,.' ' 
 
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. 
 
8 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
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 ft 
 
 ft 
 
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 11 
 
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 ft 
 
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 ft 
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 ,s 
 
 
 
 
 
 c 
 
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 JS 
 
 
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 11 
 
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 t/5 
 
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 J2 
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 •r 
 
 <u 
 
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 1-4 
 
 
 
 t-M 
 
 
 1) 
 
 Tl 
 1^ 
 
 
 D 
 
 is 
 
 >< 
 
 11 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 H 
 
9 
 
 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. 
 
10 
 
 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 
 
11 
 
 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 
 
12 
 
 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 
 
13 
 
 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. 
 
14 
 
 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 
 
16 
 
 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, 
 
17 
 
 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 
 
IH 
 
 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, 
 
19 
 
 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, 
 
91 
 
 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 
 
22 
 
 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. 
 
23 
 
 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 
 
24 
 
 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. 
 
25 
 
 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 
 
2G 
 
 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 • • •