152 
THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 
course with civilized man ; they are a degraded race^ very 
much hke 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- 
