Engl.(San Luis Obispo).San Juan Capistrano.San Gabriel.onetchoumousoupouhepoukou.twoeschiouhouahguèpé.threemichapaaipagi.fourpaksihouasahquatcha.fivetizeouimahamakai.sixksoukouiapomkalilopabai.sevenksouamichechouchouiquachacabia.eightscomoouasa-kabiaquequacha.ninescoumo-tchiouasa-mahamajai-cayia.tentouymileouikinmahaquejemajai.
Since the previous paper was read, "Observations on some of the Indian dialects of Northern California, by G. Gibbs," have appeared in the 3rd Part of Schoolcraft (published 1853) (videpp. 420-445).
The vocabularies, which are given in a tabulated form, are for the following twelve languages:—
1. Tchokoyem. 2. Copeh. 3. Kulanapo. 4. Yukai. 5. Choweshak. 6. Batemdakaiee. 7. Weeyot. 8. Wishok. 9. Weitspek. 10. Hoopah. 11. Tahlewah. 12. Ehnek.
Besides which three others have been collected, but do not appear in print, viz.:—
1. The Watsa-he-wa,—spoken by one of the bands of the Shasti family.
2. The Howteteoh.
3. The Nabittse.
Of these the Tchokoyem = theChocouyemof the Sacramiento, and theJoukiousmeor San Raphael of Mofras; also Gallatin's San Raphael, and (more or less) the Talatui.
The Copeh is something (though less) like the short Upper Sacramiento specimen of the preceding paper.
The Yukai is, perhaps, less like the Pujuni, Sekume, and Tsamak vocabularies than the Copeh is to the Upper Sacramiento. Still, it probably belongs to the same class, since it will be seen that the Huk and Yukai languages are members of the group that Mr. Dana's lists represent. TheKulanapo has a clear preponderance of affinities with the Yukae.
The Choweshak and Batemdakaiee are allied. So are—
The Weeyot and the Wishok; in each of which the sound expressed bytl'occurs. These along with the Weitspek takemas the possessive prefix to the parts of the human body, and have other points of similarity.
English.Weeyot.Wishok.hairpah'tlpaht'l.footwelhh'tlwehlihl.
The Hoopah is more interesting than any. The names of the parts of the human body, when compared with the Navaho and Jecorilla, are as follows:—
English.Hoopah.Navaho.Jecorilla.headokhehhut-seit-se.foreheadhotsintahhut-tahpin-nay.facehaunithhun-ne——eyehuanahhunnahpindah.nosehuntchuhutchinwitchess.teethhowwahowgoegho.tonguesasthahotsoezahte.earhotchewehhutchahwickyah.hairtsewokhotseitse.neckhosewatlhuckquosswickcost.armhoithlanihutconwitse.handhollahhullahwislah.
Here the initial combination ofhand some other letter is (after the manner of so many American tongues) the possessive pronoun—alike in both the Navaho and Hoopah; many of the roots being also alike. Now the Navaho and Jecorilla are Athabaskan, and the Hoopah is probably Athabaskan also.
The Tahlewah and Ehnek are but little like each other, and little like any other language.
Although not connected with the languages of California, there is a specimen in the volume before us of a form of speech which has been already noticed in these Transactions, and which is by no means clearly defined. In the 28th Number, a vocabulary of theAhneninlanguage is shown to be the same as that of theFall-Indiansof Umfreville. In Gallatin thisAhneninvocabulary is quoted asArapaho, orAtsina. Now it is specially stated that theseArapahoorAtsinaIndians are those who are also (though inconveniently or erroneously) called theGros Ventres, theBig Belliesand theMinitaresof the Prairie—all names for the Indians about the Falls of the Saskachewan, and consequently of Indians far north.
But this was only one of the populations named Arapaho. Other Arapahos are found on the head-waters of the Platte and Arkansas. Who were these? Gallatin connected them at once with those of the Saskachewan—but it is doubtful whether he went on better grounds than the name. A vocabulary was wanted.
The volume in question supplies one—collected by Mr. J. S. Smith. It shows that the two Arapahos are really members of one and the same class—in language as well as in name.
Upon the name itself more light requires to be thrown. In an alphabetical list of Indian populations in the same volume with the vocabulary, from which we learn that the new specimen is one of thesouthern(and not thenorthern) Arapaho, it is stated that the word means "pricked" or "tattooed." In what language? Perhaps in that of the Arapaho themselves; perhaps in that of the Sioux—since it is a population of the Sioux class which is in contact withboththe Arapahos.
Again—if the name be native, which of the two divisions uses it? the northern or the southern? or both? If both use it, how comes the synonym Ahnenin? How, too, comes the formAtsina? Is it a typographical error? The present writer used the same MS. with Gallatin and found the name to beAhnenin.
To throw the two Arapahos into one and the same class is only one step in our classification. Can they be referred to any wider and more general division? A Shyenne vocabulary is to be found in the same table; and Schoolcraft remarks that the two languages are allied. So they are. Now reasons have been given for placing the Shyenne in the great Algonkin class (Philolog. Trans., and Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, vol. ii. p. cxi.).
There are similar affinities with theBlackfoot. Now, in the paper of these Transactions already referred to, it is stated that the affinities of the Blackfoot "are miscellaneous; more, however, with the Algonkin tongues than with those of any recognized group[38]." Gallatin takes the same view (Transactions of American Ethnol. Soc.vol. ii. p. cxiii.).
This gives as recent additions to the class in question, the Blackfoot—the Shyenne—the Arapaho.
The southern Arapaho are immigrants, rather thanindigenæ, in their present localities. So are the Shyennes, with whom they are conterminous.
The original locality of the southern Arapahos was on the Saskachewan; that of the Shyennes on the Red River. Hence, the affinity between their tongues represents an affinity arising out of their relations anterior to their migration southward.
READBEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
May 12, 1854.
In Central America we have two points for which our philologicaldatahave lately received additions, viz. the parts about the Lake Nicaragua and the Isthmus of Darien.
For the parts about the Lake of Nicaragua, the chief authority is Mr. Squier; a writer with whom we differ in certain points, but, nevertheless, a writer who has given us both materials and results of great value. The languages represented, for the first time, by his vocabularies are four in number, of which three are wholly new, whilst one gives us a phenomenon scarcely less important than an absolutely fresh form of speech; viz. the proof of the occurrence of a known language in a new, though not unsuspected, locality.
To these four a fifth may be added; but; as that is one already illustrated by the researches of Henderson, Cotheal and others, it does not come under the category of new material. This language is that of the
Indians of the Mosquito coast.—Respecting these Mr. Squier commits himself to the doctrine that they are more or less Carib. They may be this in physiognomy. They may also be so in respect to their civilization, or want of civilization; and perhaps this is all that is meant, the words of our author being, that "upon the low alluvions, and amongst the dense dank forests of the Atlantic coast, there exist a few scanty, wandering tribes, maintaining a precarious existence byhunting and fishing, with little or no agriculture, destitute of civil organization, with a debased religion, and generally corresponding with the Caribs of the islands, to whom they sustain close affinities. A portion of their descendants, still further debased by the introduction of negro blood, may still be found in the wretched Moscos or Mosquitos. The few and scattered Melchoras, on the river St. Juan, are certainly of Carib stock, and it is more than probable that the same is true of the Woolwas, Ramas, Toacas, and Poyas, and also of the other tribes on the Atlantic coast, further to the southward, towards Chiriqui Lagoon, and collectively denominated Bravos."—Central America and Nicaragua, ii. pp. 308-309.
Nevertheless, as has been already stated, the language is other than Carib. It is other than Carib, whether we look to the Moskito or the Woolwa vocabularies. It is other than Carib, and admitted by Mr. Squier to be so. The previous extract has given us his opinion; what follows supports it by his reasons. "I have said that the Indians of the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, the Moscos and others, were probably of Carib stock. This opinion is founded not only upon the express statements of Herrara, who says that 'the Carib tongue was much spoken in Nicaragua,' but also upon their general appearance, habits and modes of life. Their language does not appear to have any direct relationship with that of the Southern Caribs, but is, probably, the same, or a dialect of the same with that spoken around what is now called Chiriqui Lagoon, near the Isthmus of Panama, and which was originally called Chiribiri or Chraibici, from which comes Gomera's Caribici, or Carib." In a note we learn that "thirteen leagues from the Gulf of Nicoya, Oviedo speaks of a village called Carabizi, where the same language was spoken as at Chiriqui," &c.
Of the Melchora we have no specimens. For each and every tribe, extant or extinct, of the Indians about the Chiriqui Lagoon we want them also. The known vocabularies, however, for the parts nearest that locality are other than Carib.
Let us, however, look further, and we shall find good reasons for believing that certain populations of the parts in question are called, by the Spaniards of their neighbourhood, Caribs, much in the same way that they, along with nine-tenths of the other aborigines of America, are calledIndiansby us. "The region of Chantales," writes Mr. Squier, "was visited by my friend Mr. Julius Froebel, in the summer of this year (1851). He penetrated to the head-waters of the Rio Mico, Escondido, or Blue-fields, where he found theIndians to be agriculturalists, partially civilized, and generally speaking the Spanish language. They are called Caribs by their Spanish neighbours," &c. But their language, of which Mr. Froebel collected a vocabulary, published by Mr. Squier, is, like the rest,other than Carib.
It may, then, safely be said, that the Carib character of the Moskito Indians, &c. wants confirmation.
Nicaragua.A real addition to our knowledge is supplied by M. Squier concerning the Nicaraguans. The statement of Oviedo as to the tribes between the Lake of Nicaragua and the Pacific, along with the occupants of the islands in the lake itself, beingMexicanrather than indigenous, he confirms. He may be said to prove it; since he brings specimens of the language (Niquiran, as he calls it), which is as truly Mexican as the language of Sydney or New York is English.
The Mexican character of the Nicaraguan language is a definite addition to ethnographical philology. It may now be considered as settled, that one of the languages of the parts under notice is intrusive, and foreign to its present locality.
The remaining vocabularies represent four indigenous forms of speech; these (three of them of Mr. Squier's own earliest publication, and one known before) being—
1. The Chorotegan or Dirian of Squier—This was collected by the author from the Indians of Masaya, on the northern frontier of the Niquiran, Nicaraguan, Mexican or Astek area.
2. The Nagrandan of Squier—This was collected by the author from the Indians of Subtiaba, in the plain of Leon, to thenorthof the Niquiran or Mexican area.
3. The Chontales, or Woolwa, of Froebel; Chontal being the name of the district, Woolwa, of the tribe.
4. The Mosquito (or Waikna) of the coast.
To these four indigenous tongues (the Mexican of Nicaragua being dealt with as a foreign tongue), what have we to say in the way of classification?
It is safe to say that the Nagrandan, Dirian, and Woolwa, are more like each other than they are to the Mosca, Mosquito, or Waikna. And this is important, since, when Froebel collected the Woolwa vocabulary, he found a tradition of their having come originally from the shores of Lake Managua; this being a portion of the Dirian and Nagrandan area. If so; the classification would be,—
a.Dirian, Nagrandan, and Chontal, or Woolwa (Wúlwa)
b.Mosquito, or Waikna.
The value of these two divisions is, of course, uncertain; and, in the present state of our knowledge, it would be premature to define it. Equally uncertain is the value of the subdivisions of the first class. All that can be said is, that out of four mutually unintelligible tongues, three seem rather more allied to each other than the fourth.
Besides the vocabulary of the Nagrandan of Mr. Squier, there is a grammatical sketch by Col. Francesco Diaz Zapata.
Veragua—We pass now from the researches of Mr. Squier in Nicaragua to those of Mr. B. Seemann, Naturalist to the Herald, for the Isthmus of Panama. The statement of Colonel Galindo, in the Journal of the Geographical Society, that the native Indian languages of Honduras, Nicaragua, San Salvador, and Costarica, had been replaced by the Spanish, has too implicitly been adopted; by no one, however, more so than the present writer. The same applies to Veragua.
Here, Dr. Seemann has supplied:—
1. The Savaneric, from the northernmost part of Veragua.
2. The Bayano, from the river Chepo.
3. The Cholo, widely spread in New Grenada. This is the same as Dr. Cullen's Yule.
Specimens of the San Blas, or Manzanillo Indians, are still desiderated, it being specially stated that the number of tribes is not less than four, and the four languages belonging to them as different.
All that can at present be said of the specimens before us is, that they have miscellaneous, but no exact and definite affinities.
Mexicans of Nicaragua.From the notice of these additions to ourdatafor Central America in the way of raw material, we proceed to certain speculations suggested by the presence of the Mexicans of Nicaragua in a locality so far south of the city of Mexico as the banks and islands of the lake of that name.
First as to their designation. It is notAstek(orAsteca), as was that of the allied tribes of Mexico. Was it native, or was it only the name which their neighbours gave them? Was it a word likeDeutsch(applied to the population of Westphalia, Oldenburg, the Rhine districts, &c.), or a word likeGermanandAllemand? Upon this point no opinion is hazarded.
Respecting, however, the wordAstek(Asteca) itself, the present writer commits himself to the doctrine that it wasnonative name at all, and that it was a word belonging to theMaya, and foreign to the Mexican, class of languages. It was as foreign to the latter asWelshis to the languageof the British Principality; asGermanorAllemagneto the High and Low Dutch forms of speech; asbarbarusto the languages in contact with the Latin and Greek, but not themselves either one or the other.
On the other hand, it was a Maya word, in the way thatWelshandGermanare English, and in the way thatAllemandis a French one.
It was a word belonging to the country into which the Mexicans intruded, and to the populations upon which they encroached. These called their invadersAsteca, just as the Scotch Gael calls an Englishman, aSaxon.
a.The form is Maya, the termination-ecabeing common whereever any form of the Maya speech is to be found.
b.It is too like the wordHuastecato be accidental. Now,Huastecais the name of a language spoken in the parts about Tampico; a language separated in respect to its geographical position from the other branches of the Maya family, (for which Guatemala and Yucatan are the chief localities) but not separated (as is indicated in theMithridates) from these same Maya tongues philologically. HenceHuastecais a Maya word; and whatHuastecais,Astecais likely to be.
The isolation of theHuastecabranch of the Maya family indicates invasion, encroachment, conquest, displacement; the invaders, &c. being the Mexicans, called by themselves by some name hitherto undetermined, but by the older occupants of the country,Astek.
It is believed, too, though this is more or less of anobiter dictum, that nine-tenths of the so-called Mexican civilization, as indicated by its architecture, &c., was Maya,i. e.was referable to the old occupants rather than to the new invaders; standing in the same relation to that of the Mexicans, strictly speaking, as that of Italy did to that of the Goths and Lombards.
Whence came these invaders? The evidence of thephoneticpart of the language points to the parts about Quadra and Vancouver's Island, and to the populations of the Upper Oregon—populations like the Chinuk, the Salish, the Atna, &c. Here, for the first time, we meet with languages where the peculiar phonesis of the Mexican language, the preponderance of the sound expressed bytl, reappears. For all the intermediate parts, with one or two exceptions, the character of the phonesis is Maya,i. e.soft, vocalic, and marked by the absence of those harsh elements that characterize the Mexican, the Chinuk, and the Atna equally. The extent to which the glossarial evidence agrees with the phonetic has yet tobe investigated, the doctrine here indicated being a suggestion rather than aught else.
So is the doctrine that both the Nicaraguan and Mexican invasions weremaritime. Strange as this may sound in the case of an ordinary American population, it should not do so in the case of a population deduced from the Chinuk and Salish areas and from the archipelago to the north of Quadra's and Vancouver's Island. However, it is not the fact itself that is of so much value. The principle involved in its investigation is weightier. This is, that the distribution of an allied population,along a coast,and at intervals, isprimâ facieevidence of the ocean having been the path along which they moved.
For exceptions to the doctrine here suggested see Notes on the last paper.
PUBLISHEDIN THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.
NOVEMBER 25. 1850.
On the Language of Central America.
In Yucatan the structure and details of the language are sufficiently known, and so are the ethnological affinities of the tribes who speak it. This language is the Maya tongue, and its immediate relations are with the dialects of Guatemala. It is also allied to the Huasteca spoken so far N. as the Texian frontier, and separated from the other Maya tongues by dialects of the Totonaca and Mexican. This remarkable relationship was known to the writers of the Mithridates.
In South America the language begins to be known when we reach the equator;e. g.at Quito the Inca language of the Peruvian begins, and extends as far south as the frontier of Chili.
So much for the extreme points; between which the whole, intermediate space is very nearly aterra incognita.
In Honduras, according to Colonel Galindo, the Indians are extinct; and as no specimen of their language has been preserved from the time of their existence as a people, that state is a blank in philology.
So also are San Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica; in all of which there are native Indians, but native Indians who speak Spanish. Whether this implies the absolute extinction of the native tongue is uncertain: it is only certain that no specimens of it are known.
The Indian of the Moskito coastisknown; and that through both vocabularies and grammars. It is a remarkably unaffiliated language—more so than any one that I have ever compared. Still, it has a few miscellaneous affinities; just enough to save it from absolute isolation. When we remember that the dialects with which it was conterminous are lost, this is not remarkable. Probably it represents a large class,i. e.that which comprised the languages of Central Americanotallied to the Maya, and the languages of New Grenada.
Between the Moskito country and Quito there are only two vocabularies in the Mithridates, neither of which extends far beyond the numerals. One is that of the dialects of Veragua called Darien, and collected by Wafer; the other the numerals of the famous Muysca language of the plateau of Santa Fé de Bogota. With these exceptions, the whole philology of New Grenada is unknown, although the old missionaries counted the mutually unintelligible tongues by the dozen or score. More than one modern author—the present writer amongst others—has gone so far as to state that all the Indian languages of New Grenada are extinct.
Such is not the case. The following vocabulary, which in any other part of the world would be a scanty one, is for the parts in question of more than average value. It is one with which I have been kindly favoured by Dr. Cullen, and which represents the language of the Cholo Indians inhabiting part of the Isthmus of Darien, east of the river Chuquanaqua, which is watered by the river Paya and its branches in and about lat. 8° 15´ N., and long. 77° 20´ W.:—
English.Cholo.WaterpaytoFiretŭboorSunpeseaMoonhedechoTreepachruLeaveschītŭhaHousedhĕManmochĭnaWomanwuĕnaChildwōrdōchĕThunderpāCanoe, or}habodroomaChingoTiger,i.e.jaguarimāmăLeon,i.e.large tigerimāmă poorooRiverthōRiver TuyratōgŭroomaLarge manmochĭnā dĕăsīraLittle manmochĭnā zacheAn iguanaipōgaLizardhorheSnaketamāTurkey, wildzāmoParrotcarreGuacharaca birdbulleebulleeGuaca birdpavōraLazimbatoosee
The tide is risingtobiroooorThe tide is fallingeribudoWhere are you goingamonyaWhence do you comezamabima zebulooLet us gowondaLet us go bathewondo cuide
The extent to which they differ from the languages of Venezuela and Colombia may be seen from the following tables of thewords common to Dr. Cullen's list, and the equally short ones of the languages of the Orinoco:—
EnglishwaterCholopaytoQuichuaunuOmaguauniSalivicaguaMaypureueruOttomacaiaBetoiocudùYarurauviDariendulahCaribtounaEnglishfireCholotŭboorQuichuaninaOmaguatataSaliviegustàMaypurecaltiOttomacanùaBetoifuluiYaruracorideCaribonatoEnglishsunCholopeseaQuichuaintiOmaguahuarassiSalivinumesechecocoMaypurechièBetoiteo-umasoiYaruradoMuyscasuâCaribveiouEnglishmoonCholohedechoQuichuaquillaOmaguayaseArawakcatteheeYaruragoppeBetoiteo-roMaypurechejapiSalivivexioDariennieZamucaketokhiEnglishmanCholomohinaQuichuaccari——runaSalivicoccoMaypurecajarrachini——moOttomacaanderaYaturapumèMuyscamuysca——chaCariboquiriEnglishwomanCholowuĕnaQuichuahuarmiMaypuretiniokiYaruraibi——ainBetoiroOttomacaondua
Exceptions to the statement concerning the New Grenada, the San Salvador, and the Moskito languages will be found in the Notes upon the next paper.
READ MAY 9TH. 1856.
The present paper is a supplement to two well-known contributions to America philology by the late A. Gallatin. The first was published in the second volume of the Archæologia Americana, and gives a systematic view of the languages spoken within thethenboundaries of the United States; these being the River Sabine and the Rocky Mountains, Texas being then Mexican, and,à fortiori, New Mexico and California; Oregon, also, being common property between the Americans and ourselves. The second is a commentary, in the second volume of the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, upon the multifarious mass of philologicaldatacollected by Mr. Hale, during the United States Exploring Expedition, to which he acted as official and professional philologue; only, however, so far as they applied to the American parts of Oregon. The groups of this latter paper—the paper of the Transactions as opposed to that of the Archæologia—so far as they are separate from those of the former, are—
To which add the Arrapaho, a language of Kansas, concerning which information had been obtained since 1828, the date of the first paper. Of course, some of these families extended beyond the frontiers of the United States, so that any notice of them as American carried with it somuch information respecting them to the investigators of the philology of the Canadas, the Hudson's Bay Territory, or Mexico.
Again—three languages, the Eskimo, and Kenai, and Takulli, though not spoken within the limits of the United States, were illustrated. Hence, upon more than one of the groups of the papers in question there still remains something to be said; however much the special and proper subject of the present dissertation may be the languages that lay beyond the pale of Gallatin's researches.
The first groups of tongues thus noticed for the second time are—
I.The Iroquois, and
II.The Sioux.—I have little to say respecting these families except that they appear to belong to some higher class,—a class which, without being raised to any inordinate value, may eventually include not only these two now distinct families, but also the Catawba, Woccoon, Cherokee, Choctah, and (perhaps) Caddo groups,—perhaps also the Pawni and its ally the Riccaree.
III.The Algonkin Group.—The present form of this group differs from that which appears in the Archæologia Americana, by exhibiting larger dimensions. Nothing that was then placed within has since been subtracted from it; indeed, subtractions from any class of Gallatin's making are well-nigh impossible. In respect to additions, the case stands differently.
Addition of no slight importance have been made to the Algonkin group. The earliest was that of—
The Bethuck.—The Bethuck is the native language of Newfoundland. In 1846, the collation of a Bethuck vocabulary enabled me to state that the language of the extinct, or doubtfully extant, aborigines of that island was akin to those of the ordinary American Indians rather than to the Eskimo; further investigation showing that, of the ordinary American languages, it was Algonkin rather than aught else.
A sample of the evidence of this is to be found in the following table; a table formed, not upon the collation of the whole MS., but only upon the more important words contained in it.
The Shyenne.—A second addition of the Algonkin class was that of the Shyenne language—a language suspected to be Algonkin at the publication of the Archæologia Americana. In a treaty made between the United States and the Shyenne Indians in 1825, the names of the chiefs who signed were Sioux, or significant in the Sioux language. It was not unreasonable to consider this aprimâ-facieevidence of the Shyenne tongue itself being Sioux. Nevertheless, there were some decided statements in the way of external evidence in another direction. There was the special evidence of a gentleman well-acquainted with the fact, that the names of the treaty, so significant in the Sioux language, were only translations from the proper Shyenne, there having been no Shyenne interpreter at the drawing-up of the document. What then was the true Shyenne? A vocabulary of Lieut. Abert's settled this. The numerals of this were published earlier than the other words, and on these the present writer remarked that they were Algonkin (Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1847,—Transactions of the Sections, p. 123). Meanwhile, the full vocabulary, which was in the hands of Gallatin, and collated by him, gave the contemplated result:—"Out of forty-seven Shyenne words for which we have equivalents in other languages, there are thirteen which are indubitably Algonkin, and twenty-five which have affinities more or less remote with some of the languages of that family." (Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, vol. ii. p. cxi. 1848.)
The Blackfoot.—In the same volume (p. cxiii), and by the same author, we find a table showing the Blackfoot to be Algonkin; a fact that must now be generally recognized, having been confirmed by laterdata. The probability of this affinity was surmised in a paper in the 28th Number of the Proceedings of the present Society.
The Arrapaho.—This is the name of a tribe in Kansas; occupant of a district in immediate contact with the Shyenne country.
But the Shyennes are noindigenæto Kansas. Neither are the Arrapahos. The so-called Fall Indians, of whose language we have long had a very short trader's vocabulary in Umfreville, are named from their occupancy which is on the Falls of the Saskatshewan. The Nehethewa, or Crees, of their neighbourhood call them so; so that it is a Cree term of which the English is a translation. Another name (English also) isBig-belly, in FrenchGros-ventre. This has given rise to some confusion.Gros-ventreis a name also given to the Minetari of the Yellow-stone River; whence the name Minetari itself has, most improperly, been applied(though not, perhaps, very often or by good authorities) to the Fall Indians.
The MinetariGros-ventresbelong to the Sioux family. Not so theGros-ventresof the Falls. Adelung remarked that some of their words had an affinity with the Algonkin, or as he called it, Chippeway-Delaware, family,e. g.the names fortobacco,arrow,four, andten.
Umfreville's vocabulary was too short for anything but the most general purposes and the most cautious of suggestions. It was, however, for a long time the only one known. The next to it, in the order of time, was one in MS., belonging to Gallatin, but which was seen by Dr. Prichard and collated by the present writer, his remarks upon it being published in the 134th Number of the Proceedings of this Society. They were simply to the effect that the language had certain miscellaneous affinities. An Arrapaho vocabulary in Schoolcraft tells us something more than this; viz. not only that it is, decidedly, the same language as the Fall Indian of Umfreville, but that it has definite and preponderating affinities with the Shyenne, and, through it, with the great Algonkin class in general.