INTRODUCTION
The important part which Mr. Chamberlain has invited me to take in the presentation of his valuable Memoir on the Maliseet language is the more honorable since this is the first work in an attractive, even if restricted, field. As such it must reap the honors as well as undergo the trials of a pioneer. Furthermore, the conditions which allowed its production are so rapidly passing away that, unless it should stimulate others to immediate hard scientific study of its originals, it is likely to remain unique. Its value, is the greater, also, in as much as it represents the results of Mr. Chamberlain s own personal studies direct from nature, and includes nothing at second hand or of compilation. For the opinions and defects of this introduction, he is of course not to be held responsible.
The tribe of Indians now commonly known as the Maliseets is confined chiefly to the valley of the River St. John, in the Province of New Brunswick. It includes, according to the official figures of 1892, six hundred and fifty-three individuals; and for some years they have been slowly increasing in numbers. They live upon government reservations in villages, the principal of which are at Tobique Point, Woodstock, Kingsclear, and St. Mary s with smaller settlements at Madawaska, Apohaqui, and near St. John, also temporary camping grounds at various points along the river.
These Maliseets are a superior race of Indians, combining with may truly Indian virtues fewer European vices than most of the North American tribes. As a rule they are honest, and many of them bear themselves with dignity, independence and self-respect. They are good-tempered and fairly temperate, and therefore very free from crime. They have the Indian dislike for the trades, but are keen hunters, may of the men earning their support as guides. Others make for sale canoes, baskets and other Indian wares, and some do a little, usually a very little, farming. They live in small houses and dress like the whites. They are of medium size, light in color (for Indians), and show little of the American Indian type in their physiognomy, having rather round faces and flat features. They still use their own language, though it is becoming corrupted by white influence; and the same cause is rapidly destroying the aboriginal character of their legends, formerly rich and imaginative, and of their dances, feasts, and other primitive customs. The younger people among them care nothing for such things, and when the present generation of older Indians shall have passed away, it is doubtful if anything of value to Ethnology or Philology can be obtained from them. This admixture with the Europeans in language and customs is in part the result of an actual admixture of race, for they have been intermarrying with whites, particularly with the Acadian French, for over two hundred years, to such an extent that it is doubtful if there is now a single pure-blooded Indian among them.
Like other native tribes of Northeastern America, they have, except in their connection with the whites, no known history. They have no records of any kind, and no monuments. Their own legends throw no clear light upon their origin, and little upon their relationship to their tribes. Such scraps of knowledge as we have, tend to show that, while originally they came probably from the west or southwest, they have from prehistoric times, as now, lived in the St. John Valley. There is some reason, however, for the belief that at the time of the discovery of the St. John by Champlain, in 1604, their neighbors, the Micmacs, occupied the mouth of the river, and perhaps extended to the head of tide-water at Fredericton, thus limiting our Maliseets to the upper river. This is shown as well by the testimony of Champlain, Lescarbot and Diereville as by the fact that some Indian place-names on the lower river are probably of Micmac origin. The distribution in old times of the Maliseet villages was different from that of the present, the principal ones before this century having been at Meductic, eight miles below Woodstock, and at Ek-pa-haak, five miles above Fredericton. The Maliseets were always very friendly with the French, and were their allies in all of their conflicts with the English, as well as in their terrible raids against the New England Settlements. All testimony agrees that they were good warriors, warriors of the true Indian type. At the opening of the American Revolutions, influenced by Colonel John Allan, they were friendly to the American cause, but they took no active part on either side, and later became firm adherents of the English. To the Loyalists of 1783, they were, except in a few cases, very generally friendly; and often, in the hardships of the first winters, they were of very great help to the new settlers.
In 1787 several schools for civilizing and educating them were established at different points along the river by an English society; but the success of these schools was small, and later they were given up. From this time until the present, their history has been uneventful. They now have their own schools, maintained by the Dominion government, and their own churches. They are all Roman Catholics.
The exact relationship of the Maliseets to the neighboring tribes is still a matter of some doubt. The scientific comparative studies upon their languages which alone can settle this question, have never been made. Indeed the materials therefor in the form of reliable grammars, vocabularies, etc., have been wanting for all except the Micmacs. Some facts, however, are established. As at present distributed, the Maliseets are nearly surrounded by tribes related to them in various degrees. To the east, occupying all the waters emptying into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and extending to and throughout Nova Scotia, are the Micmacs. Besides differing in some physical characteristics, there are differences in the languages of the two tribes so marked that few words are really common to the two, and it is only with much difficulty that members of the two tribes can talk together. To the south and west, connected with the St. John by easy water routes, is the St. Croix Valley, occupied by the Passamaquoddies. Not only are the latter indistinguishable from the Maliseets physically, but their language is nearly identical, so that they talk together with perfect ease. Indeed the term Maliseet is often used to include them both, and properly; though of late it is the custom to restrict the name to those of the St. John River, a usage which is followed here, both because of its practical advantages and its agreement with the range of Mr. Chamberlain s paper. There is a Passamaquoddy tradition that the tribes was founded by the union of a man from the St. John and a woman from the Penobscot. Finally to the west, and likewise connected with the St. John by good waterways and short portages, is the Penobscot River, occupied by the Penobscot tribe. These Indians also resemble the Maliseets very closely, and speak a language which the latter can understand without difficulty. They also often are, and formerly always were, included under the name Maliseet. To the westward of the Penobscots came the Kennebec Indians, the Abnakis par excellence; these were related to the Penobscots, though less closely than were the Penobscots to the other Maliseet sub-tribes, but more closely than were the three Maliseet sub-tribes to the Micmacs. The conclusion from present knowledge, then, seems to be that while all of these Indians are from the Algonquin stock, the Micmacs stand apart as one race or tribe; the Maliseets of the St. John, the Passamaquoddies and the Penobscots form collectively another race or tribe of three very closely related divisions, all entitled to be know as Maliseets; and the Kennebec Indians with offshoots on and near the St. Lawrence to the north, form a third division, to which the Maliseets are more closely allied than they are to the Micmacs. * Though presenting such differences as we have mentioned, all of these tribes have in common a rich series of legends which have attracted very much well-deserved attention.
The reference to these Indians in the works of the early explorers throw much light upon their customs, but little upon their language, relationships or history. Champlain ( Voyages, 1613-1632,) refers to them frequently. He calls the Micmacs, Souriquois, and groups all the Indians from the St. John to the Penobscot as Etchemins or Etechemins. Lescarbot ( Historie de la Nouvelle France, 1609) devotes several chapters, much mixed with other matter, to their customs, particularly those of the Micmacs, and he likewise calls all from the St. John to the Kennebec, the Etechemins. Father Baird ( Relation of 1611) describes them, as does De Laet ( Historie du Nouveau Monde, 1640), both using the manes Souriquois and Etechemins precisely as does Champlain. Denys ( Description Geographic, and Histoire Naturelle, 1672,) gives several chapters of his work to them, and applies the name Etechemins to all between the St. John and Boston. But the first writer who actually lived among the Maliseets was Villebon, Governor of Acadia from 1690 to 1700; and he likewise is the first to use the word Maliseet (Malicita), which he applies precisely as his predecessors do the word Etechemin, i.e., to all of the Indians from the St. John to the Penobscot inclusive. His official letters and journal (Broadhead s Documentary History of New York: MS. published by the Quebec Government, etc.) abound in references to them, and are valuable sources of information as to their later history. Cadillac (1692, Broadhead s, op. cit.), Brouillan (1703, MS. by Quebec Government, cit.) and Diereville ( Voyage du Port Royal, 1707), all contribute to our knowledge of them and apply the name Maliseet in the same way as Villebon does. John Gyles in his well-known narrative of 1736 has given us our most valuable work ( History of French Dominions, 1760) confirms the above usage of the tribal names. The only later works which need mention here are two. Maurault s Histoire des Abenakis (1866) makes several not very clear tribal subdivisions, placing the Etechemins on the St. Croix and a part of the St. John only, and uses the word Maliseet to cover the Etechemins and a related tribe on the St. John. Vetromile s Abnakis and their History (1866) is very untrustworthy; and in the portions relating to the Maliseets and Micmacs seems more often wrong in its statements than right.
The words Maliseet and Etechemin are therefore equivalent. The word Abnaki in various forms has been variously applied. Champlain and other, including Diereville, Villebon and Father Rasle, applied it to the Kennebec Indians, but it has been use very commonly by other as a general term, to designate all of the north-eastern tribes, including even the Micmacs. It is generally interpreted to mean men of the east. The word Etechemin is by Maurault translated men of the snowshoe-skin country, but others find in it good canoe men. Happily we know with certainty the origin of the word Maliseet. It is the name Mal-e-see-jik, from the Micmac word Mal-e-seet, he speaks badly. (Silas Rand, letter.) Both tribes agree that this word was adopted by the whites from the Micmacs, who used it because they considered Maliseet a very poor imitation of Micmac. The Maliseets call themselves Woolastukwiuk, the Woolastukw (St. John River) people. The origins of the words Souriquoi and Micmac are unknown, though the latter is suspected to be the French word micmac applied to them because of their many medicine men in early times.
The published vocabularies of the Maliseet tongue are very few. Mr. Pilling in his altogether admirable Bibliography of the Algonquian languages has so nearly exhausted the subject that we can do no better than refer all students to his works. Omitting the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy dialects as foreign to our purpose, and disregarding scattered words in various books of travel, the only printed vocabularies of the Maliseets are two. In 1855 there was printed at Fredericton a fourteen-page, 12mo pamphlet, now very rare, entitled, A primer for Young Children, applicable to the Indian Language as spoken by the Mee-lee-ceet Tribe in New Brunswick, by John Stephens. Five pages are devoted to a vocabulary, of the merits of which I am unable to speak. In 1865, Mr. Henry Yonle Hind published on page 89 of his Preliminary Report on the Geology of New Brunswick a vocabulary of some fifty-two words.
Among manuscript works, of great value are these of the late Rev. Dr. Silas Rand, all of which are now in the Library of Wellsley College. In addition to many translations into Maliseet, comparisons with other languages, grammar, etc., he has left two long vocabularies, one containing some 250 quarto pages of words, and the other some 90 pages of the same. Dr. Rand s work is always of the best, and is perfectly reliable, and the publication of these with other of his manuscripts would be of inestimable value to Indian Philology. Another manuscript vocabulary is that of Mr. Chamberlain himself, in the Library of the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington, the substance of which, happily, is published herewith. Mr. Pilling refers to a few others in his Bibliography, but they are of minor importance.
The very scantiness of this list forcibly illustrates the service of such a work as Mr. Chamberlain s. It is to be hoped that it will lead others who have the fortunate opportunity, to similar and more extended studies upon this profitable topics.
WILLIAM F. GANONG.
Cambridge, Mass.,
May, 1893.