Aboriginal American Authors

by Daniel G. Brinton

Hence, in this primitive literature which I am describing, the narrative portion is the most abundant. There was a natural aspiration on the part of the natives, as soon as they had learned the art of writing, to preserve in permanent form the records, more or less authentic, of their tribes and ancestors. This desire of preserving the national history is shown by the works of Copway, Jones, Cusick, Ixtlilxochitl, and others, to whom I have already referred, who wrote in European tongues.

If we begin our survey at the extreme north, we find the Eskimo, amid his depressing surroundings of eternal frost and months-long nights, an unwearied chatterbox, reciting his own and his ancestors' adventures, and weaving from his fancy the most extraordinary web of fictitious experiences. Once taught to write, hundreds of these tales were committed to paper by native hands. The manuscript collection of such in the possession of the learned and indefatigable Dr. Heinrich Rink contains considerably over two thousand pages, and the charming rendering into English, which has been published by his efforts, is a storehouse of weird conceptions and partly historic traditions about the past of Greenland and Labrador. What adds to their interest is that most of the illustrations are wood-cuts by native artists, truthfully setting forth their own mental pictures.[13]

Another Eskimo composition, in the dialogue style, is before me as I write. It is the description by Pok, a Greenlander, of his journey to Europe and his return. The narrative forms a pamphlet of eighteen pages, with several quaint colored illustrations, and it is one of the rare products of the Godthaab press in Greenland to which we can assign a genuine native origin.[14]

Another, which reveals still more distinctly the artistic and imaginative capacities of that strange race, was published at Godthaab, in 1860. Mr. Field remarks of it:—"An Esquimau of Greenland, with his pencil, has, in this work, attempted to give representations of the traditions, manners, weapons and habits of life of his own race."[15]

Among the tribes of the eastern United States there were a few individuals who attempted to compose somewhat extensive records in their native languages.

One of the most curious examples is that known as the Walum Olum, a short account of the early history of the Delaware tribe, written in that idiom, with mnemonic symbols attached. Its history is not very complete. A "Dr. Ward, of Indiana" is said to have obtained it from a member of the nation, in 1822. From him it passed into the hands of Prof. C.S. Rafinesque, an eccentric and visionary Frenchman, who passed the later years of his life in Philadelphia. He undertook to translate it, and after his death the translation, together with the original, came into the possession of Mr. E.G. Squier. By him it was first published, but in a partial and incomplete manner, much of the original text and many of the mnemonic symbols being omitted, and no effort being made to improve Rafinesque's translation.[16]

The Book of Rites[17] of the Iroquois or Six Nations, lately edited by Mr. Horatio Hale, is one of the most remarkable native productions north of Mexico. Its authenticity and antiquity are indisputable. The rites it describes are the ceremonies and set speeches, the chants and formulas, of what is called "The Council of Condolence," whose function is to express the national sense of loss at the death of a chief, and to conduct the inauguration of his successor. The publication of this ritual, supported as it is with the learned notes of Mr. Hale, and an introduction by him, on the history, formation and purpose of the famous League of the Iroquois, has thrown a remarkable light, not merely on the ethnology of the district where the Iroquois were located, but on the mental characteristics of the red race in general. It is a refutation of the unscientific assumptions of a good many would-be scientific men, who are self-blinded by their theories of development to obvious facts in the mental powers of uncultivated tribes.

Of less general importance, but admirable also for competent editorship, is the short narrative of the Nipissing Chief, Francois Kaondinoketc, which was published a few years ago, both in the original and with a French translation, by a Canadian missionary, eminent alike for his piety and his learning. It recites the journey of a half-breed Christian Indian into the country of the heathen tribe of Beaver Indians, and the miraculous interposition by which his life was saved when these Pagans had caught him. They told him he must kill an eagle flying far above them; at his prayer, the bird descended and came within the reach of his sabre. In turn, he asked them to shoot their arrows into a tree; but by rubbing it with holy water, the bark was so hardened that not one of their shafts could pierce it. So they confessed the greatness of the Christian's God.[18]

This charmingly naive narrative makes us doubly regret that the editor's projected Chrestomathie Algonquine has not been carried out in full.

The southern Atlantic coast of the United States was principally occupied by the Muskokee or Creek tribe, who occupied the territory as far west as the Mississippi. Their language was first reduced to writing in the Greek alphabet, by the Moravian missionaries, about 1733; but at present a modified form of the English alphabet is in use. They had a very definite and curious tribal history, full of strange metaphors and obscure references. It was, according to old authorities, "written in red and black characters, on the skin of a young buffalo," and was read off from this symbolic script by their head-chief, Chekilli, to the English, in 1735, and skin and translation were both sent to London, and both lost there. But, luckily, the Moravian missionaries preserved a faithful translation of it, and this, some years ago, I brought to the notice of students of these matters.[19]