Historical and mythological traditions of the Algonquins.

  • Ephraim George Squier
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical and mythological traditions of the Algonquins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    HISTORICAL AND MYTHOLOGICAL TRADITIONS OF THE ALGONQUINS; WITH A TRANSLATION OF THE “ WALUM-OLUM,” OR BARK RECORD OF THE LINNI-LENAPE,* BY E. G. SQUIER. The discovery of America, in the fif¬ teenth century, constitutes a grand era in the history of the world. From it we may date the rise of that mental energy and physical enterprise, which has since worked so wonderful changes in the condition of the human race. It gave a new and powerful impulse to the nations of Europe, then slowly rousing from the lethargy of centuries. Love of adventure, hope, am¬ bition, avarice,—the most powerful incen¬ tives to human action,—directed the atten¬ tion of all men to America. Thither flocked the boldest and most adventurous spirits of Europe ; and half a century of startling events sufficed to lift the veil of night from a vast continent, unsurpassed in the extent and variety of its productions, abounding in treasures, and teeming with a strange people, divided into numberless families, exhibiting many common points of resemblance, yet differing widely in their condition, manners, customs, and civil and social organizations. Along the shores of the frozen seas of the North, clothed with the furs of the sea- monsters whose flesh had supplied them with food, burrowing in icy caverns during the long polar nights, were found the dwarfed and squalid Esquimaux. In lower latitudes, skirting the bays and inlets of the Atlantic, pushing their canoes along the shores of the great lakes, or chasing the buffalo on the vast meadows of the West, broken up into numerous families, subdi¬ vided into tribes, warring constantly, and ever struggling for ascendency over each other, were the active and fearless Hunt¬ ers, falling chiefly within the modern extended denominations of the Algonquin and Iroquois families. Still lower down, in the mild and fertile regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico, more fixed in their habits, half hunters, half agriculturists, with a systematized religion, and a more consolidated civil organization, and consti¬ tuting the connecting link between the gor¬ geous semi-civilization of Mexico and the nomadic state of the Northern families, were the Floridian tribes, in many respects one of the most interesting groups of the continent. Beneath the tropics, around the bases of the volcanic ranges of Mexico, and occupying her high and salubrious plains, Cortez found the Aztecs and their depend¬ encies,--nations rivalling in their barbarous magnificence the splendors of the oriental world,—far advanced in the arts, living in cities, constructing vast works of public utility, and sustaining an imposing, though bloody religious system. Passing the nations of Central America, whose archi¬ tectural monuments challenge comparison with the proudest of the old world, and attest the advanced condition and great power of their builders,—Pizarro found beneath the equator a vast people, liv¬ ing under a well-organized and consolidated government, attached to a primitive Sabi- anism, fixed in their habits and customs, and happy in their position and circum¬ stances. Still beyond these to the south¬ ward, were the invincible Aurucanians, to¬ gether with numerous other nations, with distinctive features, filling still lower places in the scale of advancement, and finally subsiding into the squalid counterparts of the Esquimaux in Patagonia. These numerous nations, exhibiting con¬ trasts so striking, and institutions so novel and interesting, it might be supposed, would have at once attracted the attention of the learned of that day, and insured at their hands a full and authentic account of * This paper was read before the New York Historical Society, at its regular meeting in June last. It has not been thought necessary to materially alter its original form, although as a general rule, the use of the first person is objectionable.
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