Page 126 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

122 WISCONSIN IIISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

and finding a strong similarity in their languages, and also that
the Menomenees had a tradition corresponding with their own
-that a part of their people, at a remote period, broke off from
them and journeyed eastward, they were both led to the conclu-
sion that they were, originally, one people. I have, some times,
myself, had occasion to call upon a Stockbridge to aid me in
communicating with a Menomenee. Each would speak in his
own language, and each, with some difficulty, understand the
other. On one such occasion I asked an explanation. My
Mohican friend replied, "Our people and the Menomenees are
cousins;" and then related the circumstances of their mutual
recognition.
Here we have one example of different bands of the same
people, separating from each other and remaining separated
for several centuries, by a distance of more than a thousand
miles, each retaining a tradition of the separation and the direc-
tion in which the migrating party traveled, and meeting again,
after the lapse of ages, and recognizing each other by their
language and oral history. This should certainly inspire us
with a degree of confidence in Indian traditions which relate
simply to the facts of their history, and have no connection with
their mytKology, and renders the testimony of so many of the
northern tribes to a western origin, little less than conclusive.
Again; the ToPoaRAPaY of the country corresponds with the
Indian traditions in indicating the direction in which the
country was overspread by the Indian race. The prairies
were, unquestionably, produced by the agency of man. That
they were once, and for long ages, covered with timber, the
geologist will never doubt for a moment, and there is no concei-
vable means by which they could have become divested of it but
by human agency. Nor mere they formed by a civilized people
for purposes of agriculture. An agricultural people would
never arrange their fields and reserves of wood-land in
such immense ~atches and at such impracticable distances from
each other as we find in many places. There ie no rational
explanation o$ the existence of the prairies, other than their