North American Indians

NORTH AMERICAN. INDIANS The name of " American Indians " for the aborigines of America had its origin in the use by Columbus, in a letter (February 1493) written "Ameri- soon after the discovery of the New World, of the term Indios (i.e. natives of India) for the hitherto unknown human beings, some of whom he brought back to Europe with him. He believed, as did the people of his age in general, that the islands which he had discovered by sailing westward across the Atlantic were actually a part of India, a mistaken idea which later served to suggest many absurd theories of the origin of the aborigines, their customs, languages, culture, &c. From Spanish the word, with its incorrect connotation, passed into French (Indien), Italian and Portuguese (Indio), German (Indianer), Dutch (Indiane), &c. When the New World came to be known as America, the natives received, in English especially, the name " American Indians," to distinguish them from the " Indians " of south-eastern Asia and the East Indies. The appellation " Americans " was for a long time used in English to designate, not the European colonists, but the aborigines, and when, in 1891, Dr D. G. Brinton published his notable monograph on the Indians he entitled it The American Race, recalling the early employment of the term. The awkwardness of such a term as " American Indian," both historically and linguistically, led Major J. W. Powell, the founder of the Bureau of American Ethnology, to put forward as a substitute " Amerind," an arbitrary curtailment which had the advantage of lending itself easily to form words necessary and useful in ethnological writings, e.g. pre-Amerind, post-Amerind, pseudo-Amerind, Amerindish, Amerindize, &c. Purists have objected strenuously to " Amerind," but the word already has a certain vogue in both English and French. Indeed, Professor A. H. Keane does not hesitate, in The World's Peoples (London, 1908), to use " Amerinds " in lieu of " American Indians." Other popular terms for the American Indians, which have more or less currency, are " Red race," " Red men," " Redskins," the last not in such good repute as the corresponding German Rothdute, or French Peaux-rouges, which have scientific standing. The term " American Indians " covers all the aborigines of the New World past and present, so far as is known, although some European writers, especially in France, still seek to separate from the " Redskins " the Aztecs, Mayas, Peruvians, &c., and some American authorities would (anatomically at least) rank the Eskimo as distinct from the Indian proper. When the name " Indian " came to be used by the European colonists and their descendants, they did not confine it to " wild men," but applied it to many things that were wild, strange, nonEuropean in the new environment (see Journ. Amer. Folk-Lore, 1902, pp. 107-116; Handbook of Amer. Inds., 1907, pt. i. pp. 605-607). Thus more than one hundred popular names of plants in use in American English (e.g. " Indian corn," " Indian pink," &c.) contain references to the Indian in this way; also many other things, such as " Indian file," " Indian ladder," " Indian gift," " Indian pudding," " Indian summer." The CanadianFrench, who termed the Indian sauvage (i.e. " savage "), remembered him linguistically in botte sauvage (moccasin), traine sauvage (toboggan). The term " Siwash," in use in the Chinook jargon of the North Pacific coast, and also in the English of that region, for " Indian "is merely a corruption of this CanadianFrench appellation. In the literature relating to the Pacific coast there is mention even of " Siwash Indians." Throughout Canada and the United States the term " Indian " occurs in hundreds of place-names of all sorts (" Indian River," " Indian Head," " Indian Bay," " Indian Hill," and the like). There are besides these Indiana and its capital Indianapolis. In Newfoundland " Red Indian," as the special term for the Beothuks, forms part of a number of place-names. Pope's characterization of the American aborigine, " Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind," is responsible for the creation in the mind of the people of a Mr Lo," who figures in newspaper lore, cartoons, &c. The reputations, deserved and undeserved, of certain Indian tribes north of Mexico have been such that their names have passed into English or into the languages of other civilized nations of Europe as synonyms for " ruffian," " thug," " rowdy," &c. Recently " les Apaches " have been the terror of certain districts of Paris, as were the " Mohocks " (Mohawks) for certain parts of London toward the close of the 18th century.

The North American Indians have been the subject of numerous popular fallacies, some of which have gained world-wide currency. Here belongs a mass of pseudo-scientific and thoroughly unscientific literature embodying absurd and extravagant theories and speculations as to the origin of the aborigines and their " civilizations "which derive them (in most extraordinary ways sometimes), in recent or in remote antiquity, from all regions of the Old World - Egypt and Carthage, Phoenicia and Canaan, Asia Minor and the Caucasus, Assyria and Babylonia, Persia and India, Central Asia and Siberia, China and Tibet, Korea, Japan, the East Indies, Polynesia, Greece and ancient Celtic Europe and even medieval Ireland and Wales. Favourite theories of this sort have made the North American aborigines the descendants of refugees from sunken Atlantis, Tatar warriors, Malayo-Polynesian sea-farers, Hittite immigrants from Syria, the " Lost Ten Tribes of Israel," &c., or attributed their social, religious and political ideas and institutions to the advent of stray junks from Japan, Buddhist votaries from south-eastern Asia, missionaries from early Christian Europe, Norse vikings, Basque fishermen and the like.

Particularly interesting are the theories of " Welsh (or white) Indians " and the " Lost Ten Tribes." The myth of the " Welsh Indians," reputed to be the descendants of a colony founded about A.D. 1170 by Prince Madoc (well known from Southey's poem), has been studied by James Mooney (Amer. Anthrop. iv., 1891, 393-394), who traces its development from statements in an article in The Turkish Spy, published in London about 1730. At first these " Welsh Indians," who are subsequently described as speaking Welsh, possessing Welsh Bibles, beads, crucifixes, &c., are placed near the Atlantic coast and identified with the Tuscaroras, an Iroquoian tribe, but by 1776 they had retreated inland to the banks of the Missouri above St Louis. A few years later they were far up the Red river, continuing, as time went on, to recede farther and farther westward, being identified successively with the Mandans, in whose language Catlin thought he detected a Welsh element, the Mogul., a Pueblos tribe of north-eastern Arizona, and the Modocs (here the name was believed to re-echo Madoc) of south-western Oregon, until at last they vanished over the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The theory that the American Indians were the " Lost Ten Tribes of Israel " has not yet entirely disappeared from ethnological literature. Many of the identities and resemblances in ideas, customs and institutions between the American Indians and the ancient Hebrews, half-knowledge or distorted views of which formed the basis of the theory, are discussed, and their real significance pointed out by Colonel Garrick Mallery in his valuable address on " Israelite and Indian: A Parallel in Planes of Culture " (Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci. vol. xxxviii., 1889, pp. 287-331). The whole subject has been discussed by Professor H. W. Henshaw in his " Popular Fallacies respecting the Indians " (Amer. Anthrop. vol. vii. n.s., 1905, pp. 104-113).

Of ways of classifying the races of mankind and their subdivisions the number is great, but that which measures them by their speech is both ancient and convenient. The multiplicity of languages among the American Indians was one of the first things that struck the earliest investigators of a scientific turn of mind, no less than the missionaries who preceded them. The Abbe Hervas, the first serious student of the primitive tongues of the New World, from the classificatory point of view, noted this multiplicity of languages in his Catalogo delle lingue conosciute e notizia della loro of nitet e diversit¢ (Cesena, 1784); and after him Balbi, Adelung and others. About the same time in America Thomas Jefferson, who besides being a statesman was also a considerable naturalist (see Amer. Anthrop. ix. n.s., 1907, 499-5 0 9), was impressed by the same fact, and in his Notes on the State of Virginia observed that for one " radical language " in Asia there would be found probably twenty in America. Jefferson himself collected and arranged (the MSS. were afterwards lost) the vocabularies of about fifty Indian languages and dialects, and so deserves rank among the forerunners of the modern American school of comparative philologists. After Jefferson came Albert Gallatin, who had been his secretary of the treasury, as a student of American Indian languages in the larger sense. He had also himself collected a number of Indian vocabularies. Gallatin's work is embodied in the well-known " Synopsis of the Indian Tribes within the United States East of the Rocky Mountains, and in the British and Russian Possessions in North America," published in the Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society (ii. 1-422) for 1836. In this, really the first attempt in America to classify on a linguistic basis the chief Indian tribes of the better-known regions of North America, Gallatin enumerated the following twenty-nine separate divisions: Adaize, Algonkin-Lenape, Athapascas, Atnas, Attacapas, Blackfeet, Caddoes, Catawbas, Chahtas, Cherokees, Chetimachas, Chinooks, Eskimaux, Fall Indians, Iroquois, Kinai, Koulischen, Muskhogee, Natches, Pawnees, Queen Charlotte's Island, Salish, Salmon River (Friendly Village), Shoshonees, Sioux, Straits of Fuca, Utchees, Wakash, Woccons. These do not all represent distinct linguistic stocks, as may be seen by comparison with the list given below; such peoples as the Caddo and Pawnee are now known to belong together, the Blackfeet are Algonkian, the Catawba Siouan, the Adaize Caddoan, the Natchez Muskogian, &c. But the monograph is a very good first attempt at classifying North American Indian languages.

Gallatin's coloured map of the distribution of the Indian tribes in question is also a pioneer piece of work. In 1840 George Bancroft, in the third volume of his History of the Colonization of the United States, discussed the Indian tribes east of the Mississippi, listing the following eight families: Algonquin, Catawba, Cherokee, Huron-Iroquois, Mobilian (Choctaw and Muskhogee), Natchez, Sioux or Dahcota, Uchee. He gives also linguistic map, modified somewhat from that of Gallatin. The next work of great importance in American comparative philology is Horatio Hale's monograph forming the sixth volume (Phila., 1846), Ethnography and Philology, of the publications of the " United States Exploring Expedition, during the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1842, under the Command of Charles Wilkes, U.S. Navy," which added much to our knowledge of the languages of the Indians of the Pacific coast regions. Two years later Gallatin published in the second volume of the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society (New York) a monograph entitled " Hale's Indians of North-west America, and Vocabularies of North America," in which he recognized the following additional groups: Arrapahoes, Jakon, Kalapuya, Kitunaha, Lutuami, Palainih, Sahaptin, Saste, Waiilatpu. In 1853 he contributed a brief paper to the third volume of Schoolcraft's Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, adding to the "families" already recognized by him the following: Cumanches, Gros Ventres, Kaskaias, Kiaways, Natchitoches, Towiacks, Ugaljachmutzi. Some modifications in the original list were also made. During the period1853-1877many contributions to the classification of the Indian languages of North America, those of the west and the north-west in particular, were made by Gibbs, Latham, Turner, Buschmann, Hayden, Dall, Powers, Powell and Gatschet. The next important step, and the most scientific, was taken by Major J. W. Powell, who contributed to the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1885-1886 (Washington, 1891) his classic monograph (pp. 1-142) on " Indian Linguistic Families of America North of Mexico." In 1891 also appeared Dr D. G. Brinton's The American Race: A Linguistic Classification and Ethnographic Description of the Native Tribes of North and South America (New York, p. 392). With these two works the adoption of language as the means of distinction and classification of the American aborigines north of Mexico for scientific purposes became fixed. Powell, using the vocabulary as the test of relationship or difference, enumerated, in the area considered, 58 separate linguistic stocks, or families of speech, each " as distinct from one another in their vocabularies and apparently in their origin as from the Aryan or the Scythian families " (p. 26).

The 58 distinct linguistic stocks of American Indians north of Mexico, recognized by Powell, were as follows: (1) Adaizan; (2) Algonquian; (3) Athapascan; (4) Attacapan; (5) Beothukan; (6) Caddoan; (7) Chimakuan; (8) Chimarikan; (9) Chimmesyan; (io) Chinookan; (r1) Chitimachan; (12) Chumashan; (13) Coahuiltecan; (14) Copehan; (15) Costanoan; (16) Eskimauan; (r7) Esselenian; (18) Iroquoian; (iv) Kalapooian; (20) Karankawan; (21) Keresan; (22) Kiowan; (23) Kitunahan; (24) Koluschan; (25) Kulanapan; (26) Kusan; (27) Lutuamian; (28) Mariposan; (29) Moquelumnan; (30) Muskhogean; (31) Natchesan; (32) Palaihnihan; (33) Piman; (34) Pujunan; (35) Quoratean; (36) Salinan; (37) Salishan; (38) Sastean; (39) Shahaptian; (40) Shoshonean; (41) Siouan; (42) Skittagetan; (43) Takilman; (44) Tanoan; (45) Timuquanan; (46) Tonikan; (47) Tonkawan; (48) Uchean; (49) Waiilatpuan; (50) Wakashan; (51) Washoan; (52) Weitspekan; (53) Wishoskan; (54) Yakonan; (J5) Yanan; (56) Yukian; (S7) Yuman; (58) Zunian.

This has been the working-list of students of American Indian languages, but since its appearance the scientific investigations of Boas, Gatschet, Dorsey, Fletcher, Mooney, Hewitt, Hale, Morice, Henshaw, Hodge, Matthews, Kroeber, Dixon, Goddard, Swanton and others have added much to our knowledge, and not a few serious modifications of Powell's classification have resulted. With Powell's monograph was published a coloured map showing the distribution of all the linguistic stocks of Indians north of Mexico. Of this a revised edition accompanies the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, published by the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1907-1910, now the standard book of reference on the subject. The chief modifications made in Powell's list are as follows: The temporary presence in a portion of south-west Florida of a new stock, the Arawakan, is now proved. The Adaizan language has been shown to belong to the Caddoan family; the Natchez to the Muskogian; the Palaihnian to the Shastan; the Piman to the Shoshonian. The nomenclature of Powell's classification has never been completely satisfactory to American philologists, and a movement is now well under way (see Amer. Anthrop. vii. n.s., 1905, 579-593) to improve it. In the present article the writer has adopted some of the suggestions made by a committee of the American Anthropological Society in 1907, covering several of the points in question.

In the light of the most recent and authoritative researches and investigations the linguistic stocks of American aborigines north of Mexico, past and present, the areas occupied, earliest homes (or original habitats), number of tribes, subdivisions, &c., and population, may be given as follows Of these 55 different linguistic stocks 5 (Arawakan, Beothukan, Esselenian, Karankawan and Timuquan) are completely extinct, the Arawakan, of course, in North America only; 13 (Atakapan, Chimarikan, Chitimachan, Chumashan,Costanoan, Kusan, Pakawan, Salinan, Takelman, Tonikan, Tonkawan, Wishoskan, Yakonan) practically extinct; while the speakers of a few other languages or the survivors of the people once speaking them (e.g. Chemakuan, Chinookan, Copehan, Kalapuyan, Mariposan, Washoan, Yukian), number about 200 or 300, in some cases fewer. Of the Wailatpuans, although some individuals belonging to the stock are still living, the language itself is practically extinct. The distribution of the various stocks reveals some interesting facts. Among these are the stretch of the Eskimoan along the whole Arctic coast and its extension into Asia; the immense areas occupied by the Athabaskan and the Algonkian, and (less notably) the Shoshonian and the Siouan; the existence of few stocks on the Atlantic slope (from Labrador to Florida, east of the Mississippi, only 8 are represented); the great multiplicity of stocks in the Pacific coast region, particularly in Oregon and California; the extension of the Shoshonian, Yuman and Athabaskan southward into Mexico, the Shoshonian in ancient, the Athabaskan in modern times; the existence of an Arawakan colony in southwestern Florida, a 16th-century representative in North America of a South American linguistic stock. Some stocks, e.g. Atakapan, Beothukan, Chemakuan, Chimarikan, Chitimachan, Kiowan, Kitunahan, Lutuamian, Takelman, Tonkawan, Wailatpuan, Yanan, Yuchian, Zuni, &c., were not split up into innumerable dialects, possessing at most but two, three or four, usually fewer. Of the larger stocks, the Athabaskan, Algonkian, Shoshonian, Siouan, Iroquoian, Salishan, &c., possess many dialects often mutually unintelligible. In marked contrast with this is the case of the Eskimoan stock, where, in spite of the great distance over which it has extended, dialect variations are at a minimum, and the people " have retained their language in all its minor features for centuries " (Boas). As to the reason for the abundance of linguistic stocks in the region of the Pacific (from Alaska to Lower California, west of long. 115°, there are 37: Eskimoan, Koluschan, Athabaskan, Haidan, Tsimshian, Wakashan, Salishan, Kitunahan, Chimakuan, Chinookan, Sahaptian, Wailatpuan, Shoshonian, Kalapuyan, Yakonan, Kusan, Takelman, Lutuamian, Quoratean, Weitspekan, Wishoskan, Shastan, Yanan, Chimarikan, Yukian, Copehan, Pujunan, Washoan, Kulanapan, Moquelumnan, Mariposan, Costanoan, Esselenian, Salinan, Chumashan, Yuman) there has been much discussion. Of these no fewer than 18 are confined practically to the limits of the present state of California. Dialects of Athabaskan, Shoshonian and Yuman also occur within the Californian areas, thus making, in all, representatives of 21 linguistic stocks in a portion of the continent measuring less than 156,000 sq. m. In explanation of this great diversity of speech several theories have been put forward. One is to the effect that here, as in the region of the Caucasus in the Old World, the multiplicity of languages is due to the fact that tribe after tribe has been driven into the mountain valleys, &c., by the pressure of stronger and more aggressive peoples, who were setting forth on careers of migration and conquest. Another view, advocated by Horatio Hale in 1886 (Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci.; also Proc. Canad. Inst., Toronto, 1888), is that this great diversity of human speech is due to the language-making instinct of children, being the result of " its exercise by young children accidentally isolated from the teachings and influence of grown companions." A pair of young human beings, separating thus from the parent tribe and starting social life in a new environment by themselves, would, according to Mr Hale, soon produce a new dialect or a new language. This theory was looked upon with favour by Romanes, Brinton, and other psychologists and ethnologists. Dr R. B. Dixon (Congr. intern. des. Amer., Quebec, 1906, pp. 255-263), discussing some aspects of this question, concludes " that the great linguistic and considerable cultural complexity of this whole California-Oregon region is due to progressive differentiation rather than to the crowding into this restricted area of remnants of originally discrete stocks." How far two dialects of one stock can go in the way of such differentiation without becoming absolutely distinct is illustrated by the Achomawi branches of the Shastan family of speech, which Dr Dixon has very carefully investigated.

The test of vocabulary is not the only means by which the languages of the North American aborigines might be classified. There are peculiarities of phonetics, morphology, grammar, sentencestructure, &c., which suggest groupings of the linguistic stocks independent of their lexical content. Some languages are harsh and consonantal (e.g. the Kootenay and others of the North Pacific region), some melodious and vocalic, as are certain of the tongues of California and the south-eastern United States. Some employ reduplication with great frequency, like certain Shoshonian dialects; others, like Kootenay, but rarely. A few, like the Chinook, are exceedingly onomatopoeic. Some, like the northern languages of California, have no proper plural forms. Of the Californian languages the Pomo alone distinguishes gender in the pronoun, a feature common to other languages no farther off than Oregon. The high development and syntactical use of demonstratives which characterize the Kwakiutl are not found among the Californian tongues. A few languages, like the Chinook and the Tonika, possess real grammatical gender. Some languages are essentially prefix, others essentially suffix tongues; while yet others possess both prefixes and suffixes, or even infixes as well. In some languages vocalic changes, in others consonantal, have grammatical or semantic meaning. In certain languages tense, mood and voice are rather weakly developed. In some languages syntactical cases occur (e.g. in certain Californian tongues), while in many others they are quite unknown. Altogether the most recent investigations have revealed a much greater variety in morphological and in grammatical processes than was commonly believed to exist, so that the general statement that the American Indian tongues are all clearly and distinctly of the " incorporating " and " polysynthetic " types needs considerable modification. Using criteria of phonetics, morphology, grammar, &c., some of the best authorities have been able to suggest certain groups of North American Indian languages exhibiting peculiarities justifying the assumption of relationship together. Thus Dr Franz Boas (Mem. Intern. Congr. Anthrop., 18 93, pp. 339-34 6, and Ann. Archaeol. Rep. Ontario, 1905, pp. 88106) has grouped the linguistic stocks of the North Pacific coast region as follows: (1) Tlingit (Koluschan) and Haida; (2) Tsimshian; (3) Wakashan (Kwakiutl-Nootka), Salish, Chemakum; (4) Chinook. In the same region the present writer has suggested a possible relationship of the Kootenay with Shoshonian. In the Californian area Dr R. B. Dixon and Dr A. L. Kroeber have made out these probable groups among the numerous language stocks of that part of the United States: (1) Chumashan and Salinan; (2) Yurok (Weitspekan), Wishoskan, Athabaskan, Karok (Quoratean), Chimarikan; (3) Maidu (Pujunan), Lutuamian, Wintun (Copehan), Yukian, Pomo (Kulanapan), Costanoan, Esselenian, Yokuts (Mariposan), Shoshonian, Shastan, Moquelumnan and possibly Washoan; (4) Yanan; (5) Yuman. Suggestions of even larger groups than any of these have also been made. It may be that, judged by certain criteria, the Kootenay, Shoshonian, Iroquoian and Siouan may belong together, but this is merely tentative. It is also possible, from the consideration of morphological peculiarities, that some if not all of the languages of the so-called " PalaeoAsiatic " peoples of Siberia, as Boas has suggested (Science, vol. xxiii., n.s., 1906, p. 644), may be included within the American group of linguistic stocks. Indeed Sternberg (Intern. Amer.-Kongr. xiv., Stuttgart, 1904, pp. 137-140) has undertaken to show the relationship morphologically of one of these languages, the Giliak (of the island of Saghalin and the region about the mouth of the Amur), to the American tongues, and its divergence from the " Ural-Altaic " family of speech. Here, however, more detailed investigations are needed to settle the question.

At one time the opinion was widely prevalent that primitive languages changed very rapidly, sometimes even within a generation, and the American Indian tongues were rather freely used as typical examples of such extreme everywhere, and for the speech of the New World aborigines Dr Franz Boas states (Hndb. Amer. Ind. pt. i., 1907, p. 759): " There is, however, no historical proof of the change of any Indian language since the time of the discovery comparable with that of the language of England between the 10th and 13th centuries." Another statement that has obtained currency, appearing even in otherwise reputable quarters sometimes, is to the effect that some of the vocabularies of American Indian languages consist of but a few hundred words, one being indeed so scanty that its speakers could not converse by night, since darkness prevented resort to the use of gesture. This is absolutely contrary to fact, for the vocabularies of the languages of the American Indians are rich, and, according to the best authority on the subject, " it is certain that in every one there are a couple of thousand of stem words and many thousand words, as that term is defined in English dictionaries " (Boas). The number of words in the vocabulary of the individual Indian is also much greater than is generally thought to be the case. It was long customary, even in " scientific " circles, to deny to American Indian tongues the possession of abstract terms, but here again the authority of the best recent investigators is conclusive, for " the power to form abstract ideas is, nevertheless, not lacking, and the development of abstract thought would find in every one of the languages a ready means of expression " (Boas). In this connexion, however, it should be remembered that, in general, the languages of the American aborigines " are not so well adapted to generalized statements as to lively descriptions." The holophrastic terms characteristic of so many American Indian languages " are not due to a lack of power to classify, but are rather expressions of form of culture, single terms being intended for those ideas of prime importance to the people" (Boas). This consideration of American primitive tongues in their relation to culture-types opens up a comparatively new field of research, and one of much evolutional significance.

As a result of the most recent and authoritative philological investigations, the following may be cited as some of the chief characteristics of many, and in some cases, of most of the languages of the aborigines north of Mexico.

I. Tendency to express ideas with great graphic detail as to place, form, &c.

2. " Polysynthesis," a device making possible, by the use of modifications of stems and radicals and the employment of prefixes, suffixes, and sometimes infixes, &c., the expression of a large number of special ideas. By such methods of composition (to cite two examples from Boas) the Eskimo can say at one breath, so to speak, " He only orders him to go and see," and the Tsimshian, ' He went with him upward in the dark and came against an obstacle." The Eskimo Takusariartorumagaluarnerpd ? (" Do you think he really intends to go to look after it ? ") is made up from the following elements: Takusar(pd), " he looks after it "; iartor (poq), " he goes to "; uma (voq), " he intends to "; (g) aluar (poq), " he does so, but "; nerpoq, " do you think he." The Cree " word " " kekawewechetushekamikowanowow " (" may it," i.e. the grace of Jesus Christ, " remain with you ") is resolvable into: Kelawow (here split into ke at the beginning and -owow as terminal), " you " (pl.); ka=sign of futurity (first and second persons); we=an optative particle; weche =' with "; tusheka = verbal radical, " remain "; mik=pronominal particle showing that the subject of the verb is in the third person and the object in the second, " it-you "; owan=verbal possessive particle, indicating that the subject of the verb is something inanimate belonging to the animate third person, " his-it." The Carrier (Athabaskan) lekcenahweshwndc thcencezkrok, " I usually recommence to walk to and fro on all fours while singing," which Morice calls " a simple word," is built up from the following elements: le =" prefix expressing reciprocity, which, when in connexion with a verb of locomotion, indicates that the movement is executed between two certain points without giving prominence to either "; kœ =particle denoting direction toward these points; na=" iterative particle, suggesting that the action is repeated "; hwe = particle referring to the action as being in its incipient stage; sheen= " song " (when incorporated in a verb it " indicates that singing accompanies the action expressed by the verbal root "); doe =' ` a particle called for by sheen, said particle always entering into the composition of verbs denoting reference to vocal sounds "; thce =" the secondary radical of the uncomposite verb thfzkret inflected from thi for the sake of euphony with ncez; ncez =" the pronominal element of the whole compound " (the n is demanded by the previous hwe, ce marks the present tense, and z marks the first person singular of the third conjugation; krok = " the main radical, altered here by the usitative from the normal form kret, and is expressive of locomotion habitually executed on four feet or on all fours." 3. Incorporation of noun and adjectives in verb, or of pronouns in verb. From the Kootenay language of south-eastern British Columbia the following examples may be given: Natltlamkine = " He carries (the) head in (his) hand "; Howankotlamkine =' ` I shake (the) head in (my) hand "; Witlwumine =" (His) belly is large "; Tlitkatine =" He has no tail "; Matlnaktletline = " He opens his eyes." In these expressions are incorporated, with certain abbreviations of form, the words aqktlam, " head "; aqkowum, " belly "; aqkat, " tail "; aqkaktletl, " eyes." In some languages the form for the noun incorporated in the verb is entirely different from that in independent use. Of pronominal incorporation these examples are from the Kootenay: Nupqanapine =" He sees Honupqanisine =" I see you "; Tshatlipitlisine =" He will kill you"; Tshatlitqanawasine=" He will bite us "; Tshatltsukwatisine =" 'is going to seize you; Hintshatltlpatlnapine=" You will honour me." For incorporation of adjectives these examples will serve: Honitenustik = " I paint (my face)," literally, " I make it red" (kanohos, " red "; the radical is nos or for nohos); Howitlkeine =" I shout," literally, " I talk big "; Howitlkaine = " I am tall (big)." In some languages the pronouns denoting subject, direct object and indirect object are all incorporated in the verb.

4. The formation of nouns of very composite character by the use of stems or radicals and prefixes, suffixes, &c., of various sorts, the intricacy of such formations exceeding often anything known in the Indo-European and Semitic languages. Often the component parts are " clipped," or changed by decapitation, decaudation, syncopation, &c., before being used in the compound. The following examples from various Indian languages will illustrate the process: - Kootenay: Aqkinkanuktlamnam =" crown of' head," from aq (prefix of uncertain meaning), kinkan =" top," tlam =" head," -nam (suffix =" somebody's "). Tlingit: Kanyiqkuwate =" aurora," literally, " fire (kan)-like (yiq)-out-of-doors (ku)-colour (wale)." 5. The development of a great variety of forms for personal and demonstrative pronouns. In the latter, sometimes, the language distinguishes " visibility and invisibility, present and past, location to the right, left, front and back of, and above and below the speaker " (Boas). According to Morice (Trans. Canad. Inst., 1889-1890, p. 187), the Carrier language of the Athabaskan stock has no fewer than seventeen possessive pronouns of the third person.

6. Indistinctness of demarcation between noun and verb; in some languages the transitive and in others the intransitive only is really verbal in form.

variation. The error of this view is now admitted 7. The use of the intransitive verb as a means of expressing ideas which in European tongues, e.g., would be carried by adjectives. In the Carrier language almost all adjectives are " genuine verbs " (Morice).

8. The expression of abstract nouns in a verbalized form. Thus Cree (Algonkian) generally says, in preference to using the abstract noun pimatisewin, " life," the periphrastic verb apimatisenanewuk, literally " that they (indefinite as to person) live." So far is this carried sometimes that Horden (Cree Grammar, London, 1881, p. 5) says: " I have known an Indian speak a long sentence, on the duties of married persons to each other, without using a single noun." As an interesting example of a long word in American-Indian languages may be mentioned the Iroquois taontasakonatiatawitserakninonseronniontonhatieseke. This " word," which, as Forbes (Congr. intern. d. Amer., Quebec, 1906, p. 103) suggests, would serve well on the signboard of a dealer in novelties, is translated by him, " Que plusieurs personnes viennent acheter des habits pour d'autres personnes avec de quoi payer." Not so formidable is deyeknonhsedehrihadasterasterahetakwa, a term for " stove polish," in use on the Mohawk Reservation near Brantford, Ontario.

The literature in the native languages of North America due to missionary efforts has now reached large proportions. Naturally Bible translations have been most important. According to Wilberforce Eames (Handbook of Amer. Inds., 1907, pt. i. pp. 1 431 45), " the Bible has been printed in part or in whole in 32 Indian languages north of Mexico. In 18 one or more portions have been printed; in 9 others the New Testament or more has appeared; and in 5 languages, namely, the Massachuset, Cree, Labrador Eskimo, Santee Dakota and Tukkuthkutchin, the whole Bible is in print." Of the 32 languages possessing Bible translations of some sort 3 are Eskimoan dialects, 4 Athabaskan, 13 Algonkian, 3 Iroquoian, 2 Muskogian, 2 Siouan, 1 Caddoan, 1 Sahaptian, 1 Wakashan, 1 Tsimshian, 1 Haidan. Translations of the Lord's Prayer, hymns, articles of faith and brief devotional compositions exist now in many more languages and dialects. A goodly number of other books have also been made accessible in Indian versions, e.g. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Dakota, 1857), Baxter's Call to the Unconverted (Massachuset, 1655), Goodrich's Child's Book of the Creation (Choctaw, 1839), Thomas a Kempis's Imitation of Christ (Greenland Eskimo, 1787), Newton's The King's Highway (Dakota, 1879), &c. The " Five Civilized Tribes," who are now full-fledged citizens of the state of Oklahoma, possess a mass of literature (legal, religious, political, educational, &c.) published in the alphabet adapted from the " Cherokee Alphabet " invented by Sequoyah about 1821, "which at once raised them to the rank of a literary people." Of periodicals in Indian languages there have been many published from time to time among the " Five Civilized Tribes." Of the Cherokee Advocate, Mooney said in 1897-1898, " It is still continued under the auspices of the Nation, printed in both languages (i.e. Cherokee and English), and distributed free at the expense of the Nation to those unable to read English-an example without parallel in any other government." More or less ephemeral periodicals (weekly, monthly, &c.) are on record in various Algonkian, Iroquoian, Siouan and other languages, and the Greenland Eskimo have one, published irregularly since 1861. Wilberforce Eames (Handbook of Amer. Inds., 1907, pt. i. p. 389) chronicles 122 dictionaries (of which more than half are still in MSS.) of 63 North American-Indian languages, belonging to 19 different stocks.

The following linguistic stocks are represented by printed dictionaries (in one or more dialects): Algonkian, Athabaskan, Chinookan, Eskimoan, Iroquoian, Lutuamian, Muskogian, Salishan, Shoshonian, Siouan. There exists a considerable number of texts (myths, legends, historical data, songs, grammatical material, &c.) in quite a number of Indian languages that have been published by scientific investigators. The Algonkian (e.g. Jones's Fox Texts, 1908), Athabaskan (e.g. Goddard's Hupa Texts, 1904, Matthews's Navaho Legends, 1897, &c.), Caddoan (e.g. Miss A. C. Fletcher's Hako Ceremony, 1900), Chinookan (Boas's Chinook Texts, 1904, and Kathlamet Texts, 1901), Eskimoan (texts in Boas's Eskimo of Baffin Land, &c., 1901, 1908; and Thalbitzer's Eskimo Language, 1904, Barnum's Innuit Grammar, 1901), Haidan (Swanton's Haida Texts, 1905, &c.), Iroquoian (texts in Hale's Iroquois Book of Rites, 1883, and Hewitt's Iroquoian Cosmology, 1899), Lutuamian (texts in Gatschet's Klamath Indians, 1890), Muskogian (texts in Gatschet's Migration Legend of the Creeks, 1884-1888), Salishan (texts in various publications of Boas and Hill-Tout), Siouan (Riggs and Dorsey in various publica tions), Tsimshian (Boas's Tsimshian Texts, 1902), Wakashan (Boas's Kwakiu'l Texts, 1902-1905), &c.

The question of the direction of migration of the principal aboriginal stocks north of Mexico has been reopened of late years. Not long ago there seemed to be practical agreement as to the following views. The Eskimo stock had reached itsresent habitats from a primitive of lndan p p stocks. home somewhere in the interior of north-western Canada or Alaska; the general trend of the Athabaskan migrations, and those of the Shoshonian tribes had been south and south-east, the first from somewhere in the interior of northwestern Canada, the second from about the latitude of southern British Columbia; the Algonkian tribes had moved south, east and west from a point somewhere between the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay; the Iroquoian stock had passed southward and westward from some spot to the north-east of the Great Lakes; the Siouan tribes, from their primitive home in the Carolinas, had migrated westward beyond the Mississippi; some stocks, like the Kitunahan, now found west of the Rocky Mountains, had dwelt formerly in the plains region to the east. Professor Cyrus Thomas, however, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, discussing primary Indian migrations in North America (Congr. intern. d. Amer., Quebec, 1906, i. 189-204), rejects the theory that the Siouan stock originated in the Carolinas, and adopts for them an origin in the region north of Lake Superior, whence he also derives the Iroquoian stock, whose primitive home Dr David Boyle (Ann. Archaeol. Rep. Ontario, 1905, p. 1 54), the Canadian ethnologist, would place in Kentucky and southern Ohio. Another interesting contribution to this subject is made by Mr P. E. Goddard (Congr. intern. des. Amer., Quebec, 1906, i. 337-358). Contemplating the distribution of the tribes belonging to the Athabaskan stock in three divisions, viz. a northern (continuous and very extensive), a Pacific coast division (scattered through Washington, Oregon, California), and a southern division which occupies a large area in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Texas and Mexico, Mr Goddard suggests that the intrusion of non-Athabaskan peoples into a region once completely in the possession of the Athabaskan stock is the best explanation for the facts as now existing not explicable from assimilation to environment, which has here played a great role. It is possible also that a like explanation may hold for the conditions apparent in some other linguistic stocks. Many Indian tribes have been forcibly removed from their own habitats to reservations, or induced to move by missionary efforts, &c. Thus, in the state of Oklahoma are to be found representatives of the following tribes: Apache, Arapaho, Caddo, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Comanche, Creek, Iowa, Kansa, Kickapoo, Kiowa, Miami, Missouri, Modoc, Osage, Oto, Ottawa, Pawnee, Peoria, Ponca, Potawatomi, Quapaw, Sac and Fox, Seminole, Seneca, Shawnee, Tonkawa, Wichita, Wyandot, &c.; these belong to 10 different linguistic stocks, whose original habitats were widely distant from one another in many cases.

Some of the American-Indian linguistic stocks (those of California especially) hardly know real tribal divisions, but local groups or settlements only; others have many large and important tribes.

The tabular alphabetical list given in the following pages contains the names of the more important and more interesting tribes of American aborigines north of Mexico, and of the stocks to which they belong, their situation and population in 1909, the degree of intermixture with whites or negroes, their social, moral and religious condition, state of progress, &c., and also references to the best or the most recent literature concerning them.

Up to the date of their publication references to the literature concerning the tribes of the stocks treated will be round in Pilling's bibliographies: Algonquian (1891), Athabascan (1892), Chinookan (1893), Eskimoan (1887), Iroquoian (1888), Muskhogean (1889), Salishan (1893), Siouan (1887) and Wakashan (1894). See also the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (Washington, 1907-1910); and the sumptuous monograph of E. S. Curtis, The North American Indian (N. Y., vols. i.-xx., 1908), with its remarkable reproduction of Indian types.