by any distinctive feature, from the rest of the more favorably located Chippewas. Their prominent manners and customs, ceremonies and opinions, are the same. They migrated by the same track, adopted the same means of living, sought the attainment of the same general objects, and speak the same language. There are minor peculiarities of speech in most of the bands of this nation, separated by a few hundred miles. But they consist mostly in accent, with some interchanges of the labial and liquid consonants. The vowel sounds are identical. Whatever remarks could be made, therefore, on the principles of the language, would be equally applicable to the current language of other Chippewa bands.
This language covers an extensive area in the west, and the north-west. It is emphatically the court language of the Indians, being the medium of communication, in all general councils. Its copiousness and freedom from the barbarities which disfigure many of the native languages, were remarked at an early day, and have led to its being more studied and spoken, than perhaps any other native American language. The regret has been expressed, that where so many good points exist, there should be found any defects to mar them. In its grammatical structure, it exhibits some peculiarities, which do not, perhaps, admit of being strictly classed with other transpositive languages, although it has most features in coincidence with them. Originally, simple in its character, and consisting of scarcely any distinctions of speech, beyond the verb and substantive, and the pronominal and other primary particles, the tendency of usage and invention has been, to increase the length of words by combination, rendering them formidable to the eye, and pompous to the ear. These combinations assume almost every shape, in which words can be made to coalesce. And the primitives when thus united, are still further compounded by inflections for time and person, for number and quality, and sometimes to indicate other circumstances, as if it were the chief scope of the speaker to concentrate all the offices of speech in a single word, or a single expression. But in this process of accretion, as might be expected, clearness and simplicity are often sacrificed to sound, and the distinctions of person, and number, and tense, are not, perhaps, always accurately preserved. So many letters, and even whole syllables, are also dropped, to effect the purposes of a harmonious coalescence, agreeably to the Indian ear, that it becomes extremely difficult to trace analogies, and one of the usual helps to comparison, is thus withdrawn. Number is entirely wanting in the third person of the declension of their pronouns and nouns, and in the conjugation of their verbs. Nor is there any distinction to mark the sex of the third person, although the first and second persons, are uniformly and scrupulously thus marked. He and she, him and her, are expressed by the same word, or the same pronominal sign. Although there is a positive and a conditional future, in the conjugation of their verbs, the compound tenses, are generally thought to be defective.
Notwithstanding these deficiencies, the language admits of many fine turns of expression, and pointed terms of irony, and in its general simplicity, and nervous brevity, will admit of a comparison with some terms of scripture phraseology. Among its grammatical forms, there are several, which exhibit beautiful and succinct modes of conveying thought. All its active verbs can be multiplied as often as there are distinct objects of their action, and they are conjugated both negatively, as well as positively. Substantives admit of adjective terminations, and adjectives of substantive terminations. Both can be turned into verbs, and both are endowed with number. Pronouns are inflected for time, and in this shape, supply the want of our auxiliary verbs. The verb, to be, may be said to characterize this language, as differing from some of the Indian languages, although its use is restricted, and there is no declarative existence indicated in the ordinary conjugation of verbs. As all nouns assume verbal terminations, they undergo all the modifications of other verbs. Possession is indicated by an inflection analogous to, but differing from case. Locality, diminution, and derogation, may be, either separately, or all together, denoted by inflections of the noun. Particles, are very copiously used. And this part of speech is very important, making the use of words definite or exact, which without these adjuncts, would often lack both coherence and exactitude. Adverbs are liberally employed, and by their help, the degrees of comparison are formed. There is but one degree of comparison formed by an inflection of the substantive. There is a numerous list of prepositions, which are not, however, disjunctively used, but always as the prefixed syllable or syllables, to substantives. Conjunctions, of which the language has a number, are not thus restricted, and cannot thus be used. The most important distinction, however, which belongs to the language, and that which most rigidly pervades its forms, is the separation of words into two classes, distinguished as animate and inanimate, or personal and impersonal, carrying also, the idea of noble and ignoble. This principle, merges the ordinary distinctions of gender, and imparts a two-fold character to the verb, substantive, and adjective, and consequently creates the necessity of double conjugations and declensions. This results from the transitive character of the whole language, and its habitual application to material objects. The verb which would be used to imply vision, is made to indicate the presence or absence of vitality, creating the distinction of the animate and inanimate forms. The same principle interdicts the promiscuous use of adjectives. A strong man and a strong house, require different modifications of the word strong. All its concords are directed to the upholding of this rule. This novel and curious principle, appears to lie at the foundation of the syntax, and imparts to the language its most marked characteristic feature. Whatever modifications other rules require, they all coincide in this. It is a point which every good speaker pays attention to. And as the rule may be arbitrarily employed, it enables him to invest the whole inanimate creation with life, and thus to throw a charm over the most barren waste; an advantage which is very freely resorted to, in their oral tales and mythological fables.
In contemplating such a language, it is impossible to avoid the observation of many beauties and many defects. But its beauties do not appear to be of a character to entitle them to the enthusiastic encomiums which have been bestowed upon some of our Indian languages; nor do its defects and barbarisms merit the depreciating terms which have been applied to others. Truth, in this, as in many other metaphysical investigations, will be found to lie in a mean. If there are forms and expressions suited to call forth the applause of the speculative philologist, there are also many features for him to rectify or condemn. Like the character of the people by whom it is spoken, its principles are perpetually verging to extremes. There is either a redundancy of forms creating distinctions, not, in all cases, of very obvious utility, or an absolute want of them. And the inquirer is often led to wonder, how a people who require the nice distinctions in the one case, should be able to dispense with distinctions altogether in the other.
From this vacillation between barbarism and refinement, poverty and redundance, a method strictly philosophical or purely accidental, there might be reason to infer that the people themselves, by whom the language is spoken, were formerly in a more advanced and cultivated state. And that a language once copious and exact, partaking of the fortunes of the people, degenerated further and further into barbarism and confusion, as one tribe after another separated from the parent stock. Change of accent would alone produce a great diversity of sound. Accident would give some generic peculiarities: and that permutation of the consonants, which we see among the Algonquin bands, would, in the end, leave little besides the vowel sounds, and the interchangeable consonants, to identify tribes long separated by time and by distance, without means of intercommunication, without letters, and without arts. If compared by these principles there is reason to believe, philologists would find the primitive languages of America extremely few, and their grammatical principles, either identical or partaking largely of the same features. And to this result, the tendency of inquiry on this side the Atlantic is slowly verging, however it may contravene the theories of learned and ingenious philologists in Europe. The inquiry is fraught with deep interest to the philosophical mind; and it offers a field for intellectual achievement, which it may be hoped will not be left uncultivated by the pens of piety, philosophy, or genius.
CHAPTER XI.
Encampment on a peninsula in Leech Lake.—Departure for the portage to the source of the De Corbeau river.—Traverse a bay.—Commencement of the portage.—The mode of passing it.—First portage to Warpool Lake.—Pass successively Little Long Lake, the Four