The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies Part 23

_c._ The _Nasko-tin_.

_d._ The _Thetlio-tin_.

_e._ The _Tsatsno-tin_.

_f._ The _Nulaau-tin_.

_g._ The _Ntsaau-tin_.

_h._ The _Natliau-tin_.

_i._ The _Nikozliau-tin_.

_j._ The _Tats.h.i.+au-tin_.

_k._ The _Babine_ Indians.

11. The _Susi_ (_Sussees_).--On the head-waters of the Saskatchewan.

New Caledonia is the chief area of the _Takulli_.

Adjacent to them, but to the east of the Rocky Mountains, lie--

12. The _Tsikani_ (_Sicunnies_).

The Athabaskan is the _first_ cla.s.s in our list; and, if we look only at the area which its population occupies, it is a great one. All the Athabaskan languages or dialects are mutually intelligible.

_The Algonkins._--The _second_ cla.s.s is the Algonkin. It is greater in every way than the Athabaskan--greater in respect to the number of its divisions and subdivisions, greater in respect to the ground it covers, and greater in respect to the range of difference which it embraces. All the Algonkin languages are not mutually intelligible.

Unlike the Athabaskan the Algonkin stock is nearly equally divided between the United States and Great Britain.

Unlike, too, the Athabaskan, it is divided between the Canadas and our other possessions and the Hudson's Bay territory.

The whole of the Canadas, with one small but important exception, the whole of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward's Isle, is Algonkin. Labrador and Newfoundland are chiefly Algonkin.

To this stock belonged and belong the extinct and extant Indians of New England, part of New York, part of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, part of the Carolinas, and part of even Kentucky and Tennessee; a point of American rather than of British ethnology, but a point necessary to be noted for the sake of duly appreciating the magnitude of this stock.

Amongst others, the Pequods, the Mohicans, the Narragansetts, the Ma.s.sachuset, the Montaug, the Delaware, the Menomini, the Sauks, the Ottogamis, the Kikkapus, the Potawhotamis, the Illinois, the Miami, the Piankeshaws, the Shawnos, &c. belong to this stock--all within the United States.

The British Algonkins are as follows:--

1. The _Crees_; of which the _Skoffi_ and _Sheshatapush_ of Labrador are branches.

2. The _Ojibways_;[73] falling into--

_a._ The _Ojibways Proper_, of which the _Sauteurs_ are a section.

_b._ The _Ottawas_ of the River Ottawa.

_c._ The original Indians of Lake _Nip.i.s.sing_; important because it is believed that the form of speech called _Algonkin_, a term since extended to the whole cla.s.s, was their particular dialect. They are now either extinct or amalgamated with other tribes.

_d._ The _Messisaugis_, to the north of Lake Ontario.

3. The _Micmacs_ of New Brunswick, Gaspe, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and part of Newfoundland; closely allied to the--

4. _Abnaki_ of Mayne, and the British frontier; represented at present by the _St. John's Indians_.

5. The _Bethuck_--the aborigines of Newfoundland.

6. The _Blackfoots_, consisting of the--

_a._ _Satsikaa_, or _Blackfoots Proper_.

_b._ The _Kena_, or _Blood Indians_.

_c._ The _Piegan_.

To these must be added numerous extinct tribes.

_The Iroquois._--The single and important exception to the Algonkin population of the Canadas is made by the existence of certain members of the great Iroquois cla.s.s on the New York frontier; a cla.s.s falling into two divisions. The _northern_ Iroquois belong to New York and Pennsylvania, the _southern_ to the Carolinas.

The former of these two falls into two great confederations, and into several unconfederate tribes.

The chief of the unconfederate tribes are the now extinct _Mynkasar_ and _Cochnowagoes_--extinct, unless either or both be represented by a small remnant mentioned by Schoolcraft, in his great work on the Indian tribes, now in the course of publication, under the sanction of Congress, as the _St. Regis Indians_.

Of the second confederation the leading members were the _Wyandots_, or _Hurons_, of the parts between Lakes Simcoe, Huron, and Erie.

The first was that of the famous and formidable _Mohawks_. To these add the _Senekas_, the _Onondagos_, the _Cayugas_, and the _Oneidas_, and you have the _Five_ Nations. Then add, as a later accession, from the southern Iroquois, the _Tuskaroras_, and the _Six_ Nations are formed.

Between these two there was war _even to the knife_; the greater portion of the Wyandot league belonging to the Algonkin cla.s.s.

Nevertheless, a few representatives of the whole seven tribes[74] still remain extant, their present locality--a reserve--being the triangular peninsula which was the original Huron area.

Again, in the present site of Montreal, the earlier occupants were the _Hochelaga_; an Iroquois tribe also.

_The Sioux._--In tracing the Nelson River from its embouchure in Hudson's Bay, towards its source in the Rocky Mountains, we reach Lake Winnepeg, and the Red River Settlement--the Red River rising within the boundary of the United States, flowing from south to north, and receiving, as a feeder, the a.s.sineboin. Now the Valley of the a.s.sineboin is an interesting ethnological locality.

Either the river takes its name from the population, or the population from the river; the division to which it belongs being a new one.

Different from the Algonkins on the east, different from the Athabaskans on the north, and (in the present state of our knowledge) different from the Arrapahoes on the west, the a.s.sineboins have all their affinities southwards. In that direction the family to which they belong extends as far as Louisiana. These Indians it is to whom nine-tenths of the Valley of Missouri originally belonged--the Indians of the great Sioux cla.s.s; Indians whose original hunting-grounds included the vast prairie-country from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi, and who again appear as an isolated detachment on Lake Michigan. These isolated Sioux are the Winebagoes; the others being the Dahcota, the Yankton, the Teton, the Upsaroka, the Mandan, the Minetari, the Missouri, the Osage, the Konzas, the Ottos, the Omahaws, the Puncas, the Ioways, and the Quappas,--all American, _i.e._, belonging to the United States.

None of the Sioux tribe come in contact with the sea. None of them belong to the great _forest_ districts of America. Most of them hunt over the country of the buffalo. This makes them warlike, migratory hunters; with fewer approaches to agricultural or industrial civilization than any Indians equally favoured by soil and climate.

Of this cla.s.s the a.s.sineboins are the British representatives. They are the chief _Red River_ aborigines.

It is the Iroquois, the Sioux, and certain members of the Algonkin stock, upon which the current and popular notions of the American Indian, the _Red Man_, as he is called--

The Stoic of the woods, the man without a tear, &c.,

have been formed. The Athabaskans, on the other hand, have not contributed much to our notions on this point. In the first place, they are less known; in the next, they are less typical.