While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Algonquian Family (adapted from the name of the Algonkin tribe).
A linguistic stock which formerly occupied a more extended area than any other
in North America. Their territory reached from the eastshore of
Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains and front Churchill River to Pamlico sound. The
east parts of this territory were separated by an area occupied by Iroquoian
tribes. On the eastAlgonquian tribes skirted the Atlantic coast from
Newfoundland to Neuse River; on the south they touched on the territories of the
eastern
Siouan, southern
Iroquoian, and the
Muskhogean families; on the west
they bordered on the Siouan area; on the northwest on the Kitunahan and
Athapascan; in Labrador they came into contact with the Eskimo; in Newfound land
they surrounded on three sides the Beothuk. The
Cheyenne and
Arapaho moved front
the main body and drifted out into the plains. Although there is a general
agreement as to the peoples which should be included in this family, information
in regard to the numerous dialects is too limited to justify an attempt to give
a strict linguistic classification; the data are in fact so meager in many
instances as to leave it doubtful whether certain bodies were confederacies,
tribes, bands, or clans, especially bodies which have become extinct or can not
be identified, since early writers have frequently designated settlements or
hands of the same tribe as distinct tribes. As in the case of all Indians,
travelers, observing part of a tribe settled at one place and part at another,
have frequently taken them for different peoples, and have dignified single
villages, settlements, or bands with the title "tribe" or "nation," named from
the locality or the chief. It is generally impossible to discriminate between
tribes and villages throughout the greater part of New England and along the
Atlantic coast, for the Indians there seem to have been grouped into small
communities, each taking its name from the principal village of the group or
from a neighboring stream or other natural feature. Whether these were
subordinate to some real tribal authority or of equal rank and interdependent,
although still allied, it is impossible in many instances to determine. Since
true tribal organization is found among the better known branches and can be
traced in several instances in the eastern division, it is presumed that it was
general.
A geographic classification of the Algonquian tribes follows:
Western division, comprising three groups dwelling along the
east slope of the Rocky Mountains: Blackfoot confederacy, composed of the
Siksika, Kainah, and Piegan; Arapaho and Cheyenne.
Northern division, the most extensive one, stretching from the
extreme northwest of the Algonquian area to the extreme east, chiefly north of
the St Lawrence and the great lakes, including several groups which, on account
of insufficient knowledge of their linguistic relations, can only partially be
outlined: Chippewa group, embracing the Cree (?),
Ottawa,
Chippewa, and Missisauga;
Algonkin group, comprising the
Nipissing, Temiscaming, Abittibi, and
Algonkin.
Northeastern division, embracing the tribes inhabiting East
Quebec, the Maritime Provinces, and east Maine: the Montagnais group, composed
of the Nascapee, Montagnais, Mistassin, Bersiamite, and Papinachois; Abnaki
group, comprising the
Micmac, Malecite,
Passamaquoddy,
Arosaguntacook, Sokoki,
Penobscot, and Norridgewock.
Central division, including groups that resided in Wisconsin,
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio:
Menominee; the Sauk group, including the
Sauk,
Fox, and
Kickapoo; Mascouten;
Potawatomi; Illinois branch of the Miami
group, comprising the
Peoria,
Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Tamaroa, and Michigamea; Miami
branch, composed of the
Miami,
Piankashaw, and
Wea.
Eastern division, embracing all the Algonquian tribes that lived
along the Atlantic coast south of the Abnaki and including several confederacies
and groups, as the
Pennacook,
Massachuset,
Wampanoag,
Narraganset,
Nipmuc,
Montauk,
Mohegan,
Mahican,
Wappinger,
Delawares,
Shawnee,
Nanticoke,
Conoy,
Powhatan, and
Pamlico.
As the early settlements of the French, Dutch, and English were
all within the territory of the eastern members of the family, they were the
first aborigines north of the Gulf of Mexico to feel the blighting effect of
contact with a superior race. As a rule the relations of the French with the
Algonquian tribes were friendly the Foxes being the only tribe against whom they
waged war. The English settlements were often engaged in border wars with their
Algonquian neighbors, who, continually pressed farther toward the interior by
the advancing white immigration, kept up for a time a futile struggle for the
possession of their territory. The eastern tribes, from Maine to Carolina, were
defeated and their tribal organization was broken up. Some withdrew to Canada,
others crossed the mountains into the Ohio valley, while a few bands were
located on reservations by the whites only to dwindle and ultimately become
extinct. Of many of the smaller tribes of New England, Virginia, and other
eastern states there are no living representatives. Even the languages of some
are known only by a few words mentioned by early historians, while some tribes
are known only by name. The
Abnaki and others who fled into Canada settled along
the St Lawrence under the protection of the French, whose active allies they
became in all the subsequent wars with the English down to the fall of the
French power in Canada. Those who crossed the Allegheny mountains into the Ohio
valley, together with the Wyandot and the native Algonquian tribes of that
region, formed themselves into a loose confederacy, allied first with the French
and afterward with the English against the advancing settlements with the
declared purpose of preserving the Ohio River as the Indian boundary. Wayne's
victory in 1794 put an end to the struggle, and at the treaty of Greenville in
1795 the Indians acknowledged their defeat and made the first cession of land
west of the Ohio.
Tecumseh and his brother, Ellskwatawa, instigated by British
intriguers, again aroused the western tribes against the United States a few
years later, but the disastrous defeat at Tippecanoe in 1811 and the death of
their leader broke the spirit of the Indians. In 1815 those who had taken part
against the United States during the War of 1812 made peace with the Government;
then began the series of treaties by which, within thirty years, most of the
Indians of this region ceded their lands and removed west of the Mississippi.
A factor which contributed greatly to the decline of the
Algonquian ascendancy was the power, of the Iroquoian confederacy, which by the
beginning of the 17th century had developed a power destined to make them the
scourge of the other Indian population from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and
from Ottawa River in Canada to the Tennessee. After destroying the
Huron and the
Erie, they turned their power chiefly against the Algonquian tribes, and ere
long Ohio and Indiana were nearly deserted, only a few villages of Miami
remaining here and there in the northern portion. The region south and west they
made a desert, clearing of native inhabitants the whole country within 500 miles
of their seats. The Algonquian tribes fled before theme to the region of the
upper lakes and the banks of the Mississippi, and only when the French had
guaranteed them protection against their deadly foes did they venture to turn
back toward the north.
The central Algonquians are tall, averaging about 173 cm.; they
have the typical Indian nose, heavy and prominent, somewhat hooked in men,
flatter in women; their cheek bones are heavy; the head among the tribes of the
great lakes is very large and almost brachycephalic, but showing considerable
variation; the face is very large. The type of the Atlantic coast Algonquians
can hardly be determined from living individuals, as no full-bloods survive, but
skulls found in old burial grounds show that they were tall, their faces not
quite so broad, the heads much more elongate and remarkably high, resembling in
this respect the Eskimo and suggesting the possibility that on the New England
coast there may have been some mixture with that type. The Cheyenne and Arapaho
are even taller than the central Algonquians; their faces are larger, their
heads more elongate. It is worthy of remark that in the region in which the
mound builders' remains are found, rounded heads prevailed, and the present
population of the region are also more, round-headed, perhaps suggesting fusion
of blood (Boas, inf'n, 1905). See
Anatomy,
Physiology
The religious beliefs of the eastern Algonquian tribes were
similar in their leading features. Their myths are numerous. Their deities, or manitus,
including objects animate and inanimate, were many, but the chief culture
hero, he to whom the creation and control of the world were ascribed, was
substantially the same in character, although known by various names, among
different tribes. As Manibozho, or Michabo, among the Chippewa and other lake
tribes, he was usually identified as a fabulous great rabbit, bearing sonic
relation to the sun; and this identification with the great rabbit appears to
have prevailed among other tribes, being found as far south as Maryland. Brinton
(Hero Myths, 1882) believes this mythological animal to have been merely a
symbol of light, adopted because of the similarity between the Algonquian words
for rabbit and light. Among the Siksika this chief beneficent deity was known as Napiw, among the Abnaki as Ketchiniwesk, among the New England tribes as Kiehtan,
Woonand, Cautantowit, etc. He it was who created the world by magic power,
peopled it with game and the other animals, taught his favorite people the arts
of the chase, and gave them corn and beans. But this deity was distinguished
more for his magical powers and his ability to overcome opposition by trickery,
deception, and falsehood than for benevolent qualities. The objects of nature
were deities to them, as the sun, the moon, tire, trees, lakes, and the various
animals. Respect was also paid to the four cardinal points. There was a general
belief in a soul, shade, or immortal spiritual nature not only in man but in
animals and all other things, and in a spiritual abode to which this soul went
after the death of the body, and in which the occupations and enjoyments were
supposed to be similar to those of this life. Priests, or conjurers, called by
the whites medicine-men, played an important part in their social, political,
and religious systems. They were supposed to possess influence with spirits or
other agencies, which they could bring to their aid in prying into the future,
inflicting or curing disease, etc.
Among the tribes from south New England to Carolina, including
especially the Mohegan, Delawares, the people of the Powhatan confederacy, and
the Chippewa, descent was reckoned in the female line; among the Potawatomi,
Abnaki, Blackfeet, and probably most of the northern tribes, in the male line.
Within recent times descent has been paternal also among the Menominee, Sauk and
Fox, Illinois, Kickapoo, and Shawnee, and, although it has been stated that it
was anciently maternal, there is no satisfactory proof of this. The Cree,
Arapaho, and Cheyenne are without clans or gentes. The gens or clan was usually
governed by a chief, who in some cases was installed by the heads of other clans
or gentes. The tribe also had its chief, usually selected front a particular
clan or gens, though the manner of choosing a chief and the authority vested in
him varied somewhat in the different tribes. This was the peace chief, whose
authority was not absolute, and who had no part m the declaration of war or in
carrying it on, the leader in the campaign being one who had acquired a right to
the position by noted deeds and skill. In some tribes the title of chief was
hereditary, and the distinction between a peace chief and a war chief was not
observed. The chief's powers among some tribes, as the Miami, were greater than
in others. The government was directed in weighty matters by a council,
consisting of the chiefs of the clans or gentes of the tribe. It was by their
authority that tribal war was undertaken, peace concluded, territory sold, etc.
The Algonquian tribes were mainly sedentary and agricultural,
probably the only exceptions being those of the cold regions of Canada and the
Siksika of the plains. The Chippewa did not formerly cultivate the soil. Maize
was the staple Indian food product, but the tribes of the region of the great
lakes, particularly the Menominee, made extensive use of wild rice. The Powhatan
tribes raised enough maize to supply not only their own wants but those of the
Virginia colonists for some years after the founding of Jamestown, and the New
England colonists were more than once relieved from hunger by corn raised by the
natives. In 1792 Wayne's army found a continuous plantation along the entire
length of the Maumee from Ft Wayne to Lake Erie. Although depending chiefly on
hunting and fishing for subsistence, the News England tribes cultivated large
quantities of maize, beaus, pumpkins, and tobacco. It is said they understood
the advantage of fertilizing, using fish, shells, and ashes for this purpose.
The tools they used in preparing the ground and in cultivation were usually
wooden spades or hoes, the latter being made by fastening to a stick, as a
handle, a shell, the shoulder blade of an animal, or a tortoise shell. It was
from the Algonquian tribes that the whites first learned to make hominy,
succotash, samp, maple sugar, johnnycake, etc. Gookin, in 1674, thus describes
the method of preparing food among the Indians of Massachusetts: "Their food is
generally boiled maize, or Indian corn, mixed with kidney beans, or sometimes
without. Also, they frequently boil in this pottage fish and flesh of all sorts,
either new taken or dried, as shad, eels, alewives, or a kind of herring, or any
other sort of fish. But they dry mostly those sorts before mentioned. These they
cut in pieces, bones and all, and boil them in the aforesaid pottage. I have
wondered many times that they were not in danger of being choked with fish
bones; but they are so dexterous in separating the bones from the fish in their
eating thereof that they are in no hazard. Also, they boil in this frumenty all
sorts, of flesh they take in hunting, as venison, beaver, bear's flesh, moose,
otters, raccoons, etc., cutting this flesh in small pieces and boiling it as
aforesaid. Also, they mix with the said pottage several sorts of roots, as
Jerusalem artichokes, and groundnuts, and other roots, and pompions, and
squashes, and also several sorts of nuts or masts, as oak acorns, chestnuts, and
walnuts; these husked and dried and powdered, they thicken their pottage
therewith. Also, sometimes, they heat their maize into meal and sift it through
a basket made for that purpose. With this meal they make bread, baking it in the
ashes, covering the dough with leaves. Sometimes they make of their meal a small
sort of cakes and boil them. They make also a certain sort of meal of parched
maize. This meal they all 'nokake.' Their pots were made of clay,
somewhat egg-shaped; their dishes, spoons, and ladles of wood; their water pails
of birch bark, doubled up so as to make them four-cornered, with a handle. They
also had baskets of various sizes in which they placed their provisions; these
were made of rushes, stalks, corn husks, grass, and bark, often ornamented with
colored figures of animals. Mats woven of bark and rushes, dressed deerskins,
feather garments, and utensils of wood, stone, and bore are mentioned by
explorers. Fish were taken with hooks, spears, and nets, in canoes and along the
shore, on the sea and in the ponds and rivers. They captured without much
trouble all the smaller kinds of fish, and, in their canoes, often dragged
sturgeon with nets stoutly made of Canada hemp (De Forest, Hist. Inds. Conn.,
1853). Canoes used for fishing were of two kinds one of birch bark, very light,
but liable to overset; the other made from the trunk of a large tree. Their
clothing was composed chiefly of the skins of animals, tanned until soft and
pliable, and was sometimes ornamented with paint and beads made from shells.
Occasionally they decked themselves with mantles made of feathers overlapping
each other as on the back of the fowl. The dress of the women consisted usually
of two articles, a leather shirt, or undergarment, ornamented with fringe, and a
skirt of the same material fastened round the waist with a belt and reaching
nearly to the feet. The legs were protected, especially in the winter, with
leggings, and the feet with moccasins of soft dressed leather, often embroidered
with wampurm. The men usually covered the lower part of the body with a
breech-cloth, and often wore a skin mantle thrown over one shoulder. The women
dressed their hair in a thick heavy plait which fell down the neck, and
sometimes ornamented their heads with bands decorated with wampum or with a
small cap. Higginson (New England's Plantation, 1629) says: "Their hair is
usually cut before, leaving one lock longer than the rest." The men went
bareheaded, with their hair fantastically trimmed, each according to his own
fancy. One would shave it on one side and leave it long on the other; another
left an unshaved strip, 2 or 3 in. wide, running from the forehead to the nape
of the neck.
The typical Algonquian lodge of the woods and lakes was oval,
and the conical lodge, made of sheets of birch-bark, also occurred. The Mohegan,
and to some extent the Virginia Indians, constructed long communal houses which
accommodated a number of families. The dwellings in the north were sometimes
built of logs, while those in the south and parts of the west were constructed
of saplings fixed in the ground, bent over at the top, and covered with movable
matting, thus forming a long, round-roofed house. The Delawares and some other
eastern tribes, preferring to live separately, built smaller dwellings. The
manner of construction among the Delawares is thus described by Zeisberger: "
They peel trees, abounding with sap, such as lime trees, etc., then cutting the
bark into pieces of 2 or 3 yards in length, they lay heavy stones upon them,
that they may become flat and even in drying. The frame of the hut is made by
driving poles into the ground and strengthening them by cross beams. This
framework is covered, both within and without, with the above-mentioned pieces
of bark, fastened very tight with bast or twigs of hickory, which are remarkably
tough. The roof runs up to a ridge, and is covered in the same manner. These
huts have one opening in the roof to let out the smoke and one in the side for
an entrance. The door is made of a large piece of bark without either bolt or
lock, a stick leaning against the outside being a sign that nobody is at home.
The light enters by small openings furnished with sliding shutters. "The
covering was sometimes rushes or long reed grass. The houses of the Illinois are
described by Hennepin as being " made like long arbors" and covered with double
mats of flat flags. Those of the Chippewa and the Plains tribes were circular or
conical, a frame work covered with bark among the former, a frame of movable
poles covered with dressed skim among the latter. The villages, especially along
the Atlantic coast, were frequently surrounded with stockades of tall, stout
stakes firmly set in the ground. A number of the western Algonquian towns are
described by early explorers as fortified or as surrounded with palisades.
In no other tribes north of Mexico was picture writing developed
to the advanced stage that it, reached among the Delawares and the Chippewa. The
figures were scratched or painted on pieces of bark or on slabs of wood. Some of
the tribes, especially the Ottawa, were great traders, acting as chief middlemen
between the more distant Indians and the early French settlements. Some of the
interior tribes of Illinois and Wisconsin made but little use of the canoe,
traveling almost al ways afoot; while others who lived along the upper lakes and
the Atlantic coast were expert canoemen. The canoes of the upper lakes were of
birch-bark, strengthened on the inside with ribs or knees. The more solid and
substantial boat of Virginia and the western rivers was the dugout, made from
the trunk of a large tree. The manufacture of pottery, though the product was
small, except in one or two tribes, was widespread. Judged by the number of
vessels found in the graves of the regions occupied by the Shawnee, this tribe
carried on the manufacture to a greater extent than any other. The usual method
of burial was in graves, each clan or gens having its own cemetery. The mortuary
ceremonies among the eastern and central tribes were substantially as described
by Zeisberger. Immediately after death the corpse was arrayed in the deceased's
best clothing and decked with the chief ornaments worn in life, sometimes having
the face and shirt painted red, then laid on a mat or skin in the middle of the
hut, and the arms and personal effects were placed about it. After sunset, and
also before daybreak, the female relations and friends assembled around the body
to mourn over it. The grave was dug generally by old women; inside it was lined
with bark, and when the corpse was placed in it 4 sticks were laid across, and a
covering of bark was placed over these; then the grave was filled with earth. An
earlier custom was to place in the grave the personal effects or those
indicative of the character and occupation of the deceased, as well as food,
cooking utensils, etc. Usually the body was placed horizontally, though among
some of the western tribes, as the Foxes, it was sometimes buried in a sitting
posture. It was the custom of probably most of the tribes to light fires on the
grave for four nights after burial. The Illinois, Chippewa, and some of the
extreme western tribes frequently practiced tree or scaffold burial. The bodies
of the chiefs of the Powhatan confederacy were stripped of the flesh and the
skeletons were placed on scaffolds in a charnel house. The Ottawa usually placed
the body for a short time on a scaffold near the grave previous to burial. The
Shawnee, and possibly one or more of the southern Illinois tribes, were
accustomed to bury their dead in box-shaped sepulchers made of undressed straw
slabs. The Nanticoke, and some of the western tribes, after-temporary burial in
the ground or exposure on scaffolds, removed the flesh and re-interred the
skeletons.
The eastern Algonquian tribes probably equaled the Iroquois in
bravery, intelligence, and physical powers, but lacked their constancy, solidity
of character, and capability of organization, and do not appear to have
appreciated the power and influence they might have wielded by combination. The
alliances between tribes were generally temporary and without real cohesion.
There seems, indeed, to have been some element in their character which rendered
them incapable of combining in large bodies, even against a common enemy. Some
of their great chieftains, as Philip, Pontiac, and Tecumseh, attempted at
different periods to unite the kindred tribes in an effort to resist the advance
of the white race; but each in turn found that a single great defeat
disheartened his followers and rendered all his efforts fruitless, and the
former two fell by the hands of deserters from their own ranks. The Virginia
tribes, under the able guidance of Powhatan and Opechancanough, formed an
exception to the general rule. They presented a united front to the whites, and
resisted for years every step of their advance until the Indians were
practically exterminated. From the close of the Revolution to the treaty of
Greenville (1795) the tribes of the Ohio valley also made a desperate stand
against the Americans, but in this they had the encouragement, if not the more
active support, of the British in Canada as well as of other Indians. In
individual character many of the Algonquian chiefs rank high, and Tecumseh
stands out prominently as one of the noblest figures in Indian history.
Algonquins of Portage de Prairie, a Chippewa band formerly
living near Lake of the Woods and in Manitoba. They removed before 1804 to the
Red River country through persuasions of the traders. Lewis and Clark,
Disc., 55, 1806.
