Charles McKenzie's Narratives of the "Mississouri Indians:" A New Transcription

The documents that follow are new literal transcriptions of several handwritten narratives describing the experiences and observations of Charles McKenzie among the Hidatsa and Mandan Indians from 1804 to 1806. They were originally published in 1889-90 by Louis Francois Rodrigue Masson as part of a collection of first-hand accounts of the fur trading operations of the North west Company (Masson 1960). These transcriptions are an interim product of a larger, in-progress study undertaken by W. Raymond Wood and the editor, of the trading relationships between the Siouan-speaking villagers of the upper Missouri and Euro-American fur traders of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although previously published, the original manuscript narratives have been retranscribed in order to determine the extent to which they were editorially changed by Masson in the process of publication. During the course of this work, a number of unexpected problems arose, which are considered in the "Discussion" section of this volume.下文所呈现的文献为若干手写叙事文稿的全新逐字转录本，内容记述了查尔斯·麦肯齐（Charles McKenzie）于1804年至1806年间在希达察（Hidatsa）印第安部落与曼丹（Mandan）印第安部落的经历与见闻。该手稿最初由路易·弗朗索瓦·罗德里格·马松（Louis Francois Rodrigue Masson）于1889年至1890年间刊行，作为《西北公司（North West Company）皮毛贸易一手亲历记述集》的组成部分（马松，1960）。本次转录乃是W.雷蒙德·伍德（W. Raymond Wood）与本卷编者所牵头的一项大型在研项目的阶段性成果，该项目聚焦18世纪末至19世纪初密苏里河上游使用苏语（Siouan）语系的村落居民与欧美皮毛贸易商之间的贸易往来关系。尽管原始手稿叙事文稿此前已有出版，但为探明马松在出版流程中对文稿所做的编辑修改幅度，研究团队对其进行了重新转录。本研究推进过程中出现了若干未预料到的问题，相关探讨见于本卷的「讨论」章节。