212 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



incongruity, not to say blemish, is maintained through long periods of time among 

 . certain nations, after a portion of their congeners had corrected the defect by a 

 change suggested by the principles of the system. Secondly, that the system is 

 under the absolute control of the fundamental conceptions upon which it rests, and 

 if changed at all, the change must be in logical accordance with these conceptions, 

 and move in a direction, as elsewhere stated, predetermined by the elements of the 

 system. 



The identity of the Miami in whatever is radical, with the common system of all 

 the nations thus far named is sufficiently evident. 1 



2. Sawks and Foxes. It would be inconsistent with the plan of this work to 

 encumber its pages with historical notices of the numerous nations to whom it is 

 necessary to refer. A brief reference to their ancient seats, and to their present 

 location and numbers, will yield all the information necessary to our present purpose. 



The home country of the Sawks and Foxes, when they first became known to 

 the early explorers, was upon the Fox River in Wisconsin, where they were found 

 in 1666. Their range was westward from this river to the Mississippi. There is 

 some evidence tending to show that they formerly resided upon the north shore of 

 Lake Ontario ; and subsequently upon the west side of the Mississippi in the val- 

 ley of the Sawk River, within the Dakota area. They have been distinguished 

 among the Mississippi nations for their fighting propensities. In 1841 they were 

 established upon a reservation in Kansas, and were estimated at twenty-four hun- 

 dred. 2 



Among the Mississippi nations there was more or less of cultivation and of vil- 

 lage life. This was particularly the case with the Sawks and Foxes. 3 Their dia- 

 lect affiliates very closely with the dialects of the Illinois, as will be seen by a refer- 

 ence to the Table. Like all other prairie Indians, the Sawks and Foxes are very 

 dark skinned, very much more so than the forest nations. Some of them are but 

 a few shades lighter than the negro. 4 



Their system of relationship, which will be found in the Table, agrees so inti- 



1 In 1855 the five nations above named were estimated collectively at seven hundred and eighty. 

 Schoolcraft, Hist. Cond. & Pros. VI, 705. 



* They are frequently referred to in the Colonial Records. Col. Hist. N. Y., IV, 749, VII, 543, 

 IX, 161, 889 and 1055. 



8 Carver thus speaks of a village of the Sawks on the Wisconsin River, which he visited in 1766 : 

 " This is the largest and best built Indian town I ever saw. It contained about ninety houses, each 

 large enough for several families. They are built of hewn plank, neatly jointed, and covered with 

 bark so completely as to keep out the most penetrating rains. * * * In their plantations, which 

 lie adjacent to their houses, and are neatly laid out, they raise great quantities of Indian corn, beans, 

 melons, &c." Travels, p. 22. 



4 I remember very distinctly the personal appearance of a Sawk woman upon the Sawk and Fox 

 Reservation in Kansas in 1860, who assisted my interpreter in giving the details of their system of 

 relationship. She was short, but stout, with a very dark skin, small deep set and restless black 

 eyes (in which the untamed animal nature was distinctly manifest), high cheek bones, narrow, high, 

 and retreating forehead, and massive lower face, with large mouth and tumid lips. A smile, which 

 occasionally came and went, sat upon her imperturbable features so unnaturally that her face did not 

 seem formed to harbor such a visitant; and it dropped out as instantaneously as a thread of light- 



