r and
Influence of the Fur Trade in Wisconsin, published in the Proceedings of
the Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting, 1889. I am under obligations to Mr.
Reuben G. Thwaites, Secretary of this society, for his generous
assistance in procuring material for my work, and to Professor Charles
H. Haskins, my colleague, who kindly read both manuscript and proof and
made helpful suggestions. The reader will notice that throughout the
paper I have used the word _Northwest_ in a limited sense as referring
to the region included between the Great Lakes and the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers.]

[Footnote 2: On the trading colony, see Roscher und Jannasch, Colonien,
p. 12.]

[Footnote 3: Consult: Muellenhoff, Altertumskunde I., 212; Schrader,
Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, New York, 1890, pp. 348
ff.; Pliny, Naturalis Historia, xxvii., 11; Montelius, Civilization of
Sweden in Heathen Times, 98-99; Du Chaillu, Viking Age; and the
citations in Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, 466-7; Keary, Vikings in
Western Christendom, 23.]

[Footnote 4: In illustration it may be noted that the early Scandinavian
power in Russia seized upon the trade route by the Dnieper and the Duna.
Keary, Vikings, 173. See also _post_, pp. 36, 38.]

[Footnote 5: Starcke, Primitive Family.]

[Footnote 6: Schrader, l.c.; see also Ihring, in _Deutsche Rundschau_,
III., 357, 420; Kulischer, Der Handel auf primitiven Kulturstufen, in
_Zeitschrift fuer Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_, X., 378.
_Vide post_, p. 10.]

[Footnote 7: W. Bosworth Smith, in a suggestive article in the
_Nineteenth Century_, December, 1887, shows the influence of the
Mohammedan trade in Africa.]

PRIMITIVE INTER-TRIBAL TRADE.

Long before the advent of the white trader, inter-tribal commercial
intercourse existed. Mr. Charles Rau[8] and Sir Daniel Wilson[9] have
shown that inter-tribal trade and division of labor were common among
the mound-builders and in the stone age generally. In historic times
there is ample evidence of inter-tribal trade. Were positive evidence
lacking, Indian institutions would disclose the fact. Differences in
language were obviated by the sign language,[10] a fixed system of
communication, intelligible to all the western tribes at least. The
peace pipe,[11] or calumet, was used for settling disputes,
strengthening alliances, and speaking to strangers--a sanctity attached
to it. Wampum belts served in New England and the middle region as