Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1

by James Athearn Jones

2. Are the coincidences of sound and signification in the languages of North America and Tartary sufficiently numerous and unequivocal to induce one to pronounce them of a common origin?

3. Do the customs and manners of the North American Indians correspond in any material degree with those of their supposed brethren, the Tartars?

4. Are there any animals, wild or domestic, tameable or untameable, in America, which are of a species known to exist at this day in Tartary? And is there any thing in the vegetable kingdom of the west which bears marks of derivation from that country?

5. Is there any reason to think these Indians descended from the Welsh? What are we to think of the voyage of Madoc and his supposed colonization of the Western continent? Upon this point M. Verdier will do well to examine their pedigrees with great care.

The committee deem it altogether impossible to particularise all the subjects upon which questions may be put, to the fair furtherance of the objects which the Society has in view in sending out M. Verdier. A great deal must be left to his discretion and judgment. Many reflections will occur to him, as he personally surveys the monuments, and becomes acquainted with the people of that continent, which does not occur to us, and perhaps never would to him but for such visit.

The Society hope every thing from the zeal, the perseverance, and the talents, of their missionary. They hope to be able to record as a benefactor to this Society, to the kingdom, to the world, not only M. Verdier, but the gentleman who first recommended him to their notice.

Thus furnished with ample directions, and with a letter to the governor of the French possessions in Canada, M. Verdier set out upon his travels in May 1697. The Society liberally afforded him the means of conciliating the Savages, furnishing him with abundance of those articles which they were supposed to covet, such as beads, knives, &c. The ship in which he sailed had a very short passage, at least for a period when the arts of ship-building and navigation were so little understood, and landed him safely at Quebec some days before the setting-in of winter. The dignity of our traveller's mission, the high reputation of the Society under whose auspices he acted, together with his own merit, attested by strong letters of introduction, operated to procure him a most cordial and gratifying reception. All ranks joined in evincing unbounded respect both for him and his object, and in placing all possible helps within his reach. One admitted him to his museum of Indian curiosities, another presented him with a bundle of Indian manuscripts, a third took measures with the Indian chiefs for his unmolested passage through their country, a fourth instructed him in the Indian language, and taught him the peculiarities of their hundred dialects. Nor were the women behind the other sex in kindness to our traveller. He was invited to take up his abode altogether with the Ursuline nuns, with whom he rose to such high favour, that they would confess to no other during his stay in the city. The married ladies were quite as courteous as those who were vowed to a single life, and feasted and caressed him beyond our ability or wish to describe.

He did not leave Quebec until the return of spring, when, in the prosecution of his object, he bade adieu to his pleasant quarters, and travelled into the country of the Iroquois or Five Nations. His friend, the Governor, persuaded him much to take an interpreter with him, and nominated good old father Luke Bisset for that purpose. But M. Verdier declined, trusting that the "coincidences of sound and signification," (suggested in query 2, paper B,) would free him from all difficulties on that score. He hired an Indian, who had come to Quebec to dispose of his furs, to act as his guide, and a French boy to carry his change of linen and his presents, the last named being a labour to which no Indian will submit, unless he has become an outcast from his tribe, or otherwise disgraced and dishonoured.

They set out for the country of the Iroquois in the month of May, 1698. After travelling for many weeks, at a great rate, for the Savages are inconceivably swift walkers, and can endure great fatigues, they arrived at the principal town of the Five Nations. There, and elsewhere within the limits of that confederacy, our traveller abode two full years. The public must not expect to find in this brief introduction a cursory statement, much less a minute journal of his curious observations and discoveries during that period. The Editor would make a very bad use of the confidence reposed in him, if he were to attempt either. Public curiosity, however, will be gratified, for the highly learned and philosophical reports of M. Verdier on the philology, origin, history, manners, and customs, of the Aborigines of America, will soon be published under the eye of a competent gentleman. But, for the immediate satisfaction of those who have had their minds highly excited on the subject, and prefer to have their knowledge in advance, the Editor begs leave to observe, that these reports fully prove that the Indians of North America and the Tartars of the Eastern continent are of a common stock. The former, M. Verdier proves, by a long train of reasoning, to be descended from a Calmuck, who, in the year 622, (the year of Mahomet's flight from Mecca) married a Samoyede woman, and, with a party of his countrymen, crossed Behring's Straits to the Western Continent. The exceedingly subtle and plausible process by which he arrived at the exact year in which they crossed, and determined that the emigrants were of two different tribes—again, that the chief was tall and lean, his wife short, pursy, and thick-breathed, proved the value of trifling circumstances to the creation of beautiful theories, and with what wonderful ingenuity philosophic minds apply themselves to subjects capable of being theorised. Thus, from the circumstance that the Indian curs, when they were possessed of a bone, would snarl and show their teeth if one went near them, and even hide it in the ground rather than have it taken from them, he drew the conclusion that they were the true canis sibericus, which is known to possess these singular traits of canine sagacity and ferociousness. Additional proof was found in the fact, that an Indian dog of the same species bit M. Verdier in his heel, setting his teeth in precisely the same spot, where, some years before, a Tartar dog had placed his, making but a single scar. He caused an Iroquois cur to be tied by his tail to a log of wood, and the celerity with which he drew it, yelping and screaming over a bed of ice, fully convinced M. Verdier that he was a legitimate descendant from those which perform the part of dray-horses among the Tartars. So much for canine resemblances, which one would think of little importance, yet were the chief prop to a learned theory upon this very subject, published some years ago by an erudite American gentleman.

His inquiries concerning the other object of his mission were as deep, and his conclusions as profitable. It may be remembered, that the principal aim of the Society in sending M. Verdier to America, was to ascertain who were its primitive inhabitants, and the builders of the stupendous mounds found there. Having, by severe study, mastered the Indian language and its numerous dialects, he assumed the dress of a chief, and set out for the Ohio. He took with him seven Indian chiefs belonging to the Seneca tribe, great warriors, great talkers, and great smokers, who could live seven days without food, and feast the next seven without intermission. Their names, rendered into English, were The Flying Medicine, The Hollow Bear, The Little Dish, The Wicked Cow, The Black Mocassins, The Big Thief, and The Guard of the Red Arrows. The party were provided with parched corn and jerked beef, the common hunting provisions of the Indians. Though filled with pacific intentions, and meaning to rely for safety principally on the calumet, or pipe of peace, they nevertheless went completely armed. It would have ill suited Indian ideas of dignity and honour had they left behind what they believe to be the essential emblems of both.