37 The "Bowrey" Dictionary and Henry Kelsey H. Christoph Wolfart University of Manitoba David H. Pentland University of Calgary The collections of the British Museum include what appears to be the earliest substantial document of Cree: a pamphlet of seven pages in folio, without any overt indication of author, date or place of printing. The only explicit iden­ tification is the title: A Dictionary of the Hudson's-Bay Indian Language. Thomas Bowrey This dictionary of approximately 600 entries has long been associated with the name of Thomas Bowrey. For Algonquian- ists, the most important citation is that of Pilling (1891: 54-55) who, if he had any doubts about the dictionary's authorship, expresses them only by the explicit mention of his sources: Ludewig's Literature of American Aboriginal Languages of 1858 which, he claims erroneously, followed the Bibliotheca Britannica of Robert Watt, published in 1824. Bowrey also appears as the author in most general biblio­ graphies, notably Sabin's Dictionary of Books Relating to America (vol. 2, 1869) and both editions (1956, 1973) of Peel's Bibliography of the Prairie Provinces. Apart from a few oblique remarks, Algonquianists have ignored the Dictionary of the Hudson's-Bay Indian Language, and not even its presumed author—otherwise unknown in early North America—appears to have elicited much interest. The only question about Bowrey's authorship was raised by the editor of his papers (Temple 1905:xli) who concludes rather diffidently that "if the Dictionary ... were really the work of Bowrey, then he must also have voyaged to North America." Thomas Bowrey was a "free merchant" whose life spanned many voyages to India (mainly between 1669 and 1679) and a number of European enterprises. His interest in philology, which seems to have been restricted to the East Indies, is attested primarily by the Dictionary English and Malayo, Malayo and English, to which is added some short grammar rules ... which he had printed in 1701. The attribution of the Dictionary of the Hudson's-Bay Indian Language to Bowrey obviously reflects the fact that the only known copy of the Cree dictionary has, for most of its life, been bound into Bowrey's Malay dictionary. While the cataloguers of the British Museum were first to take Temple's hint and sever the connection (in the second edition of the General Catalogue of Printed Books, 1931-54), the first printed catalogue of the British Museum library, published in 1787, also is the earliest source to have ascribed the author and date of the Malay dictionary to the Dictionary of the Hudson's-Bay Indian Language. 38 The British Museum Dictionary The two dictionaries were part of the bequest of Sir Hans Sloane which led to the foundation of the British Museum in 1753. An avid collector and a mainstay of the Royal Society, Sloane had a life-long interest in the affairs of the New World. Although he was apparently not a shareholder in the Hudson's Bay Company, his library includes several manu­ scripts related to Hudson Bay and the Hudson's Bay Company, notable among these Radisson's Relation du voyage a Hudson Bay of 1684. On the other hand he also owned a set of maps by Bowrey and it was he who sent a French correspondent Bowrey's table of oriental characters of which only two copies were printed. Thus it is not surprising that both Bowrey's Malay dictionary and the Dictionary of the Hudson's- Bay Indian Language found their way into Sloane's library. The evidence of the British Museum catalogue of 1787 suggests that the two dictionaries were already bound together at the time of Sloane's death; his own catalogue indicates that they were acquired separately. We can only speculate that to some member of his staff the difference between one Bay and another (that of Bengal and Hudson Bay) may have seemed less important than the common aspect exhibited by two dictionaries of "exotic" languages. The binding, which appears to be early eighteenth century, may well have been executed in 1737 when, according to a note bound into the Sloane catalogue, "there had been considerable Error in the binding of these tracts ..." Dating is a crucial step in the attribution of an anony­ mous work; it seems particularly important in this case where at least three spurious dates are scattered through the literature. While most sources give the date of the Malay dictionary, 1701, Eames (cf. Pilling 1891:iv) is cited in the National Union Catalogue of pre-1956 Imprints (143:244, 1971) as giving a date "about 1750"; and Ludewig (1858) and Sabin (1869) agree not only on the misspelled name Bowrie but also on a date of 1776. Like the binding, printing and paper point to the early part of the eighteenth century. For example, while a ligature fk ("long s" with k) is to be expected from about 1720 on (cf. McKerrow 1927:314-315), the Dictionary uses only the individual letters sk ("round s" and k). The watermark which appears in folio 7 has been identified with a type current mainly between 1690 and 1710, and although bibliographical evidence of this kind can hardly be taken as conclusive, it should not be ignored. An explicit and incontrovertible terminus ante quern exists in the manuscript catalogue of Sir Hans Sloane's library. The books are listed in the order in which they were acquired, and while Bowrey's Malay dictionary appears on page 532, suggesting 1703 as the approximate date of acquisition, the Cree dictionary is entered on page 1651; according to the expert staff of the British Library (to whom we are indebted for a great deal of technical help), this fixes the date of entry, and presumably of acquisition, circa 1718. ^ Without any doubt, therefore, the so-called "Bowrey" dictionardecades oyf wathse eighteentindeed printeh centuryd well. within the first two 3 9 Henry Kelsey A dictionary of "the Hudson's-Bay Indian Language" printed early in the eighteenth century cannot fail to bring to mind the lost dictionary of Henry Kelsey. As the first European to see the prairies (in 1690-92) and as a major figure (from 1694 to 1722) in warfare and furtrade alike, Kelsey needs no introduction. But in the face of these accomplishments it is easy to overlook his widely attested familiarity with "the natives language". Kelsey's dictionary is best known for its disappearance. Whether it was deliberately suppressed, as Robson (1752:72) claimed in the context of the parliamentary enquiry of 1749, or whether it was simply used up in Hudson Bay, remains an open question. It is certainly curious that no contemporary extracts or references appear to exist, and at the very least one might have expected the Hudson's Bay Company to preserve a copy. Whatever the circumstances of its disappearance, the existence of a dictionary by Kelsey is attested in a post­ script to the Committee's letter sent to Hudson Bay in the spring of 1710: wee haue sent you your dixonary Printed that you may / the Better Instruct the young Ladds with you, in ye Indian Language, // (H.B. Co. Archives, A 6/3, fo. 102) This is the only piece of direct evidence; if any printer's bills, proof copies, a manuscript in Kelsey's hand, etc. exist, we have been unable to find them. Attribution In attempting to identify the anonymous Cree dictionary in the British Museum with Henry Kelsey's lost dictionary, we can prove both "motive" and "opportunity": Kelsey had written a dictionary, and there are few potential authors to choose from during the first two decades of the eighteenth century. More specific evidence is needed, however, if the attribution is to be made with confidence. The dialect of the British Museum dictionary is the "Woods Cree" which was not displaced from the coastal region until the end of the eighteenth century: the reflex of Proto- Algonquian jT is h, *sk appears as 3k and the distinction of s_ and S^ is generally maintained. These features, however, are not sufficiently distinctive to permit the attribution of the dictionary to a particular author. The most we can say is that the dialectological circumstances are compatible with the identification of the two dictionaries. The same is true of the choice of words included, with their emphasis on maritime matters. The most personal link, if indeed it is an index rather than an accident, is Kelsey's own Cree name. Among 600 words denoting articles and actions of daily furtrade routine, the entry giant seems incongruous, an intrusion. Were the word miStapew intended in its usual shamanistic sense (cf. Preston 1975), one would expect a different gloss or a word of elaboration, as appears in many other entries. This leaves the tantalising hypothesis, never to be proven, that giant 4 0 is included because of an encounter with two "grizzled bears" which, Robson (1752:72n) reports, "obtained him the name of Miss-top-ashish [mistapeSiS] or Little Giant." The strongest argument is found in the comparison of the British Museum dictionary with the Kelsey Papers (1929) which include a number of Cree words and one Cree passage amounting to three lines. The Kelsey Papers are almost entirely in scribal hands (contrary to the assertion of the editors); the only exception is the Cree passage on page 58 of the manuscript which comparison with his signatures in the Hudson's Bay Company Archives has shown to be in Kelsey's own handwriting. This passage is not only the one directly verifiable proof of Kelsey's literacy in Cree; it also provides us with an authentic, unassailable sample of his transcriptional style.