CHAPTER IV.
THE ALGONQUINS OF THE NORTHWEST, 1769-1774.
Between the Ohio and the Great Lakes, directly north of the Appalachian confederacies, and separated from them by the unpeopled wilderness now forming the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, dwelt another set of Indian tribes.

They were ruder in life and manners than their southern kinsmen, less advanced towards civilization, but also far more warlike; they depended more on the chase and fishing, and much less on agriculture; they were savages, not merely barbarians; and they were fewer in numbers and scattered over a wider expanse of territory.

But they were farther advanced than the almost purely nomadic tribes of horse Indians whom we afterwards encountered west of the Mississippi.
Some of their villages were permanent, at any rate for a term of years, and near them they cultivated small crops of corn and melons.

Their usual dwelling was the conical wigwam covered with bark, skins, or mats of plaited reeds but in some of the villages of the tribes nearest the border there were regular blockhouses, copied from their white neighbors.

They went clad in skins or blankets; the men were hunters and warriors, who painted their bodies and shaved from their crowns all the hair except the long scalp-lock, while the squaws were the drudges who did all the work.
Their relations with the Iroquois, who lay east of them, were rarely very close, and in fact were generally hostile.