A musquash sitting on thin ice on the Assabet.

March 5.

Went to hear a Chippeway Indian, a Doctor Mung-somebody, —assisted by a Penobscot, who said nothing. He made the audience laugh unintentionally by putting an m after the word too, which he brought in continually and unnecessarily, and almost after this word alone, emphasizing and prolonging that sound, as, “They carried them home toom-ah,” as if it were a necessity for bringing in so much of the Indian language for a relief to his organs or a compensation for “twisting his jaws about,” as he said, in his attempt to speak English. So Polis and the Penobscots continually put the um_ or em to our words, — as paddlum, littlum, etc. There was so much of unsubdued Indian accent resounding through his speech, so much of the “bow-arrow tang!” I have no doubt it was a great relief to him and seemed the word best pronounced

He thought his ancestors came from Asia, and was sure that Behring’s Strait was no obstacle, since Indians of his tribe cross Lakes Huron and Superior in birch-bark canoes. Thought Indians might be Jews, because of a similarity of customs. When a party of his warriors wish to tell an advanced party concealed in a dangerous position to retreat, they shoot an arrow close past them; if to stay, they shoot an arrow over their heads; and exactly this, he declared, the Jews did. I inferred from his statement that the totem (a deer in his case) takes the place of the surname with us, for he said that his children would have the same totem. He did not use this word. Said they had a secret fraternity like the Masonic, by which they knew and befriended members anywhere.

Had some ornaments of snake-skins, four or five inches broad, with a bead edging, —broad belts, — worn diagonally across the breast or for a garter, or for a very large and broad string handle to a bag, passing round the neck. Also an otter-skin pouch. The head left on was evidently very convenient as well as important, to hold it when caught under the belt. It was thus very quickly returned to its place; Had head, feet, and all. Had on an eagle-feather cap, i. e. a band with long black eagles’ feathers standing from it. This not worn every day. A buffalo-skin blanket, worked with porcupine quills. Showed the cradle. The mother cuts a notch in the lower end for each day that passes and one at the top for each moon. If it falls into the water it floats on this. Said the first poetry made at Plymouth was suggested by the sight of this cradle swinging from a tree, viz. “Rock-a-by, baby,” etc.

 Exhibited very handsome birch-bark trays, ornamented with moose-hair in worked in the false bottom and side, representing strawberries, etc., very well. Only the white hair was not dyed. These were made without communication with the whites.

They place the feet of the child in the cradle straight, or as they would have them. Indians step with the feet straight, but whites, who toe out, seem to have no use for any toes but the great one in walking. Indian women are brought up to toe in. It is improper for them to toe out. Shot small arrows through a blow gun very straight at an apple a rod off, lodging them all in it. The gun was of elder with the pith out, about six feet long; the arrows, quite slender, of hard wood, with a large and dense cylindrical mass of thistle-down at what is commonly the feathered end.

The Penobscot, who chanced to be Joe Polis’s brother, told me that the shecorway of the Maine lakes was the sheldrake, and that when they call out the moose at night they imitate the voice of the cow moose. That of the bull is very different.

The former carried the cradle low down on his back with a strap round his head, and showed how the mother had both hands free and could chop wood, etc., with her infant on her back. The same blanket covered both if necessary, and the child was prevented from being smothered by the bow over its face holding up the blanket. He regretted that their marriage customs were not so good as ours, that they did not choose for  themselves but their parents for them.

We read the English poets; we study botany and zoology and geology, lean and dry as they are; and it is rare that we get a new suggestion. It is ebb-tide with the scientific reports, Professor in the chair. We would fain know something more about these animals and stones and trees around us. We are ready to skin the animals alive to come at them. Our scientific names convey a very partial information only; they suggest certain thoughts only. It does not occur to me that there are other names for most of these objects, given by a people who stood between me and them, who had better senses than our race. How little I know of that arbor-vita’ when I have learned only what science can tell me! It is but a word. It is not a tree of life. But there are twenty words for the tree and its different parts which the Indian gave, which are not in our botanies, which imply a more practical and vital science. He used it every day. He was well acquainted with its wood, and its bark, and its leaves. No science does more than arrange what knowledge we have of any class of objects. But,‘g generally speaking, how much more conversant was the Indian with any wild animal or plant than we are, and in his language is implied all that intimacy, as much as ours is expressed in our language. How many words in his language about a moose, or birch bark, and the like! The Indian stood nearer to wild nature than wG-1 The wildest and noblest quadrupeds, even the largest fresh-water fishes, some of the wildest and noblest birds and the fairest flowers have actually receded as we advanced, and we have but the most distant knowledge of them. A rumor has come down to us that the skin of a lion was seen and his roar heard here by an early settler. But there was a race here that slept on his skin. It was a new light when my; guide gave me Indian names for things for which had only scientific ones before. In proportion as I understood the language, I saw them from a new point of view.

 A dictionary of the Indian language reveals another and wholly new life to us. Look at the word “canoe,” - and see what a story it tells of outdoor life, with the names of all its parts and modes of using it, as our words describing the different parts and seats of a coach, —with the difference in practical knowledge between him who rides and him who walks; or at the word “wigwam,” and see how close it brings you to the ground; or “ Indian corn,” and see which race was most familiar with it. It reveals to me a life within a life, or rather a life without a life, as it were threading the woods between our towns still, and yet we can never tread in its trail. The Indian’s earthly life was as far off from us as heaven is.

I saw yesterday a musquash sitting on thin ice on the Assabet, by a hole which it had kept open, gnawing a white root. Now and then it would dive and bring up more. I waited for it to dive again, that I might run nearer to it meanwhile, but it sat ten minutes all wet in the freezing wind while my feet and ears grew numb, so tough it is; but at last I got quite near. When I frightened it, it dove with a sudden slap of its tail. I feel pretty sure that this is an involuntary movement, the tail by the sudden turn of the body being brought down on the water or ice like a whip-lash.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 5, 1858

I saw yesterday a musquash sitting on thin ice.See March 6, 1854 ("The bare water here and there on the meadow begins to look smooth, and I look to see it rippled by a muskrat. ")