Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet | Page 7

was no further retaliation. If the
injury was committed by some one of another clan, it was not the
injured party, but the clan to which he belonged, that asked for
reparation. This was rarely refused by the clan of the offender; but in
case of refusal, the injured clan had a right to do itself justice, either by
killing the offender, in case of murder, or inflicting some other
punishment for lesser offences. This species of private war, was, by the
Creeks, called, 'to take up the sticks;' because, the punishment generally
consisted in beating the offender. At the time of the annual corn-feast,
the sticks were laid down, and could not be again taken up for the same
offence. But it seems that originally there had been a superiority among
some of the clans. That of the Wind, had the right to take up the sticks
four times, that of the Bear twice, for the same offence; whilst those of
the Tiger, of the Wolf, of the Bird, of the Root, and of two more whose
names I do not know, could raise them but once. It is obvious that the
object of the unknown legislation, was to prevent or soften the effects
of private revenge, by transferring the power and duty from the blood
relatives to a more impartial body. The father and his brothers, by the
same mother, never could belong to the same clan, as their son or
nephew, whilst the perpetual changes, arising from intermarriages with
women of a different clan, prevented their degenerating into distinct
tribes; and checked the natural tendency towards a subdivision of the
nation into independent communities. The institution may be
considered as the foundation of the internal policy, and the basis of the
social state of the Indians."
[Footnote A: Stephen Ruddell's manuscript account of the Shawanoes,
in possession of the author.]
[Footnote B: John Johnston.]
[Footnote C: Mitchell.]
One mode of ascertaining the origin of the Indian tribes, and of
determining their relation to each other, as well as to other races of
mankind, is the study of their language. This has, at different times,
engaged the attention of several able philologists, who have done much

to analyze the Indian languages, and to arrange in systematic order, the
numerous dialects of this erratic people. The results of the investigation
of one[A] of the most learned and profound of these individuals, may
be summed up in the three following propositions:
1. "That the American languages in general, are rich in words and in
grammatical forms, and that in their complicated construction, the
greatest order, method and regularity prevail.
2. "That these complicated forms, which I call _poly synthetic,_ appear
to exist in all those languages, from Greenland to Cape Horn.
3. "That these forms appear to differ essentially from those of the
ancient and modern languages of the old hemisphere."
[Footnote A: Mr. Duponceau.]
In a late learned dissertation[A] on this subject, it is stated that in nearly
the whole territory contained in the United States, and in British and
Russian America, there are only eight great families, each speaking a
distinct language, subdivided in many instances, into a number of
dialects belonging to the same stock. These are the Eskimaux, the
Athapascas (or Cheppeyans,) the Black Feet, the Sioux, the
Algonkin-Lenape, the Iroquois, the Cherokee, and the Mobilian or
Chahta-Muskhog. The Shawanoes belong to the Algonkin-Lenape
family, and speak a dialect of that language. It bears a strong affinity to
the Mohican and the Chippeway, but more especially the Kickapoo.
Valuable vocabularies of the Shawanoe language have been given by
Johnston and by Gallatin in their contributions to the American
Antiquarian Society, which may be consulted by those disposed to
prosecute the study of this subject.
[Footnote A: Mr. Gallatin.]
The Shawanoes have been known since the first discovery of this
country, as a restless, wandering people, averse to the pursuits of
agriculture, prone to war and the chase. They have, within that period,
successively occupied the southern shore of lake Erie, the banks of the
Ohio and Mississippi, portions of Georgia, Florida, Tennessee,
Kentucky, and eastern Pennsylvania; then again the plains of Ohio, and
now the small remnant of them that remains, are established west of
Missouri and Arkansas. They have been involved in numerous bloody
wars with other tribes; and for near half a century, resisted with a bold,
ferocious spirit, and an indomitable hatred, the progress of the white

settlements in Pennsylvania, western Virginia, and especially Kentucky.
The Shawanoes have declined more rapidly in numbers[A] than any
other tribe of Indians known to the whites. This has been, and we
suppose justly, attributed to their wandering habits and their continual
wars. Although one of their villages is said once to have contained four
thousand souls, their present