“The Indian legends have, often, an air of the wildest solitude, as has the one Mr. Lowell has put into verse, in his late volume.”
Native American
Folklore & Mythology Tradition
Documented in Fuller’s books, journals, notebooks, manuscripts
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
Related
Representative documentary evidence
1843—
Summer on the Lakes, in 1843
excerpted · analyzed · quoted · read15 selected passages
“For Henry gives the details of peculiar worship paid to the Great Turtle, and the oracles received from this extraordinary Apollo of the Indian Delphos.”
Inferred Fuller names 'Henry' as the source for details of Great Turtle worship at Mackinaw. Alexander Henry the Elder's Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories (1809) is the canonical fur-trade memoir that covers Fort Michilimackinac (1760s) and includes accounts of Ojibway religious practices including the Great Turtle oracle.
“McKenney mentions that the young wife, during the short bloom of her beauty, is an object of homage and tenderness to her husband.”
Inferred Fuller names McKenney explicitly and summarizes his account of the Flying Pigeon, an Indian woman notable for her religious and moral character.
“By the premature death of Mrs. Schoolcraft was lost a mine of poesy, to which few had access, and from which Mrs.”
“Old Adair, who lived forty years among the Indians; not these tribes, indeed, but the southern Indians; does great justice to their religious aspiration.”
Inferred Fuller names 'Old Adair' explicitly and quotes him extensively across multiple pages, including the legend of the carbuncle, his views on Indian religious aspiration, two detailed torture narrative excerpts, and his assessment of Indian stoicism. She also invokes 'Adair's Red Shoes' as an exemplary Indian chief.
“The story to which I now refer, may be found in a book called Life on the Lakes, or, a Trip to the Pictured Rocks.”
“Like Murray and Henry, he has his great Indian chief, who represents what the people should be, as Pericles and Phocion what the Greek people should be.”
“Like Murray and Henry, he has his great Indian chief, who represents what the people should be [...] Adair's Red Shoes, and Henry's Wawatam, should make us respect the first possessors of our country”
Inferred Fuller uses Wawatam as an exemplar of noble Indian character.
“Such a person was Alexander Henry, who left Quebec in 1760, for Mackinaw and the Sault St.”
Inferred Fuller names Henry explicitly and quotes and paraphrases at length: the Wawatam rescue scene, being lost in the chase, food scarcity, the 'despair was not made for man' expression, the journey to Prairie du Chien with hidden chocolate, the Weepers tribe, the Great Road chief.
“It is pity that Lord Edward Fitzgerald did not leave a detailed account of his journey through the wilderness, where he was pilot of an unknown course for twenty days, as Murray and Henry have of theirs.”
Inferred Murray is named alongside Henry as an exemplar of the civilized man tested in the wilderness. He is also mentioned as 'Murray's old man', indicating a specific anecdote. Charles Augustus Murray's Travels in North America) covers his time with the Pawnee; the 'old man' anecdote appears in that work.
“McKenney and Hall's book upon the Indians is a valuable work. The portraits of the chiefs alone would make a history, and they are beautifully colored.”
“I have not mentioned Mackenzie's Travels. He is an accurate observer, but sparing in his records, because his attention was wholly bent on his own objects.”
Named explicitly as 'Mackenzie's Travels.' Fuller quotes an Indian expression from the book ('edui, it is hard, uttered in a querulous tone') and gives a vivid paraphrase of Mackenzie's drive to reach the sea despite hardship. Published London: T. Cadell, 1801. Fuller calls it 'Mackenzie's Travels' ? the full title is Voyages from Montreal.
“I wished to extract here Henry's account of this, for it was just the same sixty years ago as now, but have already occupied too much room with extracts...”
Inferred Alexander Henry the Elder (1739–1824), fur trader, whose Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories, Between the Years 1760 and 1776 (New York: I. Riley, 1809) is the only work by an 'Alexander Henry' with accounts of Great Lakes sugar-making, trout and whitefish fishing, and the Gens de Terre.
“one of the home lodges, unlike in shape to the temporary ones at Mackinaw, but these have been described by Mrs. Jameson.”
“Of the practical ability of the Indian women, a good specimen is given by McKenney, in an amusing story of one who went to Washington, and acted her part there in the "first circles," with a tact and sustained dissimulation worthy of Cagliostro.”
Inferred Fuller names 'McKenney' explicitly as her source for an anecdote about an Indian woman who navigated Washington society with cunning.
Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1844.
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
n.d.—
Journal 1837–1843
p. 47“Well might the / Great Turtle visit him, as / described by Henry. Where / is his fort now in his mohawk / valley?”
“What she learnt from Mrs / Schoolcraft. / Position of Mrs S. How much / was lost to the world which knew / not how to prize her.”
Inferred Schoolcraft' — Jane Johnston Schoolcraft — in connection with what Jameson learned from her; the published record of Ojibwe materials from the Schoolcraft circle is Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's Algic Researches (1839), which drew substantially on Jane Johnston Schoolcraft's work.
Attribution: credited here to Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, who supplied and in large part authored the Ojibwe tales; Henry Rowe Schoolcraft compiled, edited and published Algic Researches (1839) under his own name.
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1837–1843." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086; Box 5.
n.d.—
Notebook 1842
p43“Catlin vol 2d / Catlin reads the newspaper in Paradise!! / 92 / [...] Death of Osceola 221.”
“it shows that Mrs Schoolcraft's account / has foundation, & that woman holds / her place with the Indian [illegible].”
Inferred Fuller refers to 'Mrs Schoolcraft's account' in the context of reading Catlin on the status of Indian women. 'Mrs Schoolcraft' most likely refers to the publications of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, whose wife Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (1800–1842) contributed extensively to his Algic Researches (1839). Fuller elsewhere engages with the Schoolcraft material in Summer on the Lakes (1843).
Attribution: credited here to Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, who supplied and in large part authored the Ojibwe tales; Henry Rowe Schoolcraft compiled, edited and published Algic Researches (1839) under his own name.
Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook 1842." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (90); Box 6.
n.d.—
Notes on Rhine Ballads and Catlin
p4–p19“From Catlin on the Indians… I like Catlin very much.”
The date of the manuscript is undated, but Catlin's book was published in 1841.
“Indian Legend (copied from Mr. Clarke's journal) / Muckwa, or the Bear.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Notes on Rhine Ballads and Catlin." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Identification: Probable