152 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



course with civilized man ; they are a degraded race, very 

 much like the gipsies of Europe. Perhaps I can give you 

 some information respecting them, derived from sources to 

 which you may not have had access. The Indians appear 

 to have been originally divided into three great families, 

 speaking languages so distinct, that no affinity can be per- 

 ceived between them. All the numberless tribes into which 

 the red men have been subdivided, may, with a few excep- 

 tions be assigned to these three families : the Algonquin, or 

 Chippeway, the Dahcotah, and the Floridian. The Algon- 

 quin was the great race from which the Wampanoags, the 

 Narragansetts, the Mohegans, the Pequots, the Ottawas, the 

 Iroquois or six nations, and all the tribes which originally 

 inhabited Canada and New England, appear to have sprung. 

 These all speak dialects which can be traced to one great 

 root, and in. their habits and manners bear a great affinity 

 to each other. I should rather use the past tense, however, 

 as few remains of these powerful tribes survive. They 

 fought for their hearths with a chivalric valour, and a deter- 

 mined perseverance worthy of a better fate ; but the scalp- 

 ing-knife and the tomahawk have sunk before the musket 

 and the bayonet. They were cruel and unmerciful in war, 

 and cunning and stratagem were as highly esteemed as 

 valour. The scalp, or skin of the crown of the head with 

 the hair attached, was taken from a fallen enemy as a trophy, 

 and highly valued : and so much honour was attached to the 

 possession of these bloody spoils, that it is said a wounded 

 Indian belonging to a retreating party, has been known to 

 entreat his fellows to cut off his head, lest his scalp should 

 fall into the hands of the enemy. In performing the act of 

 scalping, the victor sets one foot on the neck of his disabled 

 enemy, entwines one hand in his hair, and by a few slashes of 

 the scalping-knife in his other, round the top of the head, is 

 enabled to pull off the skin with the hair. Before the intro- 



