suppose it might originally have been nearly equal to that of the A. D. 1615, English, in 1675.* to 1675. the tribes in In estimating the whole number of natives originally in Maine, A view of the calculator is involved still deeper in conjecture. It is true, Maine. that this State contains as many square miles, as the residue of New-England. Its soil is good, its waste grounds few, and its climate healthful. It has also long rivers-a wide seacoast, and was covered with a heavy forest; affording the amplest means of savage livelihood and support, and exhibiting when first discovered and visited by Europeans, a people overspreading the land. Nevertheless, the rivers, upon which the tribes were settled, were too widely separated from each other, to be promotive of a dense population; nor were the soil and climate so congenial to the propagation of the Aborigines, as in the more southerly parts of New-England. The few facts, which history contributes, in relation to the tribes in Maine, may reflect some light upon the subject. No people ever defended their native country with more valor and obstinacy, than the Sokokis did theirs, especially in Lovwell's war. Sokokis. A number of them, relinquishing the French interest, in 1744, for the ranks of the English at the seige of Louisbourg, distinguished themselves among the bravest soldiers. Afterwards, they could muster only about a dozen fighting men; and before the capture of Quebec, the tribe was extinct.† The Anasagunticooks, in 1744, had 160 fighters; and when Anasagunthe war of the revolution commenced, about 40 of the tribe ticooks. 'made the shores, the ponds, and the Islands of the Androscog'gin their principal home.' Philip Will, a young Indian of Cape Cod, was taken captive by the French at the age of 14, in the siege of Louisbourg; and abiding among the natives, became the chief of this tribe. He was an Indian of some education, and many years instrumental in preventing their utter extinction. * In A. D. 1696, there were in New-England about 100,000 whites.-2 Holmes, p. 31.-Yet in 1676 there were estimated to be in Massachusetts, New-Hampshire and Maine, 150,000.-Hutch. Coll. p. 484.—Quere? Mass. Letter Book p. 114-15.-1 Doug. p. 185. 12 Hutch. Hist. p. 266.-Sull. p. 263.-Philip Will was brought up in the family of Mr. Crocker, where he was taught to read and write the English language and to cypher. He was in height 6 feet 3 inches and well proportioned.-MS. Letter of A. G. Chandler, Esq. A. D. 1615, to 1675. Canibas. Wawenocks. Elechemins. None of the Abenaques tribes, however, were more strongly attached to their native soil, than the Canibas. They were bold and brave fighters through all the Indian wars; in which they sustained probably a greater loss of numbers than any other tribe. Aware of their decline, they deeply lamented their cruel fate; having, in 1764, only 30 warriors; and, in 1795, six or seven families constituted all their remains.* The Wawenocks never made any figure after their ruinous war with the Tarratines. Their force was then broken, and more than fifteen years, before the French war, in 1753-4, they were drawn away by the French, to the river Perante in Canada, where they settled a village which they called by their own name; and so considerably united was their tribe, as to be able, in 1749, to bring into war about 40 fighting men.† Charlevoix says, the 'Indians of the St. François, uniting the Anasagunticooks and 'Wawenocks, were a colony of the Abenaques, removed from 'the eastern parts of New-England, for the sake of French 'neighborhood.' The Etechemins, never having been so much wasted by war, disease and dissipation, and always larger than the Abenaques people, are still inhabitants of their native country, humbled, however, in view of their decline and ultimate destiny. Persons well acquainted with them in former years, affirm that in 1756, they could collectively turn out 1,500 fighting men. Their remaining population in 1820, amounted only to 1,235 souls, that is to say, 390 Tarratines; 379 Openangos; and 466 Marechites.|| All the preceding circumstances, combined with the wasting wars in which the Abenaques were repeatedly engaged; the forces of the Etechemins, whereby they were originally able to keep the western tribes of the Abergineans in fear and awe;¶ and their enduring existence by tribes, to the present time, unitedly conduce to the inference, that the ancient population of Maine must have been at least one half of that in the residue of *17 Mass. Rec. p. 399.-1 Doug. p. 185. 1 Douglass, p. 101. That is, among them were 86 hunters; 91 under ten years, and 36 camps. ¡5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. p. 211.-Fighters incorrectly supposed to be only 30, in 1764. Pinkerton's Geog. p. 627. The small-pox spread to Piscataqua, A. D. 1633, "when all the Indians except one or two who had it, died.”—Winthrop's Journal, p. 59. to 1675. Indian pop New-England. For the numbers of the Abenaques warriors A. D. 1615, were probably equal or superior to those of the Narragansetts, whole viz. 5,000; and the Etechemin warriors, must now have been amount of about 6,000;-in all 11,000.* By allowing, then, three of ulation in them to ten souls, as in the Powhatan confederacy, the original population of Maine, A. D. 1615, must have been 36 or 37,000; -an estimation probably not very wide of the truth.† Maine. Sokokis 1,500 1,100 5,000 2,400 1,400 2,200 6,000 Total 11,000. But one account, (9 Coll. Mass, Hist. p. 234,) supposes the eastern Indians from Massachusetts to Canso, in 1690, only 4,310 souls ;—an estimate manifestly too low. † Also there were Indians at Agamenticus, Casco, and Machias. Persons of -Their dress-Character➡ The persons of the natives--Their senses— Marriages-Religion and Superstition-Christianity among them In the subsequent consideration of the natives, their appearance, character, regulations, habits, language, and other peculiarities, our observations will be confined, in general, to the Abenaques and the Etechemins, with occasional allusions to the Mick maks. The Indian is easily distinguishable from the inhabitant of the ludians. every other country. His stature is above a middling size, his body strong and straight, and his features regular and prominent. But his broad face, black sparkling eyes, bright olive complexion, ivory-white teeth, black hair, long and lank, often give to his countenance an appearance, wild, fierce and morose. A deformed, cross-eyed person, or dwarf, is not found among them; nor are any of the men corpulent. In walking, both sexes incline their feet inwards, by means of a discipline during infancy, enabling them more conveniently to traverse the woods. By reason of an unction, with which they anoint their bodies, to avoid the trouble of flies and vermin, or owing to some other cause, the beards upon the men in general have no considerable growth.* Their senses. With senses acute and perceptions quick and clear, the Indian is all eyes, all ears, and all observation ;-nothing escapes his notice. None are blind, deaf, or dumb; and his impressions of * Smith, in his History, p. 17, says they had no beards :-But several of the Tarratines have told me, they pull out their beards when young. to 1675. men or places, are coeval with life. He will travel unfrequented A. D. 1615, forests without compass or mistake. The Mickmaks, in their wars with the Esquimaux, have been known to cross, in their slender canoes, the gulf of St. Lawrence, 40 leagues over.* Their The savage state promotes bodily exercise, inures to hardships, health. and preserves from the maladies incident to civilized life. Few are sickly or feeble. Many live to a great age, possessing their energies and faculties to the last. Orono, Sagamore of the Tarratines, who died, A. D. 1801, lived to the advanced age of 113 years; and his wife at the time of her death, the preceding year, was aged 100. 1 The dress and ornaments of the males and females are a cu- Their dress and fashions riosity. With a taste for bright or lively colors, their clothes are gay, often changed in kind, never in fashion. When our shores were first visited by de Monts, Gosnold, Smith, and others; the natives were clad in skins, without the fur in summer and with it in winter. Some wore mantles of deer-skins, embroidered with chains of beads, and variously painted; and those of others were curiously inwrought and woven with threads and feathers, in a manner exhibiting only the plumage. The poorer sort appeared with nothing more than hard skins about their loins and shoulders; and a few, in the warm seasons, wore little else than the robe of nature.† In their present fashions, or forms, they wear a woollen cap, or bonnet, cut diagonally and made of a conic shape, enclosing the ears and terminating behind upon the neck. Next to the skin, both sexes wear a cotton or a linen under-shirt, extending down the third of an ell over the short drawers of the one, and the narrow petticoat of the other-severally begirt about the loins." The coats of the men, sewed at the folds, or sides, are lapped over in front and kept together by a belt, without any buttons, and reach below the knee; and the tunic, or vest of the women is pinned before, also their petticoat, though very narrow, falls some lower. The stockings they both wear, are never knit, but usually made of blue cloth, sewed with selvedges on the outer sides, and extend over the knee. Though shoes can be con * Jeffreys, p. 94. Oldmixon, p. 15, 23, 24.-H. Trumbull's Indian Wars, p. 91.-Indian Wars, (anon.) p. 229. |