, and later were still more widely spread by the practice of naming for relatives and friends. But all this was forgotten when such a fine theory of the name was presented. Such stories are common everywhere. Within fifty years the Winnebagoes invented a story that the name of Chicago originated from a monster manito skunk being seen to land at that place, whence the name "Place of the Skunk." In reality the name means "Place of garlic-or wild onions", the same stem, ci-kag, occurring in both words, as is conclusively shown by the testimony of Tonty, LaMothe Cadillac, and other early writers. In like manner the Romans made the story of Romulus and Remus to fit the name of Rome; and we have half-a-dozen wholly unfounded stories to explain the word "Hoosier".
As to the words of the story, it will be noted that some of them do not end with a vowel. This is due to the common practice of the Miami to abbreviate in ordinary conversation, just as we use can't and don't, when the context shows all that the ending would show. As to spelling, all Indian words in this book are in the uniform orthography recom- mended by Major Powell, of the Bureau of Ethnology, which may be briefly stated as follows: All unmarked vowels have the "Continental" force, which is, e as a in fate or ey in they ; a as in far; i as in pique, or e in me; o as in note; u as in rule; w and y are always consonants, as in wet and yet. The short vowels are ű as in bat; è as in bet; I as in bit, and ă as in but. Others are â as in law, and û as in pull. The diphthongs are ai as i in pine; au as ou in out; âi as oi in boil. The consonants have their usual English force, with these exceptions: g is always hard as in gig; c is always soft as sh in shall; te is sounded as ch in chin; j is as z in azure; dj is as j in judge; q represents a rare sound of gh, similar to German ch.
Finally, the story comes as near accounting for the origin of the Miamis as any offered elsewhere. In his speech to Gen. Wayne at the treaty of Greenville, The Little Turtle, the Miami head chief, said : "It is well known by all my brothers present, that my forefathers kindled the first fire at Detroit; from thence he extended his lines to
,
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INDIANA AND INDIANANS
the headwaters of the Scioto; from thence to its mouth; from thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash; and from thence to Chicago, on Lake Michigan". This may possibly be true, but it certainly is not true, as he farther asserted, that the territory described "has been en- joyed by my forefathers, time immemorial, without molestation or dis- pute". Of assertions of title to this region, that can be considered historical, the one that reaches farthest back into the past is in a deed given by the Iroquois sachems to King William of England in 1701, and it is here presented as the starting point in Indiana history.
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