Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 | Page 3

Ochiltree's language. I think I have never lost sight of my object in any situation where any thing could be done for its advancement.
I had been early led to place a greater value upon the traditions of the Indians than has been attached to them by those who do not view them as a series of authentic annals. For myself, I hold them in the light of historical records, mixed up indeed with much that is fabulous, but not in a greater degree than the early annals of other unenlightened nations, who could not perpetuate them by means of letters. After all it will remain for the reader to fix the degree of estimation in which these traditions shall be held, and to determine the degree of credit that is to be attached to them.
I cannot but think that I have rendered an acceptable service to the world in preserving these traditions from the oblivion that surely awaits them in their uncollected state. The North American Indians are a people, who, in the nature of things, and according to that which has happened to all, are doomed to be of the number of those
The sole memorial of whose lot Remains--they were, and they are not.
In a very few years nothing will remain of them but a nameless barrow. The day may come, when even conjecture will be at fault, as with the builders of the western mounds, in determining who they were, from whom they originated, what were their peculiar opinions, and the various other matters and things concerning them.
It has been by some thought necessary that I should present to the public proofs of the genuineness of these traditions. I shall proceed to give such as I have been able to collect, and the nature of the case will admit of my offering. Where they rest on my own word that they are authentic, the corroborating testimony I rely upon is their asserted conformity with Indian ideas, opinions, customs, and phraseology.
The first tradition, in the collection, "The Man of Ashes," is referred to by Mr. Johnstone, residing at Piqua, in the state of Ohio, and acting as agent for the American government among the Shawanos tribe at that place, in a communication made by him to the American Society of Antiquaries, and published in the first volume of their Transactions. Not having that work at hand, I cannot name the page. I also heard it from a Shawano when I was at Piqua, in 1823. It is probably an account mixed up with much that is fabulous of their first meeting with, and massacre of, a party of white people in alliance with a hostile tribe.
The second tradition, "Pomatare, the Flying Beaver," was related to me at the same time by the same Indian. It is also briefly referred to by Mr. Johnstone, in the communication in which mention is made of the first tradition. Many other writers speak of a tradition current among the Indians, of their having crossed the sea to arrive at their present place of residence. I cannot help regarding it as a very strong corroboration of this tradition, that all the American Indians call the world--i.e. the place where they dwell--their ideas extend no further--an "island." Does not the universality of this opinion prove that they are from a common stock, and once--perhaps ages ago--had demonstration of the fact that water flows between the continent upon which they now dwell, and that from which the tradition supposes they came?
The tradition entitled "The Alarm of the Great Sentinel," (Vol. 1, p. 61,) rests on the authority of Heckewelder, the well-known Moravian missionary at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and may be found in "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society." (Phila., 1819, Vol. 1, p. 206). Much controversy has prevailed in America respecting the degree of credit to be attached to this writer. None have pronounced him dishonest, but several have accused him of having a very strong bias towards the Indians, and of permitting his prejudices to colour his elaborate accounts of their modes and manners. Two very able writers, Mr. Duponceau, and Mr. Rawle, have come forward to vindicate him from the charge of partiality, and I think have fully done so. The tradition probably refers to an unsuccessful attempt at surprisal by their enemies.
"The Mother of the World" is told briefly in Hearne's "Journey to the Northern Ocean," p. 342. Hearne has been generally reckoned an accurate reporter of what he heard and saw on that journey. His assertion that the Indians have no religion is, however, totally untrue. Mackenzie also refers to the same tradition, in his "General History of the Fur Trade," prefixed to his "Voyage to the Northern Ocean." (London, 1801, quarto, cxviii). Mackenzie is a high authority in all that relates to