,.' '

INDIAN MIGRATIONS,

AS EVIDENCED BY LANGUAGE:

C'OMl'RISINO

The Huron-Cherokee Stock: The Dakota Stock: The Algonkins:

The Chahta-Muskoki Stock: The Moundbuilders :

The Iberians.

Bv HORATIO HALE, M. A.

A Paper read at a Meeting of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, held at Montreal, in August, 1882.

Reprinted from tbe "American Antlqnarian" lor lanaary and April, 1883.

CHICAGO:

Jameson & Morse, Printers, 162 164 Clabk St.
1883.

Ill ilGRMS. AS EflDENCED EI aWM.

The (tn!\- s.itisfactoij- c\icloncc of tlic .'iffiliation or direct rela-
tionship of two coiiiniunities, apart from authentic historical
records, is to be found in their speech. When the languaf^es
'of two nations or tribes show a close resemblance in tjrammar
and vocabular}', we niaj' at once infer a common descent, if
not of the whole, at least of some portion of the two commu-
nities. This is a rule which, so far as experience goes, atlmits
of no exception. The cases which are frecpiently referred to,
of negroes in the West Indies antl the Southern States m ho
speak I'2nglish, l''rench, Spanish and Dutch, and of Indians in
Canada and Mexico who speak I'rcnch and S])anish, are not
exceptions, but may, in fact, be reckf)ned among the strongest
evidences in proof of the rule; because we know hist(M'icall}'
that, in every one of these cases, there has been not merely an
intimate connection of these negroes and Indians with people
of the nations whose languages th.e)' ha\e adopted, but a large
infusion of the blood of those nations. It ma}* be affirmed
with confidence that no contrarj- examjile can be shown. If
an explorer should find in the heart of y\frica, or in some newl)-
disco\ered island of iVustralasia, a black and woollj'-haired
people whose language showed in its numerals, its pronouns,
its names for near relationships, and the conjugation of its
verbs, imlubitable traces of resemblance to the Arabic tongue,
we should infer w ithout hesitation not merely that this people
had been at some time visited b)- Arabs, but that an Arabian
people had been in some way intermingled among them for
generations, and had left, along with their language, a large in-
fusion of Arab blood. If, besides the resemblance of speech,
there should be a resemblance of physical traits, — if the people
not only spoke a language similar to the Arabic, but had the
stature, features, complexion and hair of Arabs, — we should
entertain no doubt that the\- were, in the main, of Arabian
descent.

WHien the evidence of language has satisfied us that two
communities are thus connected, our next inquirj- relates to the
nature of the connection. Is one of them derived from the
other, and if so, which was the ancestral stock ? Or is this con-
nection that of brotherhood, and do they deduce their origin

aiul their laiii^Mia^cs, like tlic Latin nation^ of soutlu-rn Fairope,
frcMii a coinnum anccstrx' ? The chies w liich w ill had us to tiic
sohitii)!! of these ciucstions iiuist a^aiii be soiij^ht in the evi-
dence ot" lantiuaL,re, antl [.generally in minute ami careful com-
parison of words ami grammatical forms; but this cxidence
ma)' be reinforced b}' that of tr.idition, which, when it exists,
will usuall)- bo found to correspond with that of lanj^ua^e. The
Hindoo tratlition, whicii makes the Aryans enter India from
the northwest in prehistoric times, and ^n-adualh' oxerrun the
northern j)ortion of the peninsula, acconls strict!)-, as ever)-
scholar knows, with the deiluctions drawn from the stud)-
of the lan^ua<4es of that region. So, too, the Polynesian race,
which peopled the t^n-oups of the Pacific Ocean, from the Sand-
wich Islands on the north to New Zealand on the south, and
from luister Island in the east to the Depeyster Group, four
thousand miles distant in the west, is traced back, by the joint
evidence of l;;ntjuai;e and tratlition, to a startint^ point or cen-
ter of mii^ration in the Samoan or Navigator Islands, near the
western limit of this vast region. Though the emigration
which peopled some of the eastern groups must have taken
place at least three thousand years ago, the fact of its occur-
rence is uncpiestionable. This instance is made the more nota-
ble by the circumstance that neither the source nor the direction
of the migration is sucii as merely geographical considerations
would have led us to conjecture. New- Zealand and the
Sandwich Islands are by far the largest groups of Polynesia.
When first known to luirojjcaiis, each of these groups con-
tained a much greater population than the mother group of
Samoa. I'rom either of them the usual course of winds and
currents would carry a fleet of canoes to the other islands of
Polynesia far more readily than from the Navigator Islands,
whence the voyager must make his way to the eastern groups
directly in the teeth of the trade-winds. These considerations,
however, have had no weight in the minds of ethnologists
against the decisive test of language, reinforced, as it is, by
the evidence of native tradition.

In studying the languages of this continent we are naturally
led to inquire how far we can apply these tests of language
and tradition in tracing the connection and migration of the
Indian tribes. It is evident aL once that in making such inqui-
ries we are confined in each case to tribes speaking languages
of the same stock. For though there is, unquestionably, a
certain general congruity of structure among Indian languages
of different stocks, sufficient to stiengthen the common opin-
ion, derived from physical and mental resemblances, which
classes the people who speak them in one race, yet this con-

j^ruity tk)cs not comprise that distinct and specific similarity
in words and forms which is recpiired as a prt)of of direct affil-
iation. In the present state of phiioUjjfical science we must,
therefore, as has been said, limit our inquiries to the tribes of
each distinct linj^iiistic family, includin{j[, however, such as may
possibly have been formed by the intermixture of tribes of dif-
ferent stocks.

The ji;roup of kindred tribes to which, in pursuing these in-
quiries, my attention was first directed, was that which is com-
monly known as the Iluron-lroquois family, but which I should
•be rather inclined, for reasons that will be hereafter stated, to
denominate the Huron-Cherokee stock. A peculiar interest
attaches to the aboriginal nations of this kinship. Surrounded
as they usually were, in various parts of the continent, by
tribes of different lineage, — .Mgonkin, Dakota, Choctaw, and
others, — they maintained everywhere a certain pre-eminence,
and manifested a force of will and a capacity for political
organization which placed them at the head of the Indian com-
munities in the whole region e.xtending from Mexico to the
Arctic circle. Their languages show, in their elaborate mech-
anism, as well as in their fulness of expression and grasp of
thought, the evidence of the mental capacity of those who
speak them. Scholars who admire the inflections of the Greek
and Sanscrit verb, with their expressive force and clearness,
will not be less impressed with the ingenious structure of the
verb in Iroquois. It comprises nine tenses, three moods, the
active and passive voices, and at least twenty of those forms
which in the Semitic grammars are styled conjugations. The
very names of these forms will suffice to give evidence of the
care and minuteness with which the framers of this remarkable
language have endeavored to express every shade of meaning.
We have the diminutive and augmentative forms, the cis-loca-
tive and trans-locative, the duplicative, reiterative, motional,
causative, progressive, attributive, frequentative, and many
others. I am aware that some European and American schol-
ars, shocked to find their own mother-tongues inferior in this
respect not only to the Sanscrit and Greek, but even to the
languages of some uncivilized tribes, have adopted the view
that inflections are a proof of imperfection and a relic of
barbarism. They apparently forget that if they vindicate
in this way a superiority for their native idiom over the
Greek and the Iroquois, they reduce it at the same time, not
only below the Mandchu and Polynesian tongues, but beneath
even the poverty-stricken speech of the Chinese.*

♦ In aupport of the opinion expressed in the text, I may cite two very eminent author-
ities. ProfeBBor Max Miiller, who acquired a knowledge of the Iroquois language from a
Mohawk undergraduate at Oxford (now Dr. Oronhyatekha, of TiOndon, Ont.), remarks in a

The CDiistant tradition <»f the Iiu(|ii()i^ roprcsonts their ances-
tors as cini^Mants from the region nt)rth of the j4real laki-s,
where they thveh in early times with their Huron brethren.
This tradition is recorded, with much particuhuit)', by Cadwal-
lader Colden, Surveyor (ieneral of New \'ork, who in the earl\-
part of the hist century composed his well-known "llislor\' of
the Five Nations." It is told in a somewhat different form by
David Cusick, the Tuscarora historian, in his "Sketches of An-
cient History of the Six Nations;" and it is repeated b)- Mr.
L. H. Morgan in his now classical work, "The League of the
Iroquois, "'for which he procured his information chieHj- amon^
the Senecas. h'inally, as we learn from the narrative of the
Wyandot Indian, Peter Clarke, in his book entitled "Ori^Mii
and Traditional History of the W'yandotls," the belief of the
Hurons accords in this respect with that of the Irocpiois. Moth
point alike to the country immediately north of the St. Lau-
rence, and especially to that portion of it lyin^ east of Lake
Ontario, as the early home of the Huron-Iroquois nations.

How far does the evidence of lani^uage, w hich is the final
test, a^ree with that of tradition ? To answer this question
we have to inquire which lanj^ua^e, the Huron or the Iroquois,
bears marks of being oldest in form, and nearest to the mother
language, — or, in other words, to the original Huron-Iroquois
speech. Though we know nothing directlj- of this speech, yet.
when we have several sister-tongues of any stock, we can
always reconstruct, with more or less corupleteness, the original
language from which they were derived; and we know, as a
general rule, that among these sister-tongues, the one which is
most complete in its form and in its phonology is likely to be
nearest in structure, as well as in the residence of those who
speak it, to this mother speech. Thiis, if history told us noth-
ing on the subject, we should still infer that, among what are
termed the Latin nations of Europe, the Italians were nearest
to the mother people, — and, in- like manner, that the original
home of the Aryans was not among the Teutons or the Celts,
but somewhere between the speakers of the Sanscrit and of
the Greek languages.

Our mater-als for a comparison of the Huron and the Iro-
quois are not as full as could be desired. They are, however.

letter to the author; " Tu iny mind, tba Htnioture of tjuch a lunguage aa the Mohawk is
quite sutnciunt evidence that those who worked out 8u<;h a work of art wore poworlul
reasoners and accurate clasaiilerH." Not Ibrs ouiphatic is the judgment expressed by I'ni-
lessor Whitney, in his admirable work on tlie "lAie and Growth of Language." Spoiikiiig
generally of Mie atruoturo of American languages, but in terms specially applical)le to
those of the Huron-Cherokee stock, he observes : "Of course there are infinite posaibilitiuB
of expresBivenesK in such «. structure ; and it would only need that some native-American
Oreek race should iirise, to fill it full of thought and fancy, and put it to the uses of a
noble literature, and it would be rightly admired as rich and flexible, perhaps beyond any-
thing else that the world knew. " See also the excellent works of the distinguished niiK-
Bionary author, the Rev. J. A. Cuoq, of Montreal, on the Ii-oquois and Algonquin laiuiuases,
in which abundant examples are given of the richness and power of those tongues.

(|iiit».' sufikicnl to show that thi- Huron represents tlie older
form of their conuuon speech. A siiij^'le pohit of plionology
ina\' be cleenied decisive of this cpiestion. The Iroquois dia-
lects, as is well known, have no labial letter. Neither m, />, or
jt is found in an\' IrtJipiois word, and the lanj^uage is spoken with-
out closure of the lips. Hut in the Huron speech, or rather (as
there were at least two distinct dialects of this speech), in that
form of it which is spoken bj- the W'yandots (or Wendat), and
which bears the marks of bein^ t'le oldest form of this lan-
^uaj^fe, the sound of the in is frequenti)' heard. A compari-
' son of the words in which this sound occurs with the corres-
l)ondin^ words of the Irocpiois dialects, shows beyond question
that tiiis sound once existed in the mother-tongue from whicli
these words were derived, and has been lost in the Iroquois.
We find that this Huron m has at least five distinct sounds or
c(jmbinations of sounds to represent it in the Iroquois. By
this fact we are reminded of the similar fate which has befallen
in lui^lisii the Teutonic guttural r/i (as heard in the (ierman
words Jhirh, Loch, hicficii, ^c), which, after surviving for a
time in the Anglo-Saxon language, has disappeared from the
I'jiglish speech. In some ICnglish words, as we know, its
place has been taken by the palatal /•/ IJuch has become io«X-,
machen is changed to ninke, and so on. In other cases it is
converted to fcli ; the (ierman pech is our jr'itt'h, the German
dach is our thatch. In still other cases it is changed toy', as in
laiKjh from lachen, mft from saeht; while in many more in-
stances it has been dropped altogether as a distinct element, its
former existence being merely indicated by its influence on the
sound of the preceding vowel, — as in thowjht from the German
daehte, hUjh from the German hoch, might from the German
macht, and so on, in numerous words which will occur to every
student of etymology. Tn close accordance with this treat-
ment of the (ierman guttural by the English organs of
speech is that of the Huron labial by the Iroquois. In
many instances the Huron in, becomes to in Iroquois. Thus
ternentaye, " two days, " becomes in (3nondaga teircntaye;
yaiiiehron, " dead, " is in Cayuga yaicelii:on; skatamend-
jawc, "one hundred," becomes in Mohawk asJiatawaniawi.
Sometimes the sound of the nasal ;7 (resembling the French
nasal in hon), is introduced before the w; thus the Huron
oina, "to-day," becomes oriwd in Mohawk; the pronominal
prefix A«w<«, "their," hccovnc'r, h onion. Frequently this latter
combination is further reinforced by the hard palatal ele-
ment k' or <f, after the nasal; thus the Huron ruvie, "man,"
becomes in Mohawk rtihywe or runJcire; "he loves us," which
is somandorouhva in Huron, becomes sonl'wanoroT^kwa in

Mohawk Soimliiius the /// is rcphiCL-tl by a nasal followed
by an aspirate; thus Mo/iu'tn, "thou alone, " becomes nonhfin.
The Huron nwiiKt, "tobacco," is sin^uilarl)- transfornieil. The
first /// becomes in Irocpiois ni/^ and the second is rcpresenteil
by the combination ///•//'. thus l,m\ inj; us the Mohawk i>i/ePik'ii'a.
In these inst.mces tlu- Huron words are undoubtedly the ori^M-
nal forms, from which the Iroquois words arc derived. Sonu
other evidences of a similar kind, which show that the Huron
is the elder speech, will be hereafter adduced, thouj^jh the\-
may perhaps hardl\' be deemed necessar)-.

Our next iiupiir)- relates to the course which the etni^ration
pursued after crossinj^^ the St. Lawrence. The I rocpu»is proper
(omittinj; for the pri'sent the Tuscarc.ias), are divided into five
tribes or "nations," speaking dialects so ilissimilar that the
missionaries have been ol)lij,a'd to treat them as distinct lan-
j^nia^es. The difference between the Mohawk and the Seneca
ton^aies is at least as ^reat as that w hich exists between the
Spanish and l*orluj.,aiese lant;ua^es. These fi\e tribes, when
they were first known to ICuropeans, occupied the northern
portion of what is now the State of New York, their territorj-
extending' from the Hudson river on the east to the (ienesee
on the west. The easternmost tribe w as the Mohawk. Directly
west t)f them lay the Oneidas, follow eil in regular order by the
Ononda^Ms, CajHi-j^as antl Senecas. Of these tribes the Sene-
ca was much the largest, comprising nearly as man}' people
as all the rest to^rether. The Onoiula^'as were the central, and,
to a certain extent, the rulini; nation of the league. If we
had not the evidence of language and tradition t(» guide us,
the natural presumption would be that either the Senecas or
the Onontlagas were the parent tribe, of which the others were
offshoots. Hut tradition and language alike award this posi-
tion to the Mohawks. This nation was styled in council the
"eldest brother" of the lro(pu)is famih". Tlie native historian
Cusick distinctly affirms that the other tribes broke off from
the Mohawk people, one after another, and as each became a
separate nation, "its language was altered." The words thus
quoted express briefi)-, but accurately, the necessary result of
several generations of separate existence. It remains to .show
how the test of language confirms the tradition, and proves
beyond question that the course of migration flowed from east
to west. The follow ing comparative list is derived from vocab-
ularies, all of which have been recently taken down by the
writer from the lips of members of the various tribes. The
Wyandot words arc placed first, as being probably nearest to
the original forms in the parent language. Then follow the
five Iroquois tribes, in regular order, from east to west; and

finally the 'luscarora, a sister, rather than a dauj^htcr. »»f the
Mohawk, closes the Mst. In this con'piirison. certain inflec-
tions of the verb "to lo\i'"lia\e hien selected, as showing' how
the course of derivation is ihsclostnl both 1)\' the changes of
sounds and by the grammatical \ariations.*

It would not be easy to lind a more striking and l)eautiful
exam[)le than the annexed list furnishes of the operation of a
well-known linguistic law. I nfer to the l.i\\ of "phonetic
decay," as it is called l)\- Professor Max Midler, who has de-
scribed its origin and effect, with his usual clearness of style
and fulness of illustration, in the Sicond Series of his "Lect-
ures on Language." Me then- shows how words, either by
la])se of time or change of locality, are apl to undergo a course
of reduction and contraction, due to the desire of econcmiizing
(effort in speaking. The words a/e softened iwnl worn away,
like stones undergoiug what geologists call the pr(»cess of
degradation.* Thus, to atl(»pt an<i exteiul some of his examples,
the German llabiclit become.-, the Anglo-Saxon /lafoc, and the
h'nglish litVi^'L-; tiie Ciernian s/>rit/uii becomes the Anglo-Saxon
.sy>/V(V///, and the ICnglisli s/>iak; the (ierman liaitpt becomes
the Anglo-Saxon licafod , and tin- Lnglish head. So, drawing
our examples from words of another origin, the Latin sculnrius
becomes in old l-'reiuh csciiycr, in Lnglish Si/iiiir; the Latin
capitulnni becomes in hrench c/iapitrc, in I'^nglish chapter^ and
so on. Referring to our table of Muron-lrocjuois ilerivati\es,
it will be noticed that the Wyandot hishi^'andiyroi'ik'x^ux is soft-
ened in Mohawk ti> i/ifs/iiscu'iiiicrni'ik'-uui by a uniform process
of what may be termed deliquescence. The initial aspirate of
the Wyandot word is dropped (or perhaps changed in position);
the first k is s;)fttMicd to ts/i, precisely as the name of the great
orator, which in Latin was Kikcro, becomes Tshilslicro in Ital-
ian pronunciation; the sibilant .v changes its place, and the
hard sountl 0(111/ becomes simpl)- //. . The still softer (Oneida
utterance contracts the first three syllables of the Mohawk
[c/i-ts/ii-Si) to its, and changes the trilled /to the licpiid /, giv-
ing us cts-a'diio/oiikwa. The Oiiondaga, pursuing the same
process, changes the initial cts to the still softer /icsi\ and drops
the /'altogether, still retai ling, however, — though with a slight
change, — the vowels which preceded and followed it, and thus
converts the word to /icsc'r^'tviocnk'icn. The Cayuga, following
in due order, contracts these two vowels into one, and converts
the initial /icsc into sis, but introduces, by a slight reversion to

•In the orthography followed in tliiti juiiicr tho conHoniiiits have n<'norally the name
HOundH aH in English, linil th« vowels thti smuk- Hoinuls aw in Italian and frenlian. 'J he j
is sounded as in Froncli, or lilte the Ent,'liRh z in tizure. Tlic (Jennan giittnrnl ch is repre-
sented by kh or (when softejied) by (y/i. The French nasal ii is exjuvHsed by the Spanish ».
The short u (AH it is called) in hut is denoted by ii. The emphatic syllable of a word is
indicated by an acute accent, or, when the vowel Ih long, by tho usual horizontal mark
Bbove it, as <(. 6, Ac.

■«

a
H

■3
1

'ft
ft

•••

-*;

;ft
ft

1
;ft

Ik
■5

'ft

■%.

;ft
Ik

t *^

■i

J
1

'ft

_ <5_

_l_

^
*

1
Ift

8
i

'ft

<3
1

'5"

1
ft

•SI

;ft

ft
ft

-»<
Ift

'ft
'ft

8
«

ft
ft

5
<<

;ft
K

'5*

1
•ft

"i
ft

|ft
ft

«3

•ft

'ft

"i
8

;ft

|ft
ft
.5

-<!

'ft
't

'5;

1
•ft

Ift

Ift
ft

1
-ft

Ift
ft

"§

_l_

8
ft

Ift
^=1

1 ^

1 <

•A

■S

1
ft

'ft

<<1

;ft

■S
ft

<<:

";.
li
8

<-5

■3

1
'ft

'ft

-*:
ft

Ift

1
1

••»

■^

•<<:

•s

•te

•<5

■«_

_!?•_

_..?_

«_

__^_

_**=

•ft

_?__

•ft

Oneida.

i
<<

'ft

^■1

•<<

'ft

•si

^ft

Ift

■<<;

;ft
<;

.ft

>-*

'ft
1

'ft

(S;

•«

'ft

•5;

ft
ft

ift

"i
<<

■5

3
ft

**
^
<<

■<:

.J_

<->

„^

•C

■2

•v:

■<
Hi

•<<

Ift

«
a

■3

3
1

1
■I? •

■v:

Ift

•^

,'ft

'ft

1
ft

'1
ft

•ft

•<<

'ft

'ft
»^
ft
ft

***

__<i_

_J,_

~»"

^•

•<
Sh

•<<

'ft

<•<

^Ift
8

I--
■«

•5

ft
1

'ft
"ft

•?

3
O

_-ft_

-ft

«
_<;_

ft
•ft

■r

t/5

J2
11

•r

1-4

t-M

Tl
1^

harslincss of utterance, an aspirate after the ft)lU)\ving nasal,
giving us si's-uuriidn/ik'-u'd. And, fnially, tlie Senecas of the
extreme west drop tliat unnecessarj' aspirate, anil in lieu of
the difficult Wyandot woril /ivs/cwandoronk'ud , and the seven-
syllabled Mohawk term, i/its/iisiictiiioronkwa, y,"i\e us a word of
four syllables, Si-sx>.'am>r/A'7iUJ, quite as easily spoken and at least
as euphonious as its ICnglish translation, "he K)ves nou. " Nt»
person accustomed to the stud}- of linguistics w ill doubt, after
carefully examining this comparati\e list, that the Mohawk
presents the earliest form of the Iroquois speech, and is itself
a later form than the Wyandot. It will be ec|uall}- cxident
that the Tuscarora, though closely allied to the Mohawk, is
rather a sister than a daughter language. it is clear that the
separation of the i uscaroras from the proper Iroquois took
place in earl)' times, and that each language has since pursued
its own course of de\elopment. — that of the Iroquois in their
chosen abode along the Mohawk River, and that of the Tus-
caroras in their southern asylum, between the Roanoke antl
the Alleghany Mountains.

Following the same course of migration from the northeast
to the southwest, which leails us from the Hurons of eastern
Canada to the Tuscaroras of central North Carolina, we come
to the Chert)kees of northern Alabama and (ieorgia. A con-
nection between their language and that of the Iroquois has
long been suspected, (^dlatin. in his "Synopsis of Indian Lan-
guages," remarks on this subject: "Dr. Barton thought that
the Cherokee language belongetl to the Iroqiu)is famil\\ and
on this point I am inclined to be of the same o[)inion. The
affinities are few and remote, but there is a similarit\- in the
general termination of s\llables, in the pronunciation and ac-
cent, which has struck some of the native Cherokces. We
ha\'e not a sufficient knowledge of the grammar, and general!}-
of the language, of the I'"ive Nations t(^ deciiie that (juestion. "
The tlifficulty arising from this lack of knowledge is now
removed; and with it all uncertainty disappears. The simi-
larity of the two tongues, apparent enough in m.in)- of their
words, is most strikingly shown, as might be ex[)ected,
in their grammatical structure, and especially in the affixed
pronouns, which in both languages play so important a part.
The resemblance may, perhaps, best be show n by giving the
pronouns in the form in which they arc combined with a suf-
fixed syllable to render the meaning e.xpressed by the English
self or alom\ — "1 myself," or "I alone," &c.

I alone
Thou alone
He alone
We two alone
Ye two alone

IROQUOIS. cherokp:k.

akoTihda akit' tins fin

soft/ifia tsiinsCin.

raoiilifia [/laon/ifia) invashn

onkinonhaa ginnnshri

scuoTilida (Huron, ston/iaa) islnFtxiiri
We alone (pi) oiikiohlu'ttx ikfiTisfih

Ye alone tsioTihda (Hiu-on, tsonhad) itshnsfui

They alone roiKui/infi {/toiiori/ifur) tinfinsfin

If from the foreiroini; list we omit the terminal suffixes Una
and sno, which differ in the two languages, the close resem-
blance of the prefixed pronouns is apparent, tlqually evident
is the fact that the Cherokee pronouns, particularly in the third
])erson singular and plural, and in the first person dual and
plural, are softened and contracted forms of the Iroquois pro-
nouns.

To form the verbal transitions, as they are termed, in which
the- action of a transitive verb passes from an agent to an ob-
ject, both languages prefix the pronouns, in a combined form,
to the verb, saying, "I-thee love," "thou-me lovest," and the
like. These combined pronouns are similar in the two lan-
guages, as the following examples will show:

IROQUOIS. CHEROKKK.

T-thee kon or konyc gunya

I -him ria, liia tsiya

He- me raka, haka akiva

He- us sonkxK'a tcaivka

Thou-him Ida liiya

Thou-them slicia tcgihya

They- me ronkc, lionkc giinkica

They- us yoTtkc tcyaivka

The following list will show the similarity in other words of

common occurrence:

Woman
Hoy
Girl
• Fire
Water
Lake
Stone
Sky
Arrow
Pipe
Beaver
Great
Old

IROQUOIS.
yungzoc, ycon, (Seneca)
/laksfta
yiksita
otsilc
aivcTi

iiniatalc .
ononya
kalonhia
ka'na'

kaiiiiTnunoa
tsntayi (Huron)
kozca
nkayoFi

t;MEROKKK.

agcyfih

atsatsa

ayayutsa

atsilhn

ama

undalc

nimya

galtmloi

ganc

ganttTiJia^iL'a

tawyi

ckiva

ogayfinli

The resemblance in most cases is here so ^aeat that the doubt
whicli has existed as to the connection of the two lani^ua^es
may seem unaccountable. It must be stated, however, that
these words are selected from a much larj^^er list of vocables,
in most of which the resemblance is not apparent. In some
of them it exists, l)ut {greatly dis^aiisetl by sinj^ular distortions
of pronunciation, while in otliers the Cherokee words differ
utterl}' from those of the Huron-Iroquois lan^q;ua^res, and are
apparently derived from a different source. There seems, in
fact, to be no doubt that the Cherokee is a mixed lanj^ua^e,
in which, as is usual in such lan^aia<^fes, the grammatical skele-
•ton beloni^'s to one stock, while man\' of the words are supplied
by another. i\s is usual, also, in mixed lanj^uages, a chanf,fe
in the phonoloj^^y of the language has taken place. A lan-
guage which t\\ o races combine to speak must be such as the
vocal organs of both can readily pronounce. In the lluron-
Iroquois dialects syllables frecjuently end with a consonant. In
the Cherokee e\'cry s\dlable terminates either in a vowel or in
a nasal sound. In Iroquois, for example, five is wi'sl-; in Cher-
okee it becomes hiski, a word which in their pronunciation is
divided hi-ski. The Iroquois raksot or haksiit, grandfather, is
in Cherokee softened and lengthened to ctiitii. The probable,
or at least possible, cause of this mixture, and the source from
wh.ch the exotic element of the language may have been de-
rived, will be hereafter considered. Aleanwhile, the striking
fact has become evident that the course of migration of the
Huron-Cherokee family has been from the northeast to the
southwest, that is, from eastern Canada, on the Lower St. Law-
rence, to the mountains of Northern /Mabama.

Another important linguistic stock is that which is known as
the Dakotan family, from the native name of the group or con-
federacy called by the T'rench missionaries and travellers the
Sioux. This family occupies a vast extent of country between
the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, and comprises many
distinct communities, speaking allied though sometimes widely
difterent languages. Among them are the proper Dakotas
(including the Assiniboins), the Omahas, Osages, Kansas,
Otos, Missouris, lowas, Mandans, llidatsas or Minnetarees,
and several others. A single tribe, the Winnebagoes, speak-
ing a peculiarly harsh and difficult language, dwelt east of the
Mississippi, along the western shore of Lake Michigan; but
they Avere commonly regarded by ethnologists as an offshoot
of the prairie tribes, and as intruders into the territory of the
Algonkins. Recent investigations, however, have disclosed
the remarkable fact that tribes belonging to this family lived
in early times east of the Alleghanies, and were found by

the first explorers not far from the Atlantic coast. The tra\--
cllcrs who met with them, incurious in such matters, did not
take the trouble to record the language spoken by these tribes;
and until recently they have been ranked by writers on Indian
ethnology among the southern members of the Iluron-Iroquois
family. In 1870 the last survivor of one of these tribes was
still living, at a great age, on the Reserve of the Si.x Nations,
near Brantford. His people, the Tuteloes, who, with several
allied tribes, had formerly dwelt in southern Virginia and east-
ern North Carolina, had been driven from those regions early in
the eighteenth century by the white settlers. Like their neigh-
bors, the Tuscaroras, they had fled for refuge to the Iroquois,
whom they accompanied in their subsequent flight into Canada.
A vocabulary which I took down from his lips showed bej'ond
question that his people belonged to the Dakotan stock. From
him, and after his death from some intelligent Indians of mixed
race — who, as children of Iroquois fathers by Tutclo mothers,
still rank as Tuteloes, and speak the language fluently, — I ob-
tained a sufficient knowledge of this speech to enable me to
compare it, not merely in its phonology and its vocabulary,
but also in its grammatical structure, Avith the Dakotan lan-
guages spoken west of the Mississippi, so far as these are
known, and more particular!}' with the language of the proper
Dakotas (or Sioux) and the Hidatsa, or Minnetarees. These
two languages have been carefully studied by able and philo-
sophic investigators, the Rev. Stephen R. Riggs and Dr. Wash-
ington Matthews, whose works are models of clear and thorough
exposition. The result of this comparison has been a convic-
tion that the Tutelo language is undoubtedly the oldest form
of speech thus far known in this family, and that, so far as a
judgment can be deduced from this evidence, the course of
emigration must be considered to have been from east to west.
The fact that the western members of this linguistic family were
by far the most numerous counts for nothing in such an inquiry.
If mere numbers and extent of territory are to be deemed of
any value in questions of this nature, we should have to derive
the Polynesians from New Zealand, the Portuguese from Bra-
zil, and the ICnglish from North America.

The following list of words will show how the Tutelo voca-
bles become contracted and distorted in the western Dakota
speech :

TUTELO.

I)AKOT.\.

Blood

ti.'dyi

ICC

Knife

uiasdrii

I sail

Day

uiliaTtpi

aupctit

Water

mi'uii

mini

Land

aiiidrii

viaka

TLTKLO. DAKOTA.

Winter waneni z^uiiii

Autumn tiini ptan

White (js(i/li safi

Black (isc'jfi sa/>a

Cold Siiiii sni

One /ioiistr icaiits/ia

Three l<iiii yamui

Five kisalu'iTii zaptau

Six akdspc sliakpc

Seven sdgoinink sJiakmci?!

The clearest evidence, however, is to be found in a compar-
ison of the grammatical characteristics. It is an established
law in the science of linguistics that, in any family of lan-
guages, those which are of the oldest formation, — or, in other
words, which approach nearest to the mother speech, — are the
most highly inflected. The derivative or more recent tongues
are distinguished by the comparative fewness of the grammat-
ical changes. The difference in this respect between the Tutelo
and the western branches of this stock is so great that they
seem to belong to different categories, or genera, in the classi-
fication of languages. The Tutelo may fairly be ranked
among inflected tongues, while the Dakota, the Hidatsa, and
apparently all the other western dialects of the stock, must
rather be classed with agglutinated languages, — the variations
of person, number, mood and tense being chiefly denoted by
affixed or inserted particles. This statement applies more par-
ticularly to the Hidatsa. In the Dakota some remnants of the
inflected forms still remain.

Thus, in the Hidatsa there is no difference, in the present
tense, between the singular and the plural of the verb. In
this language, also, there is no mark of any kind, even by
affixed particles, to distinguish the present tense from the past,
nor even, in the third person, to distinguish the future from
the other tenses. KidvoJ may signify "lie loves," "he loved,"
and "he will love." The Dakota is a little better furnishetl in
this way. The plural is distinguished from the singular by
the addition of the particle//, and in the first person by pre-
fixing the pronoun ;//7, the)-, in lieu of ica or tvc^ I. Thus,
kaqkd, he binds, becomes kackdpi, they bind; 7^'akdcka, I
bind, becomes nukddcapi, we bind. No distinction is made
between the present and the past tense. Kark<l is both "he
binds" and "he bound." The particle kta, which is not printed,
and apparently not pronounced, as an affix, indicates the
future. All other distinctions of number and tense are ex-
pressed in these two languages by adverbs, or by the general
context of the sentence.

In lieu of these scant and imperfect modes of expression, the
Tuteio gives us a surprising wealth of verbal f.*rms. The dis-
tinction of singular and plural is clearly shown in all the per-
sons, thus:

opeiva, he goes opchelda, the)' go

oyapi'"i^<ci, thou goest oyap> pila, ye go
oioapei^'a, I go }naop('"i^<a , we go

Of tenses there are many forms. The termination in civa
appears to be of an aorist or rather of an indefinite meaning.
Opeii'ii (from opa, to go), may signify both "he goes," and
"he went." A distinctive present is indicated by the termina-
tion oiiia, a distinctive past by oka, and a future by ta or ita.
Thus from ktc, to kill, we have xvaktc^oa, I kill him, or I killed
him, ivaktiovia, I am killing him, and xoaktita, I shall kill him.
So olidta, he sees it, becomes oJiatinka, he saw it formerly, and
ohatcta, he will see it. The inflections for person and number
in the distinctively present tense, ending with oina, are shown
in the following example:

loaginoina, he is sick ivaginoTiJiua, they are sick

ivayinginoina, thou art sick i^'ayiiigiiioinpo, ye are sick
li'anicgiiioina, I am sick iiiarigi<.aginoiua, we are sick

Besides these inflections for person, number and tense, the
Tuteio has also other forms or moods of the verb, negative,
interrogative, desiderative, and the like. IVaktcioa, I killed
him, becomes in the negative form kiiK.'aktt'iia, I did not kill
him. Yakti"ii'n, thou killedst him, makes in the interrogative
form j)vr/V("iL'<', didst thou kill him? Oivapcz^HX, I go, shows
the combined negative and desiderative forms in kcnvapvhina,
I do not wish to go. None of these forms are found in the
Dakota or Hidatsa verbs.

In like manner the possessive pronouns, when combined
with the noun, show a much greater fulness, and, so to speak,
completeness, in the Tuteio than in the Dakota, as is seen in
the following example:

TUTELO. DAKOTA.

Head pasili pa

My head iniinpasili inapa

Thy head yiupasul nipa

His head cpasui pa

Our heads cinaT^kpasill iiupapi

Your heads cyiukpasupui nipapi

Their heads cpasui-lci papi

The linguistic evidence is to a certain extent supplemented
by other testimony. It would seem at least probable that
some of the western Dakotas at one time had their habitations

east of the Mississippi, and have been gradually v ithdrawiivj^
to the westward. The l''rcnch missionary Gravier, in his
"RelaticMi" of the year 1 700, affirms that the Ohio River was
called by the Illinois and the Miamis the Akansea River, be-
cause tlie iXkanseas formerly dwelt alon;^ it. The Akanseas
were the Dakota tribe who Ikp ■; ^iven their name to the River
and State of Arkansas. Catli;. fdund reason for believinj^ that
the Mandans, another tribe of the southern Dakota stock, for-
merly resided in the x'alley of the Ohio. The peculiar traces
in the soil which marked the foundations of tlieir dwellint;s
and the position of their villages were exident, he affirms, at
various points alon<^ that river.*

Another \ery widely extended Indian stock is the Al^onkin
family, which possessed the vVtlantic coast from Labrador to
South Carolina, and extended westward to the Mississippi, and
even, in the far north, to the Rock\ Mountains, where some
of the Satsika or Hlackfoot tribes s] ak a corrupt dialect of this
stock. Gallatin, who had studied their lan^ua<^^es with special
care, expresses the opinion (in his "Synopsis of the Indian
Tribes," p. 29), that the northern Algonkins were probably the
orit,Mnal stock of this famil)'. In this northern division he in-
cludes the tribes dwelling north of the Great Lakes, from the
Gulf of St. Lawrence to the \icinity of the northern Dakotas
and Blackfoot Indians. They comprise the numerous and
widely scattered Monta^nais (or Mountaineers), the Algonquins
proper, the Ottawas, Chii^peways, and Crees or Knistenaux.
Whether they were really the elder branch, and whether the
Micmacs of Nova Scotia, the Abenakis of Maine, the New
England Indians, the Delawares, the Shawanoes, the Miamis,
and the other southern and western Al<,n)nkins spoke derived
or secondai'}' languages, is a question which can only be decided
by a careful comparison of words and grammatical forms.
Mr. Trumbull, who has made this department of American
linguistics peculiarly his own, would be better able than any
one else to prosecute this line of researcii, and decide how far
the opinion of Gallatin is sustained by the evidence of lan-
guage. I may merely remark that in his valuable paper "On
Algonkin Versions of the Lord's Prayer," in the Transactions

•After this paper was composed, I lia<I the satisfaction of learning, at tho ineetinR of
the American .VsKociation in Montreal, from my friend tho Kev. .J. Owen Dorsoy, of tho
Smithsonian Institution (who has spent several yours among the western ])akota tribes in
missionary lahors, and in investigating their languages and social systems), that all tho
southern tribes of that stock— tho Omahas, Otoes, Kansas, lowas, Missouris, Ac. — liavo a
distinct triiilition that their ancestors formerly dwelt east of tho Mississippi. Miss Alice
C. Fletchi vho had resided for a year among tho Omahas, ac(iuiring a knowledge of their
customs u I traditions, had heard the same history. Whether the northern Dakotas havo
a similar tradition is not known. The former trii)es all speak of the Winnebago (or Hotch-
angara) tribe as their uncle, ond declare that their own tribes were originally oifshoots from
the Winnebagoea. A eomparison of the letter-changes between the Winnebago and the
■western dialects (as shown in an interesting paper on tho subject read by Mr. Dorsoy before
the Association), left no doubt of this derivation. The Wiunebagoes evidently hold the
same relation to the western tribes of this stock that the Mohawks bear to tho western

of the American Philoloj^ical Association for 1872, 'Sir. Trum-
bull notices specially the soft and inusicrJ character of the laii-
^aiages spoken by the western Al^^oiikins, ilij Illinois and
Miami tribes, — a softness arising from the fact that "the propor-
tion of consonants to vowels in the written lanjjjua^^e is very
small. Some words (he continues) are framed entirely of vow-
els, e. g., iiaiiia, 'he goes astray;' iiaiii, or, with imperfect
diphthongs, ita-iti, 'an egg;' uiinux, 'he is married;' in many
otliers there is only a single semi-vowel or consonant proper
in half-a-dozen syllables, e. g., ditiankiiii, 'there is yet room;'
(U<r/>itr, 'a buck.' In (xcmuatcnc, 'it leans, is not upright,'
we have but two consonants. "

This paucity of consonants is a well-known mark of that pho-
netic decay which distinguishes derivative languages. The
Hawaiian is one of the youngest of the Polynesian dialects.
The "Vocabulary" of this language, compiled by the Rev.
Lorrin Andrews, shows many hundred words composed either
of vowels alone, or of vowels with but a single consonant.
Aoaao, the sea-bree/.e, oiaio, truth, uiio, to question, /looicic,
proud, iiiaaiiaiiiva, to trade, uiitiki, to glimmer, are words
which may be compared with those quoted by Mr. Trumbull.
E.xamples might also be drawn from our own speech, in which
the German aiii^c becomes eye, the German legen becomes lay,
the German )iiacJitig\iQ.coKac'r, mighty, and so on, in numerous
instances too well known to need recital. That the Algonkin
languages of the Atlantic coast, which, if not harsh, are cer-
tainly hard and firm, abounding in consonants, should prove
to be of more recent origin than the soft vocalic dialects of
the west, is extremely improbable.

The traditions of the northern Algonkins do not, according
to the native historians, Peter Jones and George Copway, trace
their origin further back than to a comparatively late period,
when their ancestors possessed the country which they still
hold north of Lakes Huron and Superior. The Crees, from
time immemorial, have wandered over the wide region extend-
ing between these lakes and Hudson's Bay, and stretching
eastward to the coast of southern Labrador. It is only in recent
times, as the Rev. P'ather Lacombe, the author of an excellent
dictionary and grammar of their language, assures us, that
they have found their way west of the Red River, and have
expelled the Assiniboins and the Blackfoot tribes from a por-

Iroquois nations, while tht> Tuti'lo(^a ivvci to the Winncbagocs what tho Hurona aro to tlio
Mohawks. That the oniifiratioii of the Dakota tril)i;9 from tho euHt, which was infi'rrcil by
mo (after the discovery of tho Tiitelo languattel, Ironi imrely linguistic evidence, should bo
thus confirmed, must be retiarded as a striking iiroof of the value of such evidence in eth-
nological science. It is gratifying to know that through the W(>ll-directed efforts of llajor
Powell and his able collaborators, the stud-'uts of this science, in its American department,
will soon have a large mass of valuable evidenco at their conniiaad, in the iJiiblications of
the Smithsoniau Bureau of Ethnology,

tioii of the territory cxtcndinjlj from ♦hat- river to the Rocky
Mountains. 'liic Lenni Lenape, or Dclawares, alone possessed
what seems to have been a j^enuine tratUtion, i:[oin^ l)ack for
many ^eneraticms. Of this tradition some further notice will
hereafter be taken.

The southern ret;ion of the United States, e.vtendinj^r from
the eastern coast of (ieor^ia to the Mississippi River, was oc-
cupied chiefly by a fourth lin^^uistic stock, the Chalita-Muskoki
family, comprisini,^ the Creeks or Muskhof^rees, the Chickasas,
the Choctaws, and scjiiie minor tribes. The lan^nia<;e of the
'.easternmost of these, the Creeks, differs so witlely from those
of the western tribes, the Choctaws and Chickasas, that Galla-
tin, though noticinL,^ resemblances sufficient to incline him to
believe in their common orij;in, felt obliged to classify them as
belon^nn^ to separate stocks. Later investigations leave no
doubt of their affinity. The differences, however, are much
greater than those which exist between the different lanj^aiages
of the Algonkin family, or between those of the Iluron-Iro-
(piois ^n-oup. The)' may rather be compared with the differ-
ences which are found between the Cherokee and the Iroquois
lant^ua<;fes. There is an evident ^grammatical resemblance,
alon^ with a marked unlikeness in a considerable portion of
the vocabularw The natural inference, as in the case of the
Cherokee, is that many of the words of these differing lan-
guages have been derived from some foreign source. This is
the opinion expressed by Dr. D. G. lirinton, than whom iio
higher authority on this point can be adduced, in his interest-
ing paper "On the National Legend of the Chahta-IVIuskokec
Indians," published in the Historical Magazine for February,
iH/O. It has seemed to me riOt imlikelj' that these languages
and the Cherokee owed the foreign element of their vocabu-
lary to the same source, and that this source was the language
of the people who formerly occupied the central region of the
United States, and who have been the object of so much
painstaking investigation, under the name of "The Mound-
builders. "

The mystery which so long enveloped the character and fate
of this vanished people is gradually disappearing before the
persistent inquiries of arch;et)logists. The late lamented Pres-
ident of our Association, the Hon. L. H. Morgan, in his work
on the "Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines,"
has shown the evidences of resemblance in the mode of life
and social condition of the Moundbuilders to those of the "Vil-
lage Indians" of New Mexico and .Arizona. From various indi-
cations, however, it would seem probable that their political
system had been further developec than that of these Village

Indians, and tliat, as in the Mexican \'alk;}- anil in I'cru, the
l^'roatcr portion of tlu- pojjulation was combined under one
central aiitlioiity. Dr. Hrintmi, in a will-rcasoned essa)- on
"The I'rohabk' Nationalit}' of the Moundhiiildirs, " printed in
the AmKRKAN An IKJIAKIAN for October, iSSi, lias pointed
out the fact that the tribes of the Chahta-Muskoki family were
mound-builders in recent times, and that their structiu'es were
but little inferior in size to those of the extinct population of
the Ohio \'alley. He sees re.ison for coiicludiii}.' that "the
Moundbuilders of the Ohio were in part the progenitors of the
Chahta tribes." Dr. Hrinton's extensive research and his cau-
tion in decidinij give great wiight to his conclusions, to which
I would onl)' \enture to suggest some motlilications drawn
from the e\idences of tradition and language.

iMr. Morgan remarks that "from the absence of all tradition-
ary knowledge of the Mouiulbuilders amt)ng the tribes found
cast of the Mississippi, an inference arises that the period of
their occupati(ui was ancient." P'or the same reason he thinks
it probable th.it their w ithdrawal was gradual and voluntar)-;
for "if their expulsion had been the result of protractetl war-
fare, all remembrance of so remarkable an event would scarcely
have been lost among the tribes b\- whom they were dis-
placed." Mr. Morgan's j:)rofoun(! studies in sociolog}' left him
apparently little time to devote to the languages and traditions
of the Indians; otherwise he could not have failed to notice
that the memories retained by them of the overthrow ami ex-
pulsion of their semi-civilized i)redecessors are remarkabi)' full
and distinct. W'e have these traditions recorded by two
native authorities, the one lioquois, the other Algxjnkin, each
ignorant of the otiier's existence, and j'ct each confirming the
other with singular exactness.

The remarkable historical work of the Tuscarora Cu.'=ick,
owing to its confused and childish stjle, and its absurd chro-
nology, has received far less attention than its intrinsic \aluc
deserves. Whenever his statements can be submitted to the
test of language, they arc in\'ariabh' confirmed. Me tells us
that in ancient times, before the Iroquois separated from the
Hurons, "the northern nations formed a confederacy, and
seated a great council-fire on the River St. Lawrence. " This
confederacy appointed a high chief ("a prince," as Cusick calls
him), as ambassador, who "immediately repaired to the south,
and visited the great emperor, who resided at the Golden City,
a capital of the vast empire. " The mention of the Golden City
has probabl}' induced many readers of Cusick's book to rele-
gate this story to the cloudland of mythology. But it must be
remembered that to the Indians of North America one metal was
as remarkable and as precious as another. Copper was, in fact,

their j,'()M. Amonj; the Moiiiulhuildcrs, copper hehl the pre-
cise place which K<'hl heUl in ancient I'cru. ( )f haniim.TiHl
copper the)' made ornaments (or their jxjrsons and their
dresses, and wrou^dit thi'ir most Nahu'd implt-inents. In one
jjrave-niound in Athens count)', ()hio, IMotcssor ]•]. 15. An-
drews found about (i\i" iuuuh'ed coi)])cr heads, forming' a line
around the space which had once lichi the bod\' of the former
owner. "W'hi-n we remember (he writes) that tlie copper of
the Moundbuihlers was obtained from the \eiii- of native cop-
per near Lake Superior (a h)nc,^ \\.i\' off from southern Ohio),
. where it was quarried in the most laborious manner; that it
was iiammered into thin sheets, and (h\'idi'd into narrow strips,
by no better smith's tools, so far as we know, than such as
could be made of stone, and then rolled into beails, it fs e\i-
dent that the at^.i,n'ej:[ate amount of labor in\'ol\ed in the fabri-
cation of the beads in this mouiul w oukl gi\e them an im-
mense value. "*

Cusick's "(lolden Cit)'" was probabl)* a city aboundint:^ in
the precious red metal of the Lake Su])erior mines. ";\fter a
time," he i)roceeds, "the emperor built man)' forts throuL;"hout
his dominions, and almost penetrated to Lake ICrie. Thisjiro-
duced an excitement. The jjcople of the north felt that they
Avould soon be dejiriv-ed of the ctntntr)' on the south side of
the (ircat Lakes. 'I'hey determined to defend their countr)'
against the infringement of f<M'ei;4n i)eople. Long, bloody
wars ensued, which, perhaps, lasted abmit one hundred )'ears.
The people of the north were too skilful in the use of bows
and arrows, and could endure hardshi})s which jM'oved fatal to
a foreign people. At last the northern people gained the con-
quest, and all the towns and forts wt:re totall)' destro)ed, and
left in a heap of ruins."

This tells the whole stor)', in tlie plainest language. There
is not the slightest reason for supposing that this narrative is
a fabricatit)n. If it were, it would be the only discoverable
invention in the book. I^ut Cusick's work bears throughout
the stamp of perfect sincerit)'. There is nothing in it drawn
from books, or, so far as can be discovered, from an)' other
source than native tradition. His stor)', moreover, receives
confirmation, as has been said, from an independent and e\cn
hostile quarter. The Delaware Indians, who st)'led themselves
Lenni Lenape, had a tradition closely agreeing with that of
the Iroquois. This, too, has been overlooked or undervalued,
through a manifest geographical error in those who first re-
ceived and attempted to interpret it, — the error of supposing

♦Report of the Peibody Museum of American Arclueology and Etbuology for 1880, p. 61.

'20

that only one river could bear among the Indians the very
common name of the "^rcat river."

'Ihc well-known missionar\' author, llcckewclder, commen-
ces his "History of the Indian Nations," with the account
which the Lcnni Lenapt- give- of the mi^^rations that i)rought
them to the rc^Mon on tin- hanks of the Delaware River, where
the;, -vere found by the w hite colonists. The story, as he relates
it, is entirely credible, and corresponds with the Iroquois tra-
tlitions, except in one respect. The Lenape ami the Ircxpiois
are represented as coming' not from the north, but from the
far west, crt)ssing "the Mississippi" together, ami falling witii
their united forces on the people whom they found in the Ohio
valley. These were a numerous people, called the Allighewi
or Tallegwi, who dwelt in great fortified towns. After a long
ami destructive war, in which no (piarter was given, the Alli-
ghewi were utterly defeated, and fled "down the Mississippi."
The conc|uerors then diviiled the countr)' between them, the
Iroquois choosing the region along the (ireat Lakes, while the
Lenape took possession of the country further flowth. The tra-
tlition is recortled at much greater length, and with many aildi-
tional particulars, in a jiaper on the " liistorical and Mytho-
logical 'iraditions of the Algoncpiins," by tl;e distinguished
archa;ologist, IC. (i. Squier, read before the Historical Society
of New York, in June, 1S4S, and republished lately by Mr.
Beach in his "Indian Miscellany." This pa()er comprises a
translation of the W'n/nni-Olinn, or "bark-record" of the Lenni
Lenape, a genuine Indian composition, in the Delaware lan-
guage. It is evitlently a late compilation, in which Indian
traditions are mingled with notions drawn from missionary
teachings. The purely historical part has, like Cusick's narra-
tive, an authentic air, and corrects some errors in the minor
details of Ilcckewelder's summary. The country from which
the Lenape migrated was Shinaki, the "land of ilr-trees," not
in the west, but in the far north, — evidently the woody region
north of Lake Superior. The people who joined them in the
war against the AUighewi (or Tallegwi, as they arc called in
this record), were the Talamatan, a name meaning "not of
themselves," whom Mr. Squier identifies with the llurons, and
no doubt correctly, if we understand by this name the Huron-
Irocpiois people, as they existed before their separation. The
river which the)- crossed was the Messusipu, the "Great River,"
beyond which the Tallegwi were found, "possessing the east."
Th-'t this river was not our Mississippi is evident from the fact
that the works of the Moundbuilders extended far to the west-
ward of the latter river, and would have been encountered by
the invading nations, if they had approached it from the west,

lonp; before they arrived at its banks. The "Groat River" \va<*
app.irently the upper St. Laurence, and most prob.ibl)- that
portion of it which flows from Lake Huron to Lake I'^rie, and
which is commonly known as tlie Detroit River. Near this
river, acconhn^; to I Irckewelder, at a point west of Lake St.
Clair, and also at another j)lace just south of Lake ICrie, some
desperate conflicts took place. Hundreds of the slain Talle^wi,
as he was told, were buried under mounds in that vicinity.
This precisely accords with Cusick's statement that the pef)plc
of the j;reat southern empire had "almost penetrated to Lake
Erie" at the time when the wai bej;an. Of course, in coming
' to the Detroit River from the region north of Lake Superior,
tlie Al^onkins would be ailvanciii}; from the wi'st to the east.
It is ijuite conceivable that, after many generations and many
wandering's, they njay themselves have forf,fotten which was
the true Messusipu, or (ireat River, of their traditionary tales.
The passaj^e already tpioted from Cusick's narrative informs
us that the contest lasted "perhaps one hundred years." In
close agreement with this statement, the Delaware record
makes it endure during the terms of four heatl-chiefs, who in
succession presideil in the Lenape councils. I^'rom what we
know historically of Indian customs, the averai^e tenure of such
chiefs may be computed at about twenty-five years. The fol-
lowing extract from the record gives their names and probably
the fullest account of the conflict which we shall ever possess :

" Some went to the east, and the Tallcgwi killed a portion;

Then all of one mind exclaimed, War ! War !

The Talamatan (not-of-thcmselves) and the Nitilowan, [allied north-peo-

])lc], K" united (to the war.)
Kinnepehciid (.Sharp-lookinjj)was the leader, and they went over the river,
And they took all that wns there, and despoiled and slew the Tallet^wi.
Pimokhasuwi (Stirring-at)out) was next chief, and then the Tallegwi were

much too stronfj.
Tenchckensit COpen-path) followed, and many towns were given up to him.
Paganchihilla was chief, and the Tallegwi all went southward.
South of the Lakes they (the Lenape) settled their council -fire, and north of

the Lakes were tl;cir friends the Talamatan ( Ilurons ?)

There can be no reasonable doubt that the Allighcwi or
Tallegwi, who have gi\cn their name to the Alleghany River
and Mountains, were the Moundbuilders. It is also evident
that in their overthrow the incidents of the fall of tlie Roman
Empire were in a rude way repeated. The destiny which ulti-
matelv befell the Moundbuilders can be inferred from what we
know of the fate of the Ilurons themselves in their final war
with the Iroquois. The lamentable story recorded in the
Jesuit "Relations," and in tlie vivid narrative of Parkman, is

well known. The fjreatcr portion of the Huron people were
extenninatcd, and tlieir towns reduced to ashes. Of the sur-
vivors many were received and adopted anion^ the conquerors.
A few fled to the east and sought protection from the French,
while a larger remnant retired to the northwest, and took shel-
ter amouL;" the friendly Ojibways. The fate of the Talle<^wi was
doubtless similar to tliat which thus overtook the descendants
of their Huron conquerors. So long as the conflict continued,
it was a war of extermination. All the conquered were massa-
cred, and all that was perishable in their towns was destroyed.
When they finally }ielded, many of the captives would be si)ared
to recruit tiie thinned ranks of their conquerors. This, at least,
would occur among that division of the conquering allies which
belonged to the Huron-Irocpiois race; for such adoption of
defeated enemies is one of the ancient and cardinal principles
of their well-devised political system. It is b)' no means un-
likely that a portion of the Moundbuilders may, during the
conflict, have separated from the rest and deliberately united
their destiny with those of the conquering race, as the Tlascal-
ans joined the Spaniards in their war against the Aztecs.
Either in such an alliance or in the adoption of captive ene-
mies, we may discern the origin of the great Cherokee nation,
a people who were found occupying the southeastern district
of the Moundbuilders' country, having tlieir chief council-house
on the summit of a vast mound which they themselves as-
cribed to a people who preceded them,* and speaking a language
which shows evident traces of its mixed origin, — in grammar
mainly Huron-Iroquois, and in vocabulary largely recruited
from some foreign source.

Another portion of the defeated race, fleeing southward
"down the Mississippi," would come directly to the country
of the Chahta, or Choctaws, themselves (as Dr. Brinton re-
minds us) a mound-building people, inferior probably in ci\i-
lization to the Allighewi, but superior, it may be, in warlike
energy. With these the northern conqucrers would have no
quarrel, and the remnant of the Allighewi would be allowed to
remain in peace among their protectors, and, becoming in-
corporated with them, would cause that change in their lan-
guage which makes the speech of the Choctaws differ as much
from that of their eastern kindred, the Creeks or Muskhogees,
as the speech of the Cherokees differs from that of their north-
ern congeners, the Iroquois.

If this theory is correct, we might expect to fmd some simi-
lar words in the languages of the Cherokees and the Choc-
taws. These languages, so far as their grammar is concerned,

♦ Uartram'B Travels, p. 367. Reports of the Peabody Musduih, vol. 2, p. 7G.

belonj^ to entirely different stocks. The difference is as com-
plete as that which exists between the Persian and Turkish
lanL,fuages. It is well kriown that these last-named languages,
though utterly unlike in grammar, have a common element in
the iVrabic words which each has adopted from a neighboring
race. We are naturally led to inquire whether similar traces
exist in the Cherokee and the Choctaw of a common element
derived from some alien source. The comparative vocabula-
ries gi\en in Gallatin's work comprise chiefly those primitive
and essential words which arc rarely borrowed by any lan-
guage, such as the ordinary terms of relationship, the names of
the parts of the human body and the most common natural
objects, the numerals, and similar terms. There arc, however,
some words, such as the terms for some articles of attire, the
names of certain animals, and a few others, which in most
languages are occasionally taken from a foreign source. Thus
the Saxon-lCnglish has borrowed from the Norman-French
element the words for boot and coat, for cattle and squirrel,,
for prisoner and metal. It is, therefore, interesting to find
that the vocabularies of the Cherokee and the Choctaw, differ-
ing in all the more common words, show an evident similarity
in the following list:

CHEROKEE

CHOCTAW and CHICASA

Shoes

lasulo

slut lush

Buffalo

y<r>iasa

/ifdiiiHsh, ycnnush

Fox

ts/ila

c Jill I a

Prisoner

ayiiriki

yuka

Metal

atc/iiH

tiillc, tali

These resemblances, occurring only in words of this pecu-
liar class, can hardly be mere coincidences. A more extensive
and minute comparison will be needed to establish beyond
question the existence of this foreign element common to the
two languages, and the extent to which each has been modified
by it; but the indications thus shown seem to confirm the con-
clusions derived from t'."^ clear and positive traditions of the
northern Indians. Every known fact favors the view that
during a period which may be roughly estimated at between
one and two thousand years ago, the Ohio valley was occupied
by an industrious population of some Indian stock, which had
attained a grade of civilization similar to that now held by the
Village Indians of New Mexico and Arizona; that this popu-
lation was assailed from the north by less civilized and more
warlike tribes of Algonkins and Hurons, acting in a temporary
league, similar to those alliances which Pontiac and Tecumseh

afterweirds rallied against the white colonists; that after a long
and wasting war the assailants were victorious; the conquered
people were in great part exterminated; the survivors were
either incorporated with the conquering tribes or fled south-
ward and found a refuge among the nations which possessed
the region lying between the Ohio valley and the Gulf of
Mexico; and that this mixture of races has largely modified
the language, character, and usages of the Cherokee and Choc-
taw nations.*

It will be noticed that the evidence of language, and to some
extent that of tradition, leads to the conclusion that the course
of migration of the Indian tribes has been from the Atlantic
coast westward and southward. The Huron-Iroquois tribes
had their pristine seat on the lower St. Lawrence. The tradi-
tions of the Algonkin? seem to point to Hudson'.> Bay and the
coast of Labrador. The Dakota stock had its oldest branch
east of the Alleghanies, and possibly (if the Catawba nation
shall be proved to be of that stock), on the Carolina coast.
Philologists are well aware that there is nothing in the lan-
guage of the American Indians to favor the conjecture (for it is
nothing else), which derives the race from eastern Asia. But
in western Europe one community is known to exist, speaking
a language which in its general structure manifests a near like-
ness to the Indian tongues. Alone of all the races of the old
continent the Basques or Euskarians of northern Spain and
southwestern France have a speech of that highly complex and
polysynthetic character which distinguishes the American lan-
guages. There is not, indeed, any such positive similarity in
words or grammar as would prove a direct affiliation. The
likeness is merely in the general cast and mould of speech;
but this likeness is so marked as to have awakened much atten-
tion. If the scholars who have noticed it had been aware of
the facts now adduced with regard to the course of migration
on this continent, they would probably have been led to the
conclusion that this similarity in the type of speech was an
evidence of the unity of race. There seems reason to believe
that Europe, — at least in its southern and western portions, —
was occupied in early times by a race having many of the

♦ I am gratified to find that tho views here sot forth with regard to the chfiractor and fate
of the Moundbullilers are almost identical with those expressed bv Mr M. E. Force, iu his
excellent paper, entitled ' To what Mace did the Moundhnildcrs belong I" read before the
Congris Internntimiul des A7ntricani»tes, at Luxembourg in 1877. The fact that so judi-
cious and experienced an inquirer as Judge Force, after a personal examination of the
earthworks, has arrived, on purely archmological grounds, at the same conclusions to -which
I have been brought by tho independent evidence of tradition and language, must bo re-
garded as affording strong confirmation of tho correctness of those concluHiona. Mr. J. P.
MaoLean, in his valuable work on " the Moundbuildors," shows (p, Hi) that tho strong and
skillfully planned line of tortesses raised by the ancient residents of Ohio was plainly
erected against an enemy coming from the north, and that tho warfare was evidently a
long-protracted struggle, ending suddenly in the complete overthrow and destruction or
expulsion of tho defenders. These facts coincide exactly with the tradition recorded by
Cusick.

characteristics, physical and mental, of the American aborig-
ines. The evidences which lead to this conclusion are well set
forth in Dr. Dawson's recent work on "Fossil Man." Of this
early European people, by some called the Iberian race, who
were ultimately overwhelmed by the Aryan emigrants from
central Asia, the Basques are the only survivors that have
retained their original language; but all the nations of south-
ern Europe, commencing with the Greeks, show in their phys-
ical and mental traits a large intermixture of this aboriginal
race. As we advance westward, the evidence of this infusion
. becomes stronger, until in the Celts of France and of the Brit-
ish Islands, it gives the predominant cast to the character of
the people.*

If the early population of Europe were really similar to that
of America, then we may infer that it was composed of many
tribes, scattered in loose bands over the country, and speaking
languages widely and sometimes radically different, but all of
a polysynthetic structure. They were a bold, proud, adven-
turous people, good hunters and good sailors. In the latter
respect they were wholly unlike the primitive Aryans, who, as
was natural in a pastoral people of inland origin, have always
had in the east a terror of the ocean, and in Europe were,
W'thin historic times, the clumsiest and least venturous of nav-
igators. If communities resembling ihe Iroquois and the
Caribs once inhabited the British islands and the western coasts
of the adjacent continent, we may be sure that their fleets of
large canoes, such as have been exhumed from the peat-depos-
its and ancient river-beds of Ireland, Scotland, and France,
swarmed along all the shores and estuaries of that region.
Accident or adventure may easily have carried some of them
across the Atlantic, not merely once, but in many successive
emigrations from different parts of western Europe. The dis-
tance is less than that which the canoes of the Polynesians were
accustomed to traverse. The derivation of the American pop-
ulation from this source presents no serious improbability what-
ever, t

On the theory, which seems thus rendered probable, that
the early Europeans were of the same race as the Indians of

*"Tho BnHquo may then bo the solo surviving relic and -witness of an aboriginal west-
ern European iioimlation, disiiosBosst'il by the intrusive Indo-Kuroiioan tribes. It stauels
entirely alone, no kindred having yet been found for it in any part of the world. It is of an
exaiigeratedly agglutinative typo, incorporating into its verb a variety of relationa
■wiiich are alinost everywhere else expressed by an independent word."— "The Uasijne
forms a suitable stepping-stone from which to enter the peculiar linguistic domain of the
New World, since there is no other dialect of the Old World which so much resembles in
structure the American languages." — Professor Whitney, in " The Life and Orowth of
LiiTigxiage," p. 258.

fThe distance from Ireland to Newfoundland is only sixteen hundred miles. The dis-
tanco from tlie Sandwich Islands to Tahiti (whence the natives of the former group affirm
that their ancestors came), is twenty-two hundred miles. The distance from the former

America, wc arc able to account for certain characteristics of
the modern nations of I'.urope, which would otherwise present
to the student of anthropolo^^y a perplexing problem. The
Aryans of Asia, ancient and modern, as we know them in the
Hindoos, the Persians, and the Armenians, with the evidence
afforded by their histor\', their literature, and their present
condition, liave always been utterly devoid of the sentiment of
political rights. The love of freedom is a .ing of which
they seem incapable. To humble themselve . uefore some supe-
rior power, — deity, king, or brahmin, — seems to be with them
a natural and overpowering inclination. Next to this feeling
is the love of contemplation and of abstract reasoning. A
dreamy life of worship and thought is the highest felicity of
the Asiatic Aryan. On the other hand, if the ancient Euro-
peans were what tlie l^asques and the American Indians arc
now, they were a people imbued with the strongest possible
sense of personal independence, and, resulting from that, a
passion for political freedom. They were also a shrewd, practi-
cal, observant people, with little taste for abstract reasoning.

It is easy to see that from a mingling of two races of
such opposite dispositions, a people of mixed character would
be formed, very similar to that which has existed in Europe
since the advent of the Aryan emigrants. In eastern Europe,
amon^ the Greeks and Sclavonians, where the Iberian element
would be weakest, the Aryan characteristics of reverence and
contemplation would be most apparent. As we advance west-
ward, among the Latin and Teutonic populations, the sense of
political rights, the taste for adventure, and the observing,
practical tendency, would be more and more manifest; until at
length, among the western Celts, as among the American In-
dians, the love of freedom would become exalted to an almost
morbid distrust of all governing authority.

If this theory is correct, the nations of modern Europe have
derived those traits of character and those institutions which
have given them their present headship of power and civiliza-
tion among the peoples of the globe, not from their Aryan
forefathers, but mainly from this other portion of their ances-
try, belonging to the earlier population which the Aryans
overcame and absorbed. That this primitive population was
tolerably numerous is evident from the fact that the Aryans,
particularly of the Latin, Tc tonic, and Celtic nations, lost in
absorbing it many vocal elements and many grammatical in-

islanda to the Marquesas group, the nearest inhabited land, is seventoen hundred miles.
The canoes of the Sandwich Islands (as wo are assured by Kills, in his "I'olynesian
Researches"), "seldom exceed fifty feet in length." In the river-beds of France, ancient
canoes have been found exceedint! forty feet in lent^th. One was more than forty-five
feet long, and nearly four feet deep. See the particulars in Figuier's "Primitive Mon,"
Appleton'8 edit,, p. 177.

ncction:. of ihcir speech. They ^fained, at the same time, the
self-respect, the love of liberty, and the capacity for self-gov-
ernment, which were unknown to them in their Asiatic home.
Knowing,' that these characteristics have always marked the
.American race, we nvci\ not be surprised when moilern re-
searches demonstrate the fact that many of our Indian com-
munities have possessed pi)litical systems embodyin<^ some of
the most valuable principles of popular government. We shall
no longer feel inclinetl to question the truth of the conclusion
which has been announced by Carli, Draper, and other philo-
' sophic investigators, who affirm that the Spaniards, in their
concpiest of Mexico, Yucatan, and Peru, destroyed a better
form of societ)- than that which they established in its place.
The intellectual but servile Aryans will cease to attract the
undue admiration which the\' have received for qualities not
their own; and we shall look with a new interest on the rem-
nant of the Indian race, as possibly representing this nobler
type of man, whose inextinguishable love of freedom has
evoked the idea of political rights, and has created those insti-
tutions of regulated self-government by which genuine civili-
zation and progress are assured to the world.

• i'' ,•• ,♦, •

, . • . • • • , ' •• . . . • . • 1 • • •