Divisions.—1. Towiach; 2. Tawakenoes; 3. Towecas(?); 4. Wacos.Localities.—1. Of the Towiach,—two villages, Nitehata and Towahach, on the Red River; 2. Of the Tawakenoes,—200 miles of Nacogdoches, south of the Red River. Said by Dr. Sibley to speak the same language as the Towiachs; 3, 4. The Towecas and Wacos are in villages north of Red River.
Divisions.—1. Towiach; 2. Tawakenoes; 3. Towecas(?); 4. Wacos.
Localities.—1. Of the Towiach,—two villages, Nitehata and Towahach, on the Red River; 2. Of the Tawakenoes,—200 miles of Nacogdoches, south of the Red River. Said by Dr. Sibley to speak the same language as the Towiachs; 3, 4. The Towecas and Wacos are in villages north of Red River.
The Towiachs of Texas are sometimes called Pawnees,[131]probably improperly. Perhaps they form a branch of the Paducas rather than a separate substantive family; since there is the express statement of Kennedy, that the TexianTowacanis, orTahuacanos, are Cumanche; and that the Wacos on the upper River Brazos, are the same.
Locality.—Between the River Aransas and River Grande.Numbers.—In 1845 about 500.
Locality.—Between the River Aransas and River Grande.
Numbers.—In 1845 about 500.
Synonym.—Eyeish.Locality.—Near Nacogdoches. Name only known. Enumerated in the Mithridates.
Synonym.—Eyeish.
Locality.—Near Nacogdoches. Name only known. Enumerated in the Mithridates.
Locality.—West of the Red River, 200 miles from Nacogdoches. Name only known. Enumerated in the Mithridates.
Locality.—West of the Red River, 200 miles from Nacogdoches. Name only known. Enumerated in the Mithridates.
Of the Navaosos, I only know that they are said to be a branch of the Lipans. If so, and if also they areNavahos, we are enabled to fix the Lipans as Paduca. They are extinct in Texas.
Locality.—St. Bernard's Bay. Name only known. Enumerated in the Mithridates.
Locality.—St. Bernard's Bay. Name only known. Enumerated in the Mithridates.
Locality.—Ditto, ditto.
Locality.—Ditto, ditto.
The Toncahuas, or Tonkeways, are mentioned by Kennedy as being, like the Lipans, the hereditary enemies of the Cumanches, and as retreating before them from the hunting grounds of the upper country.
On the other hand, I find that Mr. Bollaert makes them an offset of the Cumanches. In 1845 they numbered about 300 souls.
The Tuhuktukis are members of the Cherokee confederacy; within, but not considered indigenous to, Texas.
Synonym.—Anadarcos.
Synonym.—Anadarcos.
The Unataquas are members of the Cherokee confederacy; within, but not indigenous to, Texas.
Each of these divisions (of which the value is unascertained) are members of the Cherokee confederacy.
Locality.--Head waters of the upper Red River, conterminous with the Kioways and Cumanch.
Locality.--Head waters of the upper Red River, conterminous with the Kioways and Cumanch.
Original Locality.—West of the Mississippi. Extinct or incorporated.
Original Locality.—West of the Mississippi. Extinct or incorporated.
Extinct.
Extinct.
Locality.—Middle part of Trinity River.Numbers.—In 1845, ten families only.
Locality.—Middle part of Trinity River.Numbers.—In 1845, ten families only.
A MS. of Mr. Bollaert's, and the work of Kennedy, on Texas, have been the chief authorities for the previous. The notes of interrogation show the extent to which it may be amended.Datafor doing this are probably more abundant in America than here.
For the whole area between the three oceans—(Arctic, Pacific, and Atlantic)—and the break formed by the Paducas, the chief groups have now been enumerated—perhaps exhaustively, or nearly so.
Not, however, finally. Although the details of even the wider groups have been so numerous as to make the present notice of themclassificationalrather thandescriptive, there are still a certain series of facts which, from having a significance beyond that of their mere occurrence, require notice.
Whatever has an important bearing upon the following two great problems comes under this category—
1. The unity or non-unity of the American populations, one amongst another.
2. The unity or non-unity of the American populations as compared with those of the Old World.
1. The unity or non-unity of the American populations one amongst another—a short history of the different opinions upon this point will give two things at once—a, the history itself, and,b, the chief facts by which changes in it were brought about.
The broad differences between the American Indians, as a body, when compared with even the most anomalous of the tribes of the Old World, were such as would naturally engender on the part of the earliest investigators—those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—an opinion in favour of a general fundamental unity amongst the several sections of them. This was the effect of the natural tendency of the human mind to connect with each other those things which disagree with certain others rather than the result of any definite series of comparisons. The Brazilian and the Mohawk equally agreed in disagreeing with the Laplander, or Negro; and this common difference was enough to bring them within the same class.
The observed facts which first had a tendency to disturb this notion, were, most probably, those connected with the languages. These really differ from each other to a very remarkable extent—an extent which to any partial investigator seems unparalleled; but an extent which the general philologist finds to be no greater than that which occurs in Caucasus, in the Indo-Chinese frontier, and in many parts of Africa.
The phænomena, however, which the multiplicity of mutually unintelligible tongues spoken within limited areas exhibited, were first made known in the case of the languages of America; and, as new facts, they were not likelyto be undervalued. On the contrary, another natural tendency of the human mind, viz., a readiness to exaggerate difference in cases where similarity had been expected, was allowed full play; and not only were the really remarkable phænomena of philological diversity overstated, but the inferences from them rather exceeded than fell short of their legitimate compass. A measure of the extent to which this was carried may be collected from the following extract from Prichard,—"We owe the earliest information respecting the languages of America to the missionaries sent from time to time by the kings of Spain at the instigation of the Pope, with the view of converting the native inhabitants to the Christian religion. Many of these persons devoted immense labour to the acquisition of the idioms of various tribes, with the intention of qualifying themselves for the effectual performance of their duties. They represent the number of distinct languages spoken in the New World as very great. Abbé Gilii, who wrote a history of the Orinoco and collected specimens of the languages spoken in different districts with which he was acquainted, says that if a catalogue were formed of all the idioms of the continent, they would be found to be 'non molte moltissime,' but 'infinite, innumerabili.' Abbé Clavigero declares that he had cognisance of thirty-five different idioms spoken by races within the jurisdiction of Mexico. Father Kircher, a celebrated philologer of his time, after consulting the Jesuits assembled in Rome on the occasion of a general congregation of the order in 1676, informs us that those missionaries who had been in the New World supposed the number of languages, of which they had some notices in South America, to be five hundred. But the Abbé Royo, who had made diligent inquiries aboutthe language of Peru, where he had dwelt, asserts that the whole people of America spoke not less than two thousand languages. The learned Francisco Lopez, a native of South America, who had extensive knowledge of that country as well as of the northern continent, a great part of which was traversed by the Jesuits, thought it no rash assertion to say that the idioms, 'notabilmente diversi,' of the whole country were not less than fifteen hundred."
It is difficult to say what would have been the natural growth, in the way of opinion from these strong (and not much overstated) phænomena, as to the apparently radical differences between the languages in question if they had come down to the present generation of scholars in an unmodified and unqualified form. This, however, was not the case. A most important disturbing element was soon indicated, which I follow Prichard in ascribing to Vater.
It was this—viz.: that different as may be the languages of America from each other, the discrepancyextends to words or roots only, the general internal or grammatical structure being the same for all.
Of course this grammatical structure must, in and of itself, be stamped with some very remarkable characteristics. It must differ from those of the whole world. Its verbs must be different from other verbs, its substantives other than the substantives of Europe, its adjectives unlike the adjectives of Asia. It must be this, or something like this—otherwise its identity of character goes for nothing; inasmuch as a common grammatical structure in respect to common grammatical elements is nothing more than what occurs all the world over.
At present it is enough to say, that such either was orappeared to be the case. "In Greenland,"[133]writes Vater, "as well as in Peru, on the Hudson river, in Massachusetts as well as in Mexico, and as far as the banks of the Orinoco, languages are spoken, displaying forms more artfully distinguished and more numerous than almost any other idioms in the world possess." "When we consider these artfully and laboriously contrived languages, which, though existing at points separated from each other by so many hundreds of miles, have assumed a character not less remarkably similar among themselves than different from the principles of all other languages, it is certainly the most natural conclusion that these common methods of construction have their origin from a single point; that there has been one general source from which the culture of languages in America has been diffused, and which has been the common centre of its diversified idioms."
"In America," says Humboldt,[133]"from the country of the Eskimo to the banks of the Oronoco, and again, from these torrid banks to the frozen climate of the Straits of Magellan, mother-tongues, entirely different with regard to their roots, have, if we may use the expression, the same physiognomy. Striking analogies of grammatical construction are acknowledged, not only in the more perfect languages, as that of the Incas, the Aymara, the Guarani, the Mexican, and the Cora, but also in languages extremely rude. Idioms, the roots of which do not resemble each other more than the roots of the Sclavonian and Biscayan, have those resemblances of internal mechanism which are found in the Sanscrit, the Persian, the Greek, and the German languages. Almost everywhere in the New World we recognise a multiplicity of forms and tenses in the verb, an industrious artificeto indicate beforehand, either by inflection of the personal pronouns which form the terminations of the verb, or by an intercalated suffix, the nature and the relation of its object and its subject, and to distinguish whether the object be animate or inanimate, of the masculine or the feminine gender, simple or complex in number. It is on account of this general analogy of structure; it is because American languages, which have no words in common, the Mexican for instance, and the Quichua, resemble each other by their organisation, and form complete contrasts with the languages of Latin Europe, that the Indians of the missions familiarise themselves more easily with other American idioms than with the language of the mistress country."
Lastly, definitude was given to these and similar somewhat too general expressions as to thedifferencein grammatical structure on the part of the American languages from those of the Old World, and their likeness to each other by the analytical investigations of Du Ponceau,[134]whose termpolysynthetic, as descriptive of thecharacteristic and peculiar complicatedgrammar of the American idioms from Greenland to Cape Horn, has been generally received.
We now see in a general way (and this is as much as in a work like the present can be shown), the meaning of a statement made in a former page,[135]viz.: that "where the American languages differ from each other they differ in a manner to which Asia supplies no parallel," whilst when they "agree with each they agree in a way to which Asia supplies no parallel"—i. e., whilst they agreegrammatically they differ glossarially; so exhibiting what may be called a philological paradox.
At present we are neither doubting the reality nor measuring the amount of this paradox; we are only asking in which of two ways it has been interpreted. What has been the effect of the antagonism between the philologico-grammatical and the philologico-glossarial test? Which has told most? the difference or the likeness? Has the first determined investigators to separate what the latter unites, or has the latter united what the former separates?
The answer to this is—that the likeness in the grammars has been generally considered to over-ride the difference in the vocabularies; so that the American languages are considered to supply an argument in favour of the unity of the American population stronger than the one which they suggest against it.
The evidence of language, then, is in favour of the unity of all the American populations—the Eskimonotexcepted.
The evidence, however, of language, forms but a fraction of the argument; indeed, it is only one part of the great division which contains themoralelements of ethnological difference or likeness in opposition to thephysical. The complementary question as to the unity or non-unity of the general social or mental development of the aboriginal American still stands over.
What are the facts which chiefly influence opinion here?
In which direction is their influence?
The facts are of two kinds—
1. Those which disconnect the Eskimo—
2. Those which disconnect the Mexicans and Peruvians from the other Americans—the former on the strength of an inferior, the latter on the score of a superior civilizational development. What is their value? This will be best ascertained whenallthe sections of the American population involved in the question have been noticed. At present the Eskimo only have been dealt with; the Mexicans and Peruvians still remaining to be described. Enough, however, has been said to show that the question has taken a complication; since the evidence of thenon-philological moral and mental phænomena isagainstthe unity of the American population—the Mexicans and Peruvians on one side, and the Eskimo on the other being isolated.
The evidence, however, of the moral and mental phænomena (philological andnon-philological combined), is but one division of the argument. The complementary question as to the unity or non-unity of the physical conformation of the aboriginal American still stands over. What are the facts which chiefly influence opinion here?
Mutatis mutandis, the statements which have just been made mayvery nearlybe made here. The test of physical conformation is considered to exclude the Eskimo; and the test of physical conformation is considered to exclude, if not the Mexican, at least the Peruvian.
Notwithstanding the convenience of deferring the more general discussion of the question until the Peruvians—indeed, until the whole of the American tribes have been considered—the present is, nevertheless, a convenient time for taking in, by means of a retrospect, some of the more material facts connected with the social and civilizational capacity of the Indians which have last been described—i.e.thenon-Eskimo tribes of the parts between the Rocky Mountains and the Paducas. This is to be measured by what is called the Indian biography of their men of marklike Thyandeeeya (Brandt), Tecumseh, or Powhattan, by the history of the Indian wars and confederations, and, better still, by an exponent which, because it has a special application upon the problems last indicated, will find a place amongst our present investigations—their architectural archæology.
The Trustees of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge have broken ground with the publication of a careful, elaborate, and critical description of the ancient monuments of the Mississippi Valley, the result of original surveys and explorations, by Mr. Squier and Dr. Davis; and it is only the contemporary publication of the Ethnology and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, that makes this thesecondof the great contributions to ethnological science, which have been supplied by the same country within the same year.
And first, as to the area over which these remains are spread.—West of the Rocky Mountains,[136]the most that has hitherto been found is a few mounds,tumuli, or barrows. They will be calledmounds. North, too, of the Great Lakes, the remains are but few, and imperfectly described. On Lake Pepin, on Lake Travers (in 46° N.L.), we find notices of them; so we do for the Missouri, as much as 1000 miles above its junction with the Mississippi. Eastward, they decrease as we approach the Atlantic;i.e.on the Atlantic aspects of Pennsylvania, New York, andVirginia, they become scarcer. They become scarce, too, on the other side of the River Sabine; not that they are wanting in Texas, but that they either fall off in number or change in character as we approach Mexico.
The great centre of their development is the vast valley of the Mississippi, and amongst the valleys of its feeders—that of the Ohio preeminently. Here the accumulation is at itsmaximum. In Ross country alone, 100 enclosures and 500 mounds have been noticed; whilst the whole amount for the state of Ohio has been reckoned at 10,000 of the former, and 1,000 or 1,500 of the latter.
This indicates their locality and distribution. It has also indicated their nature and character. Oftener earthworks than buildings of stone, they are generally (but not exclusively) either raised mounds or embankments forming enclosures,—mounds in some cases 70 feet in height, and 1000 in circumference at the base, and embankments (with ditches corresponding) enclosing spaces of 300 acres. Such are some of the greatest measurements.
In form both the mound and embankment are very varied. The enclosure may be a square, a circle, a parallelogram, an ellipse, a polygon, or a wholly irregular outline, following the inequalities of the soil or the configuration of the country in which it occurs. The ditch may be either exterior or interior to it; the entrance simple or complex. Sometimes the square and circle are combined; so that a round inclosure leads into a quadrangle, orvice versâ. Sometimes a quadrangle is enclosed with a square.
The mounds are sometimes simple cones; sometimes (an important difference) truncated pyramids; often simple slopes; often terraced. More remarkable, however, than any others, is "a succession of remains, entirely singular in their forms, and presenting but slight analogy to any others of which we have an account, in any portion of the globe. The larger proportion of these are structures of earth, bearing the forms of beasts, birds, reptiles, and even of men; they are frequently of gigantic dimensions, constituting hugebasso-relievosupon the face of the country. They are very numerous, and in most cases occur in long and apparently dependent ranges. In connection with them are found many conical mounds and occasional short lines of embankment, in rare instances forming enclosures."[137]
The reader anticipates the object for which these works were undertaken—the purposes of war and the purposes of religion. This is the most general way of stating it; those for the latter purposes falling in the divisions of sepulchral and sacrificial.
Besides the usual human remains which are found in the sepulchral mounds, works in stone, earthenware, and metal are frequent; relics which, taken along with the vast and numerous works which contain them, give us the elements of the ante-historical civilization of the northern section of the North American Indians.
The prevalence of works of a certain type varies with the area. The animal bas-reliefs are chiefly characteristic of Wisconsin, the truncated pyramids of the southern States, the simple mound and enclosure of Ohio, and the midland parts.
It should now be added, that where a square is attempted, it is truly rectangular, and that the circles are generally perfect; also that, in several cases, either the sides or the entrances accurately coincide with the east, west, north, and south points of the compass.
Other customs, such as the Indian council of war, the Indian calumet of peace, the stoic fortitude of the Indianwarrior, the patient bearing of the Indian squaw, their scalpings during war, their probationary tortures during peace, preeminently interesting objects of description, have a subordinate value in ethnology. Value, however, they have. The list of them is a long one, and out of it may be selected numerous characteristics of a twofold import.
1. American, or general characteristics, viz.: those which (without being universal) are general in the new world, whilst (without being absolutely non-existent) they are rare in the old.
2. Sectional characteristics, or those which distinguish one American tribe from another.
Of the first series, there are two divisions, the positive and the negative. In respect to the positively characteristic practices of America, the use of the scalping-knife is, perhaps, the most typical. Horrible modes of mutilation are common in Asia and Africa (in Africa most especially); but the exact method in question I have not found except in America. Next to this, the habit of artificially flattening the head deserves notice. It is not, however, wholly unknown in the old world; since in Arakan we find traces of it.
The negative characteristics are, perhaps, more important than the positive ones—preeminent amongst these being the utter absence (with the exception of a partial approach to it in the care bestowed by the Peruvians upon the llama and vicugna) of the true pastoral state throughout the whole length and breadth of America. Agriculture there is, and hunting there is,—the former developing an approach to an industrial development, and the latter determining a semi-nomadic form of life—but the absence of a true pastoral state wherein horses are used for riding,oxen for draught, and cows, ewes, or mares, for milking, is a remarkable negative characteristic which distinguishes the aboriginal American from the Arctic Sea to Cape Horn.
That the appreciation ofdifferentiæof this kind is wholly incapable of being arrived atà priori, but that it must be the result of a special induction by which we historically determine how one (or more) of certain undoubtedly allied divisions of the human species may want characteristics which occur in the others (andvice versâ) is a truth which requires a fuller recognition than it has found; since it is far easier for a writer to show in what customs two great sections of a population differ from one another, than to ascertain what that discrepancy imports. Whilst one, therefore, makes it a differencein kind, another considers it as onein degree only. The present writer, whohasbestowed some pains on the special question ofvaluationorappreciation, generally speaking puts them low.
As the criticism respecting thegeneralcharacteristics, has its bearing upon the relations of the American aborigines to those of the world at large, so that of thesectionalones determines our views as to their unity or non-unity among themselves. It is the same in both cases. It is an easy matter to say that the Athabaskans (for instance) burn their dead to ashes, whilst the Peruvians desiccate them into mummies; that the Nehannis treat their women with respect, whilst servitude, on the part of the female, is the rule elsewhere; or that (enterprise and industry being exceptional phænomena in the western hemisphere), the Waraws are navigators, and the Haidah islanders tradesmen; and easier still is it to discover that in populations which live on fishing, we miss certain elements of the social state of the hunter or agriculturist.The real difficulty is to take the exact measure of their value. Failing thedatafor doing this, the parallel statement of the points of agreement becomes a duty on the part of the ethnologist.
Now, in this respect, the phenomenon which has been noticed in Australia, reappears in America, viz.: a habit or custom, which shall not be found in more than one or two tribes in the neighbourhood of each other, shall appear, as if wholly independent of mutual imitation, at some other (perhaps some distant) part of the island. Such, in Australia, was the case of similar family names; and such in America is the remarkable distribution of the habits of flattening the head, and burying on elevated platforms; to say nothing of the two parallel forms of semicivilization in Mexico and Peru, so concordant on the whole, yet differing in so many details, and, evidently, separate and independent developments rather than the results of an extension of either one or the other as the original.
The same reasons which prevent us, in the present state of our knowledge, from drawing any inferences into the higher problems of ethnology from those manners and customs of the American Indians, which in the mere way of simple description give so much interest to the writings of the adventurous traveller, save us the necessity of exhibiting them in detail. No such economy, however, of time and paper is allowed in respect to a question which has already been more than once alluded to, viz.: the peculiarities of the American languages; peculiarities which are as remarkable in respect to the points wherein they agree, as they are in respect to the points wherein they differ—peculiarities, however, which, remarkable as they are, may easily be over-rated.
No preliminary is more necessary for this question than the distinction betweena, the American languages as considered in respect to their roots or words, andb, the American languages as considered in respect to their grammatical structure. The clear perception of this is required on the part of the reader. On the other hand, the writer must remember that he is composing a work not on philology in general, but only upon such points of that science as illustrate ethnography. Hence the peculiarities of the American languages will not be considered in full; but all that will be done with them will consist in the selection of those phænomena which explain what has already been called the philological paradox of the American grammars being alike, whilst the American vocabularies differ.
1. And first in respect to the facts which account for the difference between the vocabularies. Here arise two questions—the determination of the extent to which such a difference really takes place, and the reasons for its reaching that extent whatever it is ascertained to be.
What follows, is a table representing the degree in which languages lying within so small a geographical area as the Uché, Natchez, and Adahi, may differ in their vocabularies.
Furthermore, had the two other conterminous languages of the Attacapas and the Chetimachas been added, the difference between thefivewould have been just the sameas that between thethree,i. e., they would have all differed from each other, as much as the Natchez and Uché, the Uché and Adahi, the Adahi and Natchez differ.
This is a fair measure of theglossarialseparation between contiguous languages as determined by what may be called thesimple comparison(inspectionorcollation) of vocabularies; and it is by no means strange that, such being the case, writers should have regarded it with something approaching to surprise.
I am not aware that much has been done to bring down this feeling to a reasonable limit; a result which might easily have been brought about by one or both of the two following processes.
a.The value of the mere simple comparison of vocabularies may be tested by seeing what would be the result of placing side by side two languages known to be undoubtedly, but also known to be not very closely, allied. Such, for instance, might be the German and Greek, the Latin and Russian, the English and Lithuanic, all of which are Indo-European, and all of which, when placed in simple juxtaposition, by no means show themselves in any very palpable manner as such. This may be seen from the following table, which is far from being the first which the present writer has compiled; and that with the special view of ascertaining by induction (and nota priori) the value of comparisons of the kind in question.
Again—the process may be modified by taking two languages known to becloselyallied, and asking how far asimplecomparison of their vocabularies exhibits that alliance on the surface,e.g.:—
Now there is no doubt here as to the difference appearing to be considerable. Yet the two languages—or, rather, dialects—are mutually intelligible.
b.The method ofindirectcomparison—although by some considered illegitimate—supplies us with another means of checking the tendency towards over-valuing glossarial differences as tested by simple collation; since, a language of which the isolation goes beyond a certain point must not only be unlike any single given language, but unlike other languages altogether. Now, taking the Adahi as an illustration, the following table shows itsmiscellaneousorgeneralaffinities.
Now the Adahi is so far from being a singular instance of an American language having miscellaneous affinities that there are not half-a-dozen vocabularies for either North or South America for which I have not similar lists.[138]
Such is the imperfect sketch of my reasons for believing that any statement which places the glossarial differences between the American languages, as ascertained by the simple inspection of their vocabularies, so high as to involve the idea of a unique and unparalleled philological phænomenon is anover-statement.
In thus limiting the extent of a remarkable characteristic I am not denying its existence. That the difference, even when cut down to its proper dimensions, is still more considerable than the usual investigations of philologists prepare them to expect, is shown by the necessity (which I freely admit) of resorting in America to the indirect method of comparison, where in many (perhaps most) other parts of the world, simple collation would suffice.
Why is this? The following facts help us to an answer—fragmentary and partial though it be.
The paucity of general terms.—What shall we say to a language where a term sufficientlygeneralto denote an oak-tree is exceptional; a language where thewhite-oakhas onespecificname, theblack-oakanother, thered-oaka third, and so? Yet such is the ease with the Choctah;[139]where,a fortiori, the still moregeneralname fortreeis more exceptional still. This is the case with a noun.
Verbs, however, are equallyspecialized. Where we in England talk offishing, the Eskimo has a distinct name for everymode of fishing; and this is only part and parcel of the system which "designates with a peculiar name animalsof the same speciesaccording to their age, sex, or form."
This is a character, which, though illustrated from two languages, is common to all the American ones.
Now the more specific the name the less extensive its application, and the less extensive its application the smaller the probability of its appearing in more languages than one. No one would expect the wordbrotherto occur in the Gaelic (brathair), and in the Latin (frater), if Gaels, Englishmen, and Romans, without any name for brother in general, had merely known anelder brotherby one separate single name, and ayounger oneby another, as is really the fact in America. What we should look for in such a case would be the equivalents to words likecadet, and these might differ in languages otherwise allied.
Names, then, for common objects are often of so specific a kind in the American languages, that they differ in cases where, if more general, they would agree.
The numerals.—Another class of words, which in many languages agree, differs in the American, viz., that of the numerals. In the Indo-European tongues these agree even where other words differ.[140]The converse, however, takes place with the tongues in question. Languages, alike inother points, shall count differently. Can this be explained? I submit the following doctrine, based upon the difference between absolute numerals liketwoandthree(words which mean two units, and three units exclusively and irrespectively), and concrete numerals likebraceandleash.
Between these two classes of words there is the following difference. Absolute numerals give no choice, concrete numerals do. Out of two tribes, wherein the intelligence of each is so little capable of generalization as not to have evolved abstract and absolute numerals like those of the Indo-European nations (one,two, &c.), the only way of counting is by the adoption of some material object in which thenumberof its parts is a striking characteristic; in which case there is so much room for arbitrary selection that allied languages may take up different words. It is not to be supposed that unless the English, Greeks, Gaels, Slavonians, and the members of the Indo-European stock in general, had broken off from the common stem at a period subsequent to the evolution of absolute numerals that their names for the first ten units would be so like as they are. On the contrary, there would most certainly have been a difference;twobeing expressed in one quarter by a word likebrace, in another by such a term ascouple, in a third bypair, and so on. Now this latitude exists and bears fruit with the American languages. One takes the name for (say)twofrom one natural dualism, another from another—one calls it by the name fora pair of hands, another by that ofa pair of feet, a third by that ofa pair of shoes, &c.
Names, then, for numerals in the American languages differ as much as the natural objects from which they may be derived, the separation from the parent-stock of thetongues in which they occur having taken place before the evolution of fixed absolute and abstract terms.
The verb-substantive.—In the Indo-European languages the verb-substantive agrees even where other words differ; the Englishbeis the Latinfu-; the Germanistis the Greek ἐστ-ι; the Englishamis the Latinsum, and the Greek εἰμι. This induces us, in languages where there is no such agreement, to argue in favour of a fundamental dissimilarity. And naturally. Tongues as far apart as the English and Sanskritagree, where tongues as close to each other as the Adahi and Chetimachadiffer. But to expect likeness on this point simply because we find it in Europe and Asia, is to make bricks without straw. In most of the American languages, an idea so abstract as that conveyed by the verb-substantive has yet to be evolved; in other words, there is no verb-substantive at all in the generality of them: according to some writers, it is wanting in all.
Such are some of the facts and suggestions which help to account for the glossarial difference between the American languages, a phænomenon which, even though occasionally overstated, is still a reality to a certain degree. I am fully aware that, at the first view, they seem to prove too much;i.e.they seem, by accounting for the differences, to admit them; just as, in common life, the person who excuses himself for an imputed action, admits the truth of the imputation. How far this is the true view will be seen after the notice of some of the antagonistic phænomena of agreement in the way of grammatical structure.
Negative points of agreement.—Case-endings, properly so called, are either rare or wanting throughout the American tongues. Possession is expressed by the pronouns; just as if we said,father his, orpater suusinstead ofpatri-s,ather-'s. In like manner the pronoun expresses the objective relation;I strike him horse=ferio equu-m.
Signs of number, properly so called, are wanting. The general American equivalent for such a form as the-sinpatre-s, orfather-s, is a word signifyingnumber, asfather many=father-s.
Signs of gender, properly so called, are wanting. This, however, is no more than what occurs in the English adjective.
Signs of the degrees of comparisonare wanting. This, however, is no more than what occurs in the French adjective.
Notwithstanding, however, this list of negations—a list capable of being considerably increased—the American grammar is complex; a fact which brings us to the positive characteristics of the language in question. These, also, are very general.
a.The distinction between animate and inanimate objects.—The plural of the name of such an object asa staris of one form; the plural of the name of such an object asa sheep, another. In some languages this distinction extends farther, and applies to therationalandirrationaldivisions of theanimateclass.
b.The incorporation of the possessive pronoun.—Certain words likehand,father,son, express, all the world over, objects which are rarely mentioned except in relation to some other object to which they belong—a hand, for instance, ismine,thine,his, and so isa father,a son,a wife, &c. In other words there is almost always a pronoun[141]attached to them. Now in the American languages this is almost always incorporated with the substantive; so that an American can only talk ofmy father,thy father,&c., being incapable of using the substantive in a sense sufficiently abstract to dispense with the pronoun.
c. The incorporation of the objective pronoun with the verb. The Latin worda-ma-ntcontains, beside the part which represents the action, a second element representing theagent. An American verb would, besides this, contain an element representing theobject, so that what the Latin expressed byamant illas(two words) would be denoted in most Indian tongues by a single form. Now when we remember that the name of the object is thus reduced to an inflection, and also that the pronoun expressive of it, varies with the sex, we see how American tongues may be both copious in the way of grammar and complex as well. And such, notwithstanding many facts to the contrary, is really the case.
Inclusive and exclusive plurals.—A word likewein English, is a much more abstract word than it appears to be at first sight. What should we say if instead thereof we only saidI+thou, orI+they? What ifboththese expressions were used? In such a case we should have two plurals oneexclusiveof the person spoken to (I+they), and oneinclusiveof him (I+thou). Now the phænomenon of theexclusiveandinclusiveplural is very general throughout the aboriginal languages of America.
Such are the chief points wherein languages differ in respect to their lexicons, and agree in respect to their grammars.[142]
The Californias, New Mexico, and the provinces of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Cohuahuila, Durango, Zacatecas, and the northern part of the Anahuac, will now conduct us to the centre of the Aztek civilization—or semi-civilization of the city of Montezuma. And here the enumeration of the divisions and sub-divisions of the population must be almost exclusively geographical,i.e.we must take the tribes as they come in their order on the map, and not in the order wherein they are related to each other. The reason of this lies in the unsatisfactory character of our knowledge. Preeminently scanty, it is unsystematic as well. What follows then is but little better than an undigested list of references, more than one of which may refer to the same tribes under different names, and more than one of which may be incorrect. Still it is a contribution towards a monograph, the necessity of which gives it place in a systematic work, which it would not have otherwise; and lest the value of such a monograph, if properly drawn up, be undervalued, the reader is reminded that most of the elements of our criticism in regard to the civilizational phænomena presented by Mexico, Guatimala and Yucatan, depend upon the facts known concerning the Californias and the parts to the south of them.
New California.—For the parts between the mouths of the rivers Clamet (or Lutuami) and Sacramiento.—Physical geography gives us for these parts three divisions:a, the coast and western boundary of the valley of the Sacramiento;b, the valley of the Sacramiento itself;c, the eastern watershed of the Sacramiento.
a.For the coast we have a notice as to the miserable condition of the natives about Trinity Bay in N. L. 41° with the special statement that they file their teeth. Probably they constitute an extension of the Southern Tototunes. On the other hand, the later writers have remarked, that the boundary between the Oregon and California is not only a political but an ethnological one as well; in other words, that the physical appearance ofthe Indians changes as soon as the frontier is passed. Except so far as there is a difference in the physical geography, this coincidence is unlikely.
b.In respect, however, to the valley of the Sacramiento, such a difference exists. The Desert of California, like that of the Sahara, has itsoases, and these are the valleys of its rivers. However narrow these may be, the conditions of physical and social development which they afford, are always improvements upon those of the desert table-land. Here our only data are Mr. Dana's, which consist of—
1. A vocabulary of the occupants of the river about 250 miles from its mouth, and 60 miles south of the Shasti, whom they resemble, being a mirthful race, with no arms but bows and arrows, and with little intercourse with foreigners.
2, 3, 4. Four vocabularies from the occupants of the river, about 100 miles to its mouth,i.e.of the Puzhune, Sekumne, and Tsamak dialects. Allied to these and like them occupants of the western bank, are theYasumnes, the Nemshaw, the Kisky, the Yalesumnes, the Yuk, and the Yukal.
5. A Talatui vocabulary. Captain Suter, a settler in these parts, informed Mr. Dana, that the Talatui and the Indians just named, resembled each other in every thing but language, and that the Talatui was spoken by the following bands:—The Ochekamnes, the Seroushumnes, the Chupumnes, the Omutchumnes, the Secumnes(?), the Walagumnes, the Cosumnes, the Sololumnes, the Turealemnes, the Saywaymenes, the Nevichumnes, the Matchemnes, the Sagayayumnes, the Muthelemnes, and the Lopotalemnes. Probably the Chochouyem tribe of the Mithridates belongs to this quarter. Probably, also, the Youkiousme of Mofras(?)
6. A notice of Major Sand's, in Gallatin,[143]carries us over the eastern watershed of the Sacramiento to one of the streams of the great Californian Desert, which have no outlet to the ocean, called Salmon-trout River. Here the chief sustenance is of a lower order than that of tribes on the Sacramiento. With the latter it is nearly exclusively acorns made into a not unpalatable bread; with the former grass-hoppers or locusts dried and pounded, mixed with the meal of grass-seeds, and baked.
Parts about San Francisco.—a. A Youkiousme(?) Paternoster of Mofras, seems to belong to the same division with—
b.A vocabulary of the language of San Rafael in the United States' Exploring Expedition. If so, and if also the position of the Youkiousme just suggested be correct, further information will bring the languages enumerated by Dana, to the neighbourhood of San Francisco; for which parts we also find in Mofras—
c.ATularenaPaternoster.
d.A notice of a MS.Tularenagrammar by Arroyo.
e.f.The Santa Inez, and Santa Barbara, Paternosters of Mofras.
g.h.The Severnow and Bodega vocabularies (apparently representing mutually unintelligible languages) of Baer's Beiträge.
Lastly, in the Mithridates[144]we find enumerated, as inhabitants of these parts, the Matalan, the Salsen, and the Quirotes, followed by the statement of Lasuen, that between San Francisco and San Diegoseventeenlanguages are spoken, which cannot be considered as dialects of a few mother-tongues. On the other hand, however,in respect to the three sections just mentioned, Humboldt expressly states that, whilst they are separated as peoples (Völkerschaften), their speech is from a single source.