Heckewelder's 1792 Vocabulary from Ohio: a Possible Attestation of Mascouten
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Heckewelder's 1792 Vocabulary from Ohio: A Possible Attestation of Mascouten IVES GODDARD Smithsonian Institution INTRODUCTION An unlabeled vocabulary recorded by John Heckewelder in 1792 docu ments a form of speech very similar to Sauk, Meskwaki (Fox),1 and Kick apoo, but distinct from all three. It thus appears to attest a fourth member of the very shallow linguistic grouping that they constitute, quite possibly the otherwise undocumented speech of the Mascouten. Sauk-Meskwaki-Kickapoo Sauk, Meskwaki, and Kickapoo are very similar. Sauk and Meskwaki are mutually intelligible dialects of a language that has been called Fox (in an inclusive sense) or Sauk-Fox and is here called Sauk-Meskwaki. Kick apoo is noticeably, but still only slightly, more divergent. Intelligibility between some speakers of Kickapoo and Meskwaki may not be auto- matic, especially if differences in age are also involved. Thus Sauk- Meskwaki and Kickapoo may be considered two emergent languages. In 1670 the Jesuit linguist Claude Allouez mentioned two other eth nic groups in what is now Wisconsin in addition to the Meskwaki, Sauk, and Kickapoo: the Mascouten and the "Kitchigamich." He reported that all five of these peoples spoke the same language, and given his linguistic experience his report must be considered highly reliable. He had acquired some facility in Sauk, which he used to instruct the Mascouten in Chris tian doctrine, "in such a manner that I made myself understood to them." 1. To minimize possible confusion, this language is here referred to as Meskwaki in all periods but the conventional abbreviation "F" (for Fox) is kept as a label for cited words. Other language abbreviations are: C = Plains Cree; K = Kickapoo; PA = Proto-Algon quian; S = Sauk, Sh = Shawnee. 2. I base this judgment on remarks made independently by a speaker of Kickapoo and one of Meskwaki, both of whom were men under fifty years of age. 3. "[J]e les instruisi, parlant leur langue, en sorte que je me faisois entendre a eux." (JR 54:232.) Papers of the 34th Algonquian Conference, ed. H.C. Wolfart (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 2003), pp. 165-192. 166 IVES GODDARD His key statements are the following: Their [sc. the Meskwakis'] language is the same as that of the Sauk. Four leagues from here are the Kickapoo and the Kitchigamich, who speak the same language as the Mascouten. ... God had vouchsafed me to be always understood, their language being the same as that of the Sauk. (JR 54:222, 232.)4 The Mascouten merged with the Kickapoo at the beginning of the nine teenth century (Goddard 1972,1978:670), and some Kickapoos still claim descent from them. Of the Kitchigamich I know only what Allouez says in this passage. Not a single word of the speech of these two groups has been thought to have survived. Heckewelder This negative conclusion may now have to be revised, however, on the basis of a document found in an unlikely place: the papers of the Rev. John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder that are now preserved in the Archives of the Moravian Church, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Hecke welder was born in Bedford, England, 12 March 1743, and immigrated to North America in 1754. He was a Moravian missionary to the Delaware Indians in Pennsylvania and Ohio and wrote two widely influential books (Heckewelder 1819, 1820). He served as agent in Ohio for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1788-1810, and as assistant peace commis sioner for the United States at Vincennes, in 1792, and at Detroit, in 1793. He died 31 January 1823 (Wallace 1958:414). He was bilingual in Ger man and English and wrote Indian languages using the German values of the alphabet, except for occasional use of English (sh). He had a thorough knowledge of the Northern Unami variety of Delaware, which was used by the Moravians as the liturgical language in their missions, and some knowledge of Munsee. He also recorded vocabularies of Mahican, Nanti- 4. Regarding the "Outagamis": "leur langue ... est la meme que celle des Satzi" (JR 54:222). "A quatre lieues d'icy sont les KiKabou, & les Kitchigamich, qui parlent meme language que les MachKouteng" (JR 54:232). "Dieu m'a fait la grace d'estre toujours entendu, leur langue estant la meme que celle des SaKi" (JR 54:232.) 5. I am grateful to Jim Rementer for bringing this source to my attention. I have exam ined it on the microfilm: Records of the Moravian Mission Among the Indians of North America, Reel 35, Box 333, folder 8, item 1. HECKEWELDER'S 1792 VOCABULARY FROM OHIO 167 coke, Ojibwa, and Miami, the last being mislabeled as Shawnee (Pilling 1891:227; Siebert 1982:101; Costa 1994:14-15). The notebook Among the Heckewelder papers, and attributed to him, is a "pocket mem orandum book" made "of stiff cards bound in a leather wallet." The note book bears no date, but it can be securely dated to 1792. It contains entries that were made on Heckewelder's trip in that year to attend the Indian treaty conference at Vincennes (Indiana) as a United States peace com missioner. For example, the notebook refers to "Lieut1 Demler at Gallip- pollis, evidently the officer named Demler that Heckewelder met in Gallipolis (Ohio) 28 June 1792, as recorded in his diary (Wallace 1958:266). The notebook also refers to "Mau at Harretsburg," clearly the same as the Pastor Mau of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, that Heckewelder mentioned in his diary while in Cincinnati, 5-6 July 1792 (Wallace 1958:271)7 Several pages in the notebook record an unlabeled vocabulary of an Algonquian language of the Sauk-Meskwaki-Kickapoo type. At least parts of this seem to have been written over erased accounts or the like. Except for one word, it is written in pencil. The Eel River Indians There is only one designation of an Indian group in the notebook, and this must thus be regarded as on its face the best indicator of what language these words represent. This is an entry reading: "Kenepikumequagi Eel River Ind". Like other entries on the same page this is written in ink. Whatever other significance this may have in context, it is clearly the word for 'eels' (cf. F kene-pikwame-kwaki 'eels'). In fact, in his diary Heckewelder mentions the 56 captive women and 6. The original entry was in ink with the name left blank. Then the blank was filled in with "Dimley" written in pencil. Then finally "Demler" was written above this in ink. 7. The translation of Heckewelder's 1792 journal by Wallace (1958:259-293) is based on "copies ... preserved in the Archives of the Moravian Church." What he refers to as a "version of the journal" was published in Halle, Germany, in 1797; a translation of this appeared in The Pennsylvania Journal of History and Biography, volumes 11 and 12 (1887-1888), and in William E. Connelley's edition of Heckewelder's Narrative (Heck ewelder 1907:58-95). 168 IVES GODDARD children "from the Eel River & Wawiachteno Nations" whom he visited with Gen. Rufus Putnam on 2 July 1792, in the Fort Washington stockade (at Cincinnati), where they were held "under strong guard" (Wallace 1958:268). These non-combatants were to be exchanged for White pris oners at the Treaty of Vincennes, 24-27 September 1792. The tribes present there, as listed by Heckewelder, were: "the Eel Creek Wiachte- nows from the headwaters of the Wabash; the Wiachtenows from lower down the Wabash; the Piankishaws between the Wabash & the Illinois; the Potawattamos from Lake Michigan & St. Josephs; the Kikapoos from Cahokia; the Kaskaskias & Musquetons from Kaskaskias" (Wallace 1958:283). As these quotations show, Heckewelder sometimes distin guishes the Eel River Indians from the Weas ("Wawiachteno," "Wiachte nows"), and at other times he calls them Eel River Weas, extending to them the tribal label of the down-river group. William Wells On 12 July there arrived in Cincinnati a young Kentuckian named Will iam Wells (b. 1770, d. 1812), who had been captured eight years earlier by "the Eel River Wawiachtenoes," had been adopted by the chief and had learned their language. "Gen Putnam being in need of an interpreter there being no one here who could speak to the prisoners, he sent for him' & took him into the service of the United States. Here he found the rest of his adopted relatives, his mother and sisters, who when they met shed many tears" (Wallace 1958:271-272). By his own account, then, Heckewelder would not have been able to communicate with the Eel River captives when he first visited them on 2 July. He could have interviewed them after the arrival of Wells, but at that point he could obviously have simply obtained the vocabulary from Wells himself. Heckewelder's Miami vocabulary, which Costa suggests may have been obtained on the same 1792 trip, was taken from a White ^S^th uT H ^^ ^ 2° ^ (Pll,inS 1891:227' Costa Welt mLtf °Ug Y S°metimeS traVded SCparately' ^ckewelder and ZslrlT^T "^ "^ ^^ Heck™elder described wit- ^24^).ato8m8 S dymg ^ "m th£ Wabash lan^^" Wells^a^nr018 ^T^' ^ * Vo1^' Wrote that Wells was the only person m America capable of" helping him obtain an HECKEWELDER'S 1792 VOCABULARY FROM OHIO 169 Indian vocabulary. He "had been made captive by the Indians at thirteen years of age," and "he acquired an accurate knowledge of many of their dialects, while he lived among them" (Volney 1804:356). Wells served as Volney's interpreter when Volney obtained his Miami vocabulary from Little Turtle in Philadelphia in 1798, and he furnished spellings in English orthography for some Miami words (Volney 1804:356-358, 429-439).