18th century woodland native american dogs

Ok, not quite sure if a dog is considered camp or trail gear, but my question is(google is failing me) what would a early18th century eastern woodland native dog look like and what variety of dog would be it included in, spitz,hound, etc... I know its not so much breed, but type. Since I have that down, on the web I have found a dog called a carolina indian dog, but I'm still not quite sure exactly what it is. Other dogs that seem to be fairly old and native to north america include chawawa(spelling) type dogs, and malamutes and inuit dogs. So put it this way, what would early 18th century Shawnee dogs be like in the ohio valley? And would they differ from native american dogs in new england(Abenaki), or the western great lakes(Ojibwa)?
This might be a hard question, thats why I'm hoping one of you might know a close enough answer.
NWT Woodsman

Spaniels and hounds?

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough, what I am wondering is what would a dog of the early 18th century shawnee people look like? Would they be wolf like like Canada's inuit dogs, or would they resemble more of the european hounds and curs? There doesn't seem to be much about them dogs on the web.
NWT Woodsman

NW Territory Woodsman said:

Ok, not quite sure if a dog is considered camp or trail gear, but my question is(google is failing me) what would a early18th century eastern woodland native dog look like and what variety of dog would be it included in, spitz,hound, etc... I know its not so much breed, but type. Since I have that down, on the web I have found a dog called a carolina indian dog, but I'm still not quite sure exactly what it is. Other dogs that seem to be fairly old and native to north america include chawawa(spelling) type dogs, and malamutes and inuit dogs. So put it this way, what would early 18th century Shawnee dogs be like in the ohio valley? And would they differ from native american dogs in new england(Abenaki), or the western great lakes(Ojibwa)?
This might be a hard question, thats why I'm hoping one of you might know a close enough answer.
NWT Woodsman

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Look at as many paintings, drawings, whatever done in the times. Some of those depict natives with their dogs. Dogs were multi-use; for packing, hunting, wool. food, and were not the highly inbred single task critters we have around today.

flntlokr said:

Look at as many paintings, drawings, whatever done in the times. Some of those depict natives with their dogs. Dogs were multi-use; for packing, hunting, wool. food, and were not the highly inbred single task critters we have around today.

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Flntokr, could you point me to some artists, right now I only really know about Rocky mountain fur trade artists such as A J Miller. Thanks
NWT Woodsman

Evidently the NA tribes were fond of dogs, the Pawnee I understand kept lots of dogs and when winters got tough and game was scarce, they ate the dogs. My Dad said I should never name something I was going to possibly eat. I don't know what breed of dogs they kept, but I get the impression they were small- medium size. A quick online search shows a 'Native American Indian Dog' that looks like a mutated husky in Technicolor.

From searching the web a little bit more, ive concluded on native dogs:
1.)Some likely reasons they got whiped out are alot like the native americans, they didn't have a resistance to european diseases like cainine distemper, rabies, etc
2.)Europeans considered Native american dogs as pests and willingly killed them when they attacked native villages. Also I read that the natives dogs were food for starving europeans.
3.)Europeans didn't want native dogs to breed with purebred euro dogs.
4.)The oldest domesticated american dog(atleast is the USA) was found in illinois around 9,900 years ago, and was said to more resemble a dingo.
5.)North American arctic dogs didn't arrive in the alaska and canadian arctic till a couple thousand years ago.
6.) They(the dogs) origionally seem to come from the siberia region, so from looking at dogs from there today, maybe---maybe 18th century woodland dogs had a spitz like appearance? Also, the natives dogs were known to pull travois, which is kinda like what the spitz type dogs are known for today.

So maybe its reasonable to think to think that 18th century indian dogs had a wolf like appearance, ofcourse with genetically endemic genes from natural selection or from the indians specifically breeding them and being isolated from other continents and dogs.
NWT Woodsman

NW Territory Woodsman said:

From searching the web a little bit more, ive concluded on native dogs:
1.)Some likely reasons they got whiped out are alot like the native americans, they didn't have a resistance to european diseases like cainine distemper, rabies, etc
2.)Europeans considered Native american dogs as pests and willingly killed them when they attacked native villages. Also I read that the natives dogs were food for starving europeans.
3.)Europeans didn't want native dogs to breed with purebred euro dogs.
4.)The oldest domesticated american dog(atleast is the USA) was found in illinois around 9,900 years ago, and was said to more resemble a dingo.
5.)North American arctic dogs didn't arrive in the alaska and canadian arctic till a couple thousand years ago.
6.) They(the dogs) origionally seem to come from the siberia region, so from looking at dogs from there today, maybe---maybe 18th century woodland dogs had a spitz like appearance? Also, the natives dogs were known to pull travois, which is kinda like what the spitz type dogs are known for today.

So maybe its reasonable to think to think that 18th century indian dogs had a wolf like appearance, ofcourse with genetically endemic genes from natural selection or from the indians specifically breeding them and being isolated from other continents and dogs.
NWT Woodsman

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Dogs were domesticated before people are known to have entered America south of Alaska. But I don’t know if dogs found from paleoindian sites. Drawings show what look husky like. Wouldn’t that be tragic if a direct descendent of that early genotype existed up till just a few generations ago.

Here's a link to a fair bit of information about Indian dogs. It's Anthropological Paper of The American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XV, Part II, The Horse and the Dog in Hidatsa Culture, by Gilbert L. Wilson. The info about dogs begins at Dog Culture on page 196.

http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/handle/2246/80

It's a PDF to download.

Spence

Here's another paper on the subject.

https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/...ttpsredir=1&article=1417&context=srhonorsprog

From that paper a description written by Meriwether Lewis.

"unusually small, about the size of an ordinary cur; he is usually parti-coloured, amongst which, the black, white, brown, and brindle are the colours most predominant; the head is long, the nose pointed, the eyes small, the ears erect and pointed like that of the wolf; the hair is short and smooth, excepting on the tail, where it is long and straight, like that of the ordinary cur-dog." (Lewis's original journal for 16 February 1806)

The only wild dog in the U.S. is the ,"Carolina Dog" this is the only one the native people had. It was a medium size brown dog with a curled up tail. It was a very protective dog and ran in packs.I feel sure this dog would have been preferred over other breeds as it had developed a survival traits that hybrid dogs may not have.

Native american dogs are all extinct now, as are many dog breeds.
Artistic renditions of dogs vary as you can see.




Hare Indian dogs, as illustrated in Historical view of the progress of discovery on the more northern coasts of America: from the earliest period to the present time by Patrick Fraser Tytler, James Wilson, 1836



Hare Indian dogs, as illustrated in The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society, 1830.


Hare Indian dog, as illustrated in The Menageries: Quadrupeds Described and Drawn from Living Subjects, 1829


Hare Indian dogs, as illustrated in Fauna Boreali-americana, Or, The Zoology of the Northern Parts of British America, 1829





This last picture is from,
Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, Bowen edition, 1845–48

Here is a video preview of the 3 volume book set.

Google,"Carolina Dog" I have read that a few dogs in the pound were recognized as different and after studying the dogs found them to be native dogs. He also stated that a few wild packs can be found in the north and south Carolina and north west Georgia. This dog is now a member of the kennel society, in the ninties if I recall correctly. I don't remember who the person was that did the study. I will look it up again.

Carbon 6 said:

Here's another paper on the subject.

https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/...ttpsredir=1&article=1417&context=srhonorsprog

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Thank you Carbon 6!
That was a good read, And I suggest anyone else wondering the same questions to read that link you posted.
NWT Woodsman

NW Territory Woodsman said:

Ok, not quite sure if a dog is considered camp or trail gear, but my question is(google is failing me) what would a early18th century eastern woodland native dog look like and what variety of dog would be it included in, spitz,hound, etc... I know its not so much breed, but type. Since I have that down, on the web I have found a dog called a carolina indian dog, but I'm still not quite sure exactly what it is. Other dogs that seem to be fairly old and native to north america include chawawa(spelling) type dogs, and malamutes and inuit dogs. So put it this way, what would early 18th century Shawnee dogs be like in the ohio valley? And would they differ from native american dogs in new england(Abenaki), or the western great lakes(Ojibwa)?


This might be a hard question, thats why I'm hoping one of you might know a close enough answer.
NWT Woodsman

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NW Territory Woodsman,

Our tribe & our cousins that lived along the VA to the FL coastal area originally, developed a canine that was a combination of WOLF, COYOTE & the semi-domesticated dogs that accompanied the First Emigrants to the Western Hemisphere.m- The East Coast Indian dogs tended to be 40-50 pounds, and to be brown & SMOOTH-coated. \
(As our Woodland folks didn't live in teepees, the dogs did not need to be big enough to tow travois but were kept for camp watchdogs & hunting dogs, that were big/tough enough to deal with 2 or 4 footed prowlers and/or "take down deer". Also, early records indicate that the Eastern Woodland groups used dogs as man-trackers and "war dogs", that accompanied war parties.)

Our tribal group's "created breed" was what we now call a Black Mouth Cur, were of medium size & usually medium brown in color.
(The Black Mouthed Mountain Cur differed from the coastal area curs only in being generally larger, to perhaps 60 pounds.)

The LA Leopard Dog (Now The Official State dog of LA) was a (usually black) spotted cur with Wolf admixtures was "created" by the AI groups in south & central LA. - French & Spanish explorers into early LA reported the "dogges with many spots, which the savages had about their townes"
(The so-called Coastal Cur of FL over to near the LA line was similar to the LA Leopard Dog in size & general description, though few had the spots that the LA Leopard Dog had.)

I hope that the above information was at least somewhat helpful.

yours, satx

satx78247 said:

I hope that the above information was at least somewhat helpful.

yours, satx

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Thank you satx for the info, and it was helpful, Im instereseted in our lands cultures from east of the mississippi to the Atlantic ocean! So your info was definitely help.
If you don't mind me asking tho, what tribe do you belong to?
Thank you
NWT Woodsman

NW Territory Woodsman said:

Thank you satx for the info, and it was helpful, Im instereseted in our lands cultures from east of the mississippi to the Atlantic ocean! So your info was definitely help.
If you don't mind me asking tho, what tribe do you belong to?
Thank you
NWT Woodsman

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NW Territory Woodsman,

I'm only a "part-blood" & a member of the PAMUNKEY NATION. - Our tribe has very few (or perhaps NO) "full-bloods left alive, as our people intermarried with the Europeans in early the 17th Century at Jamestown, VA & in other nearby coastal areas.
(One of the "self-described experts" of the BIA said that, "- - - - - the so called Pamunkey tribe are not even Indians anymore, as they aren't pure-bloods." & "Only persons who can prove their pure-blooded ancestry from the 19th Century government rolls can be counted as real Native Americans".)

Fyi, I'm one of the few living direct descendants of the REAL Pocahontas, youngest daughter of Deep Stream & Little Fawn, through her younger daughter Cleopatra Smith-Rolfe.
(YES, I have both Xerox copies of the Church of England marriage/birth records of Pocahontas/Cleopatra & a certified DNA test to prove my descent from "the first modern celebrity". - Pocahontas was my 13th grandmother.)

A Personal Note: I'd sooner have the REAL Pocahontas as my ancestor than be a descendant of any dozen king/queens.
Addenda: In case you're curious, I'm of English, lowland Scots, Celtic, Pamunkey & (according to my DNA test,) 1% "undetermined". = I'm a REAL All-American "mutt" like most modern American citizens.

yours, satx

satx78247 said:

NW Territory Woodsman,

I'm only a "part-blood" & a member of the PAMUNKEY NATION. -

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Hmm. I thought you said you were
Cherokee?

Carbon 6 said:

Hmm. I thought you said you were
Cherokee?

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And I thought he was Apache from the Texas area. Or was that an enemy of the Texas Apache?