The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I, Part 61

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Boston : Ticknor
Number of Pages: 702

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MAMUSSE WUNNEETUPANATAMWE

90 90 90

UP-BIBLUM GOD

NANEESWE

NUKKONE TESTAMENT KAH WONK WUSKU TESTAMENT.

Ne quofbkinnumuk aafhpe Wurtinneumob CHRIST Lob afoo welit

JOHN ELIOT

CAMBRIDGE,

Priateucop nathpe Samwel Green kwh Marmaduke ?oinfon,

1 6 6 3.

An English binder, John Ratlife (or Ratclif- 3 fe), whom a prospect of work on the Indian Bible TITLE TO THE INDIAN BIBLE.1 brought to New England, was employed by Mr. Usher, and paid two and sixpence per Bible, he finding "thread, glue, pasteboard, and leather claps," for himself. In 1664 he addressed a memorial to the Commissioners of the United Colonies, complaining of the insufficiency of this pay. "I finde by

in the Lenox Library, New York, and the library of the late Mr. John Carter Brown, of Provi- dence. Mr. Brinley's copy brought $700 at the sale of the first part of his library, March, 1879.

1 [This and the other fac-similes in this sec- tion are taken from copies in the Mass. Ilist. Society's library. The present is somewhat reduced. - ED.]

470

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

experience," -he writes, from Boston, August 30,-" that in things be- longing to my trade, I here pay 18s. for that which in England I could buy for four shillings, they being things not formerly much used in this country." .

The Indian title is as follows : -

Literally: "The-whole Holy his-Bible God, both Old Testament and also New Testament. This turned [translated] by the-servant-of Christ, who is-called John Eliot," &c. At the end of the Old Testament are the words, Wohkukquohsinwog Quoshodtumwacnuog, i. c. "The Prophets are ended."

The New Testament is followed by Eliot's metrical version of the Psalms : Wame Ketoohomac Uketoohomaongash David (i. e. All the-singing Songs-of David) making one hundred double-column pages. They end on the second leaf of a sheet, and on its third leaf follows what has been called a " Catechism." It contains some rules for holy living, given as answers to two questions: 1. "How can I walk all the day long with God?" II. "What should a Christian do, to keep perfectly holy the Sabbath day?"

The paper used for this Bible was of excellent quality, of the size known to old printers as " pot " (from its original water-mark, a tankard), which should measure 1212 by 15 inches, giving 614 by 712 for the quarto fold. The type is described by Mr. Thomas as " full-faced bourgeois on brevier body."

The first edition was exhausted in less than twenty years after its publication. Many copies were destroyed or lost during the Indian war of 1675-78.1 With the assistance of the Rev. John Cotton 2 of Plymouth, John Cotton Eliot undertook a thorough revision of the translation for a new edition. Green, with his Indian journeyman "James Printer,"- the only man, according to Eliot, who was " able to compose the sheets and correct the press, with under- standing," - began their work on the New Testament in 1680, and finished it about the end of 1681. The Old Testament followed slowly. Beginning in 1682, it was not through the press before the autumn of 1685. This edition was 2,000 copies. The Psalms in Metre (thoroughly revised) and the two-page "Catechism" follow the New Testament, as in the first edition. To the general title is added, after the name of the translator, " Nahohtôeu onchetôe Printeuoomuk," i. e. "Second-time amended impres- sion." Green's name stands alone in the imprint: "CAMBRIDGE. Printeuoop nashpe Samuel Green. MDCLXXXV."

1 [There seems also to have been some trouble

2 [He was the son of John Cotton, of Boston in the printing office at this time. See Green's Sibley, Harvard Graduates, p. 496, gives an ac- letter in the " Winthrop Papers" in 5 Mass. Ilist. Coll. i. 422. - ED.]

count of him, with references. - ED.]

471

THE INDIAN TONGUE AND ITS LITERATURE.

At the end of the Old Testament are tables of the "Book-Names in the Bible contained, and who many Chapters in caclr Book." At the foot of this page an crratum in the impression of the New Testament is pointed out: " James 1. 26. Asuhkaue wenan, ogketash, qut asookckodtam nehenwonche wuttah." Four words had been omitted in printing the verse referred to: " After tongue, read, but deceiveth his-own heart."

In some few copies of this edition, a dedication to Robert Boyle and the Company for the Propagation of the Gospel to the Indians, printed on a single page, was inserted between the title and the beginning of the text. A few years ago Prince's copy (now in the Boston Public Library) was the only one in which this dedication had been found. Since then, at least two others have come to light: one is in the Lenox Library, New York; the other, from the Marquis of Hastings's library, purchased by Mr. Brinley in 1869, - clean and fresh as when it left the hands of the Boston binder, - now belongs to the Hon. Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, N. Y.1

An interesting paper might be made by bringing together such frag- ments of the history of all known copies of Eliot's Bible as could be gathered from the autograph names and notes of their former owners. One of Mr. Brinley's copies of the edition of 1685 belonged to the Rev. John Baily, of Watertown, and afterwards assistant minister of the First Church in Boston: "Jo. Baily, Jan. 1, 8$. N. E." Secretary Rawson was its next owner, and then it passed to his son, Grindall, the minister of Mendon, who used to preach to the Indians in their own language, of which (says Mather) "he was a master that had scarce an equal." He wrote in it: " Grindall Rawson. His Indian Bible, Given him by his Father. 1712." Another copy in the same collection has the autograph of Governor "Wm. Stoughton," and below, that of the Rev. " John Danforth, 1713,"- the son of Eliot's colleague in Roxbury. A third belonged, in 1759, to Zachariah Mayhew, who succeeded his father (Rev. Experience Mayhew) as Indian missionary at Martha's Vineyard.

Several copies of the second edition - nearly all imperfect, soiled, and worn by use - bear the autographs of Indian owners. One of these is in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth. Josiah Willard (the future Secretary) gave it

1 In neither edition can Eliot's Bible be re- garded as a "very rare " book. Mr. Nathaniel Paine, in 1873, printed a list of fifty-four copies owned in the United States, -twenty-six of the first edition and twenty-cight of the second. At least five or six copies might now be added to that list. The Lenox Library and Mr. Brinley's have cach two of the twenty "royal copies " (with the dedication to Charles 11.) of the first edition. But (as was observed of Roger Wil- liams's Key) in apparent violation of a law of trade, as copies multiply, the price rises. Forty years ago a fair copy of "Eliot's Bible " - the edition did not matter-would sell in a New York or Boston auction-room, perhaps, for $40. In 1860 Dr. Wynne, in an account of Mr. John

Allan's collection, mentions his copy of the Indian Bible, and remarks that one " was re- cently sold at the sale of Mr. Corwin's collection for two hundred dollars." Mr. Allan's copy - one of the "royal " twenty-was sold, a few years later, for $$25, and was re-sold at a con- siderable advance. Mr. John A. Rice's copy was bought at auction for $1,135, and sold, in IS70, for $1,050. Mr. Bernard Quaritch, the well-known London bookseller, sold Mr. Petit's copy, a few years ago, for {200, and in his last General Catalogue (1874) marks a copy of the first edition, with English title and dedication (from the library of Trinity College), at £225. If many more copies are found, nobody can guess how high the price will rise.

472

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

in 1706 to John Wainwright (probably the Harvard graduate of 1709, son of Col. John, of Ipswich), who wrote: "Joannis Wainwright Liber Donum Dom Josia Willard, Jan' 10, 170g." A few years afterwards it came into the possession of "Josiah Attaunitt," alias " Josiah Ned," who left his name on several pages and scribbled memoranda on the margins. He seems to have been one of the Christian Indians who lived near Duxbury or at Mattakesit. In one place he wrote, " Josiah Ned, 1718;" in another, " Josiah Attaunitt yeu wutaimun in March 18 in . i. e. "J. A. this belongs to him," &c. On the margin of one page is a note, dated "ut febnnany 7 tay 1715." (The Massachusetts Indians did not pronounce the ", substituting 2 for it.) The writer was "at this time at the house of Pammohkauwut, who lives at Duxbury " (" ut ohquompi ut wekit Pammoh- kauwut noh pamontog ut Togspane"). In another place the name of Duxbury is differently spelled : -

"fevuany bwitay 20 tay, 1715, ut wekit pamohkauwut ut tukspany kah yeu wutappin annis mommehthemmut unnoowau, nuttom nasit saup ; " (i. e. " February, Friday, 20th day, 1715, in the house of Pammohkauwut at Duxbury, and here lodged. Annis Mommehthemmut said, I am going to Nauset to-morrow.")

One of the Connecticut Historical Society's copies -" Recd from the Revd Mr. Experience Mayhew by Mr. Ebenezer Allien, April, 1719"- has two or three autographs of an Indian owner, probably of the Vineyard : "Nen elisha yeu noosooquohwonk,"-i. e., "I, Elisha, this my writing," and once, "thes my piple" (bible). In many places, particularly the books of Genesis and Isaiah and the Psalms, the paper is fairly worn out by use. A copy in the library of the American Antiquarian Society was the prop- erty of an Indian named " Josiah Spotsher," who left some manuscript notes on its margins. Between the leaves of one of Mr. Brinley's copies was found an autograph letter from Zachary Hossueit, an Indian preacher at Gayhead, Martha's Vineyard, to Solomon Briant, the pastor of the Indian church at Marshpee ("Mespeh "), written in 1766.

After mention of Eliot's version it would be unpardonable to omit the eel-pot story. Everybody knows it; but then everybody expects either to tell or hear it again whenever the Indian Bible is talked of. When Eliot - so the story goes- was translating Judges v. 28, -" The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice," &c., - he had some difficulty in finding the proper Indian word for " lattice." At last, after much questioning and describing, " a long, barbarous, and unpronounceable word " was given him, and took its place in the verse. Years afterwards he discovered that he had used for " lattice " the Indian name for an cel-pot. The story is a good one, and the only fault to be found with it is, that, in the verse referred to, Eliot merely transferred the English word " lattice," without attempting to translate it: -

" Ohkasoh Sisera sohhooquaeu ut kenogkeneganit, kah mishontooau papâshipe lattice-ut."

473

THE INDIAN TONGUE AND ITS LITERATURE.

Eliot made, of course, some mistakes in translating, though the "cel-pot" lattice is not one of them. On the whole, his version was probably as good as any first version that has been made, from his time to ours, in a previ- ously unwritten and so-called " barbarous " language. It is certainly much better than some modern specimens of mission-translation. The most curious mistake I have detected is in the word used for "virgin." Among the Indians chastity was a masculine virtuc, and Eliot's Natick interpreter did not understand that the noun wanted was feminine. Subsequent instruc- tion doubtless made the matter clear; but in the Indian Bible the parable in Matthew xxV. 1-12, is of " the ten chaste young men" (piukqussuog fenompaog, - the syllable omp marking the masculine gender), - and so in every place in which "virgin" occurs in the English version, though in most cases the context clearly establishes the true gender. The right word was keegsquau, which is to be found (though seldom used) in every Algon- kin language. Another little mistake occurs in 2 Kings ii. 23, where the bad boys say to the prophet, "Go up, thou bald head." In the Indian the last word is, literally, " ball-head," pompasuhkonkanontup. Either the interpreter mistook the word as pronounced by Eliot, or he thought it well to aggravate the insult by likening Elisha's smooth head to a foot-ball; for pompasuhkonk denotes " a ball to play with."

In the summer of 1663, before the Indian Bible was out of press, Mr. Eliot began to translate Baxter's Call to the Unconverted. "The keen- ness of the edge and liveliness of the spirit of that book, through the blessing of God, may," he wrote, " be of great use unto these Sons of this our Morning." His translation was finished December 31; and before the end of August, 1664, a thousand copies were printed and distributed to Indian scholars. Perhaps not one of these is now in existence. Of a sec- ond edition, printed in 1688, in small octavo (pp. 188), several copies are preserved in American libraries.

Mr. Eliot next undertook the translation of two treatises by the Rev. Thomas Shepard, of Cambridge, - The Sincere Convert and The Sound Believer. But before he had these ready for the press he was requested by the Corporation in London (of which Robert Boyle was now the governor) to give precedence to Bishop Bayly's Practice of Piety. This work, now scarcely known to general readers, was for more than a century in high repute with all orthodox Christians of the Church of England. Before the death of its author, in 1632, it had reached its twenty-eighth edition, and had been translated into French, German, and Welsh. Bishop Bayly had been one of the domestic chaplains of James I .; and several editions of The Practice of Piety were dedicated to Charles I., when Prince of Wales. This fact, perhaps, added to the popularity of the book after the Restora- tion, - a popularity which outlasted the century.1

Boyle and the Corporation - whose charter had been renewed by the

1 I have "the 69th edition," printed in 1743, and the seventy-first edition, of 1792, is in the library of Harvard College.

VOL. I .- 60.

174

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

favor of Charles Il. - thought it expedient that the work of a loyal Church- man should, in preference to one of Baxter's or Shepard's, have place next the Indian Bible. Baxter, in his Life and Times, alludes to this: "When Mr. Eliot had printed all the Bible in the Indians' language, he next trans- lated this, my Call to the Uuconverted, as he wrote to us here: and though it was here thought prudent to begin with the Practice of Picty, because of the envy and distaste of the times against me, he had finished it before that advice came to hin." It came, however, in season to stop the work on Shepard's treatises. In August, 1664, Eliot wrote to the Commissioners of the Colonies: " I have Mr. Shepard's Sincere Convert and Sound Believer almost translated, . . . yet by advertisement from the Hon'ble Corporation, I must lay that by, and fall upon the Practice of Picty, which I had intended to be the last," &c.

The translation of the Practice of Picty - considerably abridged - was printed in 1665, under the title, Manitowompae Pomantamoonk, &c. A sec- ond edition followed the second edition of the Bible in 1685.1

Eliot's next work, undertaken on Boyle's suggestion, was The Indian Grammar Begun; or an Essay to bring the Indian Language into Rules, &c. "They are pleased to put me upon a Grammar of this language," ---- he wrote to the Commissioners in August, 1664, -" which my sons and I have oft spoken of, but now I must (if the Lord give life and strength) be doing about it. But we are not able to do much in it, because we know not the latitudes and corners of the language: some general and useful collections I hope the Lord will enable us to produce." His eldest sons, John and Joseph, had for some years been his helpers in the Indian work.2

In the dedication to Boyle and the Corporation, Eliot puts a very modest estimate on the value of his work: " I have made an Essay unto this diffi- cult service, and laid together some bones and ribs preparatory at least for such a work. It is not worthy the name of a Grammar." It does not, it is true, compass all " the latitudes and corners " of the language, and is not to be regarded as the measure of Eliot's mastery of it in translation ; for in the Indian Bible he constantly uses forms of inflection and construction of which his Grammar makes no mention ; but it continues to be an important " help of such as desire to learn the same." 3

1 The first is extremely rare. The American Antiquarian Society has a copy, and another (formerly Mr. Brinley's) is in the library of Yale College.

2 [Sibley, Harvard Graduates, pp. 476, 530, gives an account of these .- ED.]

3 The Grammar was printed in 1666, by Marmaduke Johnson, in a thin pot-quarto of 66 pages and two preliminary leaves. It well de- served the pains bestowed by Pickering and Duponceau in editing a reprint of it in 2 Mass. Ilist. Coll. ix The original edition was, probably, of 500 copies. Of these 450 were bound separately, and a few were bound with copies of the New Testament of 1663. Thomas,

History of Printing, i. 480, says that "it accom- panied some editions of the Psalter, i. c. they were occasionally bound together in one vol- ume, small octavo." This is obviously a mistake, since the Grammar is in quarto. I infer that he had not seen a perfect copy, for he describes it as of "about 60 pages," and places it among books published by S. Green in 1664. Possibly some copies were bound with the quarto Psalter of 1663. One bound with the New Testament is in the library of the University of Edinburgh. In this country, the only copies I have heard of are in the Lenox Library, the library of the American Philosophical Society, the late Mr. J. Carter Brown's, and the writer's.

475

THE INDIAN TONGUE AND ITS LITERATURE.

The translation of Shepard's Sincere Convert - in Indian, Sampwutteahac Quinnuppekompauacnin - was not printed till 1689, when Eliot was eighty- five years old. It was revised for the press, and " in a few places amended," by the Rev. Grindall Rawson (a son of Secretary Rawson), the minister of Mendon, who had learned to preach to the Indians in their own language, and was for many years active in mission work among them. In 1691, the year after Eliot's death, Mr. Rawson's translation of John Cotton's Catechism, Spiritual Milk for Babes, drawn out of the Breasts of Both Testaments, for the Nourishment of their Souls, was printed, in a tract of sixteen pages (of which three are blank), by Samuel and Bartholomew Green, - the last Indian book that had the Cambridge imprint. The next - five sermons of Increase Mather's, translated by the Rev. Samuel Danforth - was printed in Boston, in 1698, in a small octavo of one hundred and sixty-four pages.1 The same partners printed, in 1699, Grindall Rawson's translation of the Confession of Faith adopted by the Synod at Boston in 1680 ( Wun- namptamoc Sampooaonk, &c.), and in 1700 An Epistle to the Christian Indians, by Cotton Mather, having the Indian and English on opposite pages. Both these books have on their title-pages the Indian name for Boston, - Mushauwomuk, denoting a " place to which boats go," or " the boat-landing place." The English colonists corrupted it to Shawmut, and on the other side of the Indian ferry, in Charlestown, to Mishawum. In Indian records at Martha's Vineyard the same word is found, without the locative suffix, - as, meshawwamiu.

The Hatchets, to hew down the Tree of Sin, which bears the Fruit of Death, was the odd title under which were published, in English and Indian, " The Laws, by which the Magistrates are to punish Offenders among the Indians, as well as among the English." Of this tract (pp. 16, sm. Svo) I have seen only two copies, - one in the Antiquarian Society's library ; the other (formerly Mr. Brinley's) is now in the Lenox Library, New York. It has no separate title-page. The colophon is, " Boston : Printed by B. Green. 1705." A manuscript note by T. Prince ascribes this tract to Cotton Mather; but I am confident that the translation was not made by him.

Of several other books added, after 1700, to the "Indian Library," as Mather terms it, two are specially noteworthy, -the Massachusetts Psalter, translated by Experience Mayhew, and the Indian Primer of 1720.

The Massachusce Psalter was printed in Boston, "by B. Green and J. Printer," in 1709. It has title-pages in Indian and English; and the

1 Masukkenukeeg Matcheseaenvog weque- toog kah wuttooanatoog Uppeyaonont Christoh kah ne YEUYEU teanuk. . .. Nashpe Increase Mather. Kukkootomwehteaenuh ut oomoeuweh- komonganit ut Bostonut, ut New England. . . . V'eush kukkookootomwehteaongash qushkinnu- munash en Indiane unnontoowaonganit nashpe S. 1). - Bostonut, Printeuoop nashpe Bartholo- meto Green, kah John Allen. 169S."

[ Translation : Greatest Sinners called and

encouraged to come to Christ and that NOW quickly. ... By Increase Mather, Teacher of the Church in Boston. . . . These discourses are turned into Indian language by S. D. - In Boston, it-was-printed by Bartholomew Green and John Allen. 1698.]

A copy of this first book printed in Boston in the Massachusetts language brought Stro at the sale of the first part of Mr. Brinley's library in 1879.

476

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

Indian and English versions of the Psalms and the Gospel of John are printed in columns side by side. Mr. Mayhew, the translator, was a native of Martha's Vineyard, where he had been preaching to the Indians since 1694, and carrying on the work his grandfather began about 1642. Thomas Prince says of him: " The Indian language has been from his infancy natu- ral to him ; and he has been all along accounted one of the greatest masters of it that hath been known among us."

Mafachufec PSALTER : ASUH .. Uk-kuttoohomaongafh DAVID

THE Maffachufet PSALTER .OR

PSALMS of DAVID With the proder By's-

Weche

WUNNAUNCHEMOOKAONK Ne anfukhogup JOHN, Ut Indiane kah Englifhe Nepatuhquonkath.

GOSPEL According to JOHN, In Columns of Indian and English. BEING Hayhou

· Nc woli fogkompagunukhettit Kakokeraliteaekuppannegk, akéramunnat, kalı wohwohtamunat Wunnetuppantam- wc Wuffukwhongafh.

An Introduction for Training up the Aboriginal Natives, in Reading and Un- defftanding the HOLY SCRIPTURES.

John . 39. Nalinneakont amook W'ufukwbonkanafh, newut- che ut yeufb kuttunmantamumwoe kuttahtom- woo micheme portantammoconk ; kab nif. rafhog waumaonukquenifh.

John. v. 39. Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal Life, and they are they which teftifie of Me.

BOSTON, N. E.

BOSTON, N. E. Upprinthomunieau B. Green, kalı J. Printer wutche quhtiantamwe CHAPANUKKEG wutche onchekehrouunnat wunnaunchum- mookaonk ut New-England.&c. 5.7 0 9

Printed by B. Green, and 3. Printer, fot the Honourable COMPANY for the Propa- gation of the Gofpel in New- England, &c. I 7 º 9.

THE MASSACHUSETTS PSALTER.'

The dialect of the Vineyard had some peculiarities; but these were gradually lost after the Indians learned to read Eliot's version of the Bible and his other translations. In 1722 Mr. Mayhew observed (in a letter to Paul Dudley) that now " our Indians speak, but especially write, much as those of Natick do." The difference, however, was still perceptible, and may be detected in Mr. Mayhew's translation of the Psalter. Josiah Cotton, at the end of his Indian vocabulary, compiled about 1727, gave a dialogue between himself and one of the Indians of Plymouth Colony, in which the latter says " it is very difficult to get the tone" of their language, and that when Cotton preached the Indians could not always understand him, " be- cause he did not put the tone in the right place," and also " because he had

1 [The two titles, Indian and English, thus face one another. - ED.]

477

THE INDIAN TONGUE AND ITS LITERATURE.

some of his father's (the Rev. John Cotton's) words, and hic learned Indian at Vope [Martha's Vineyard], and these Indian's don't understand every word of them Indians."

Mayhew's version of the Psalms and Gospel of John is founded upon Eliot's ; but every verse underwent revision, and scarcely one remains with- out some alteration. The spelling differs considerably from that of Eliot and others, who had learned the language among the Indians of the main- land. In exploring " the latitudes and corners" of Indian grammar, Mr. Mayhew probably went further than Eliot had gone; and the fact that his work passed through the hands of "J. P'rinter" gives it additional value as a monument of the language. James, the Indian printer, learned his trade from Samuel Green James printer workaus in Cambridge, and had worked on both editions of the Indian Bible.1

The Massachusce Psalter, in good condition, is rare. Most of the copics I have seen bear marks of much - and not always gentle - handling, and have lost more or less of their leaves.

Several conveyances, agreements, and other instruments, written by Indians in their language, are recorded in the land records of Duke's County, at Edgartown. Some English words used in these documents take curious shapes. The Vineyard Indians, like those of eastern Massachu- setts, changed the English r to n; they pronounced and usually wrote akc, akinnew, and akussoo for "acre" and " acres," noddoo for " rods," and in one instance nummoo - which must, I fear, stand for " rum " - is named in a deed of land as part of the consideration.

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The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I, Part 61

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.) Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Boston : Ticknor Number of Pages: 702

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Boston : Ticknor
Number of Pages: 702