Origin of the Aborigines of Canada, Comparative Vocabulary of Indian Languages

 

By John Campbell

 

[Published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, No. 15 (1881)]

 

About two years and a half ago, one of your secretaries, Mr. Clint, read a very interesting and exhaustive paper on the aborigines of Canada. My subject is a much narrower one, and one upon which, fortunately for me, Mr. Clint has barely touched. At the same time I may be spared a description of the more important tribes and their classification by referring my auditors to the paper in question.

 

Eleven families of American Indians are represented more or less completely in Canada, taking that term in its widest acceptation, as extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Arctic Ocean to the great lakes. These are the Algonquins, whose tribes, including the extinct Bethucks of Newfoundland and the Blackfeet in the far west, have been found from the extreme Atlantic coast to the Rocky Mountains; the Wyandot-Iroquois, so well known in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, from the Lorette Hurons to the Oneidas of the Thames; the Dacotahs of Manitoba, consisting of Sioux or Dacotahs proper and Assiniboins; the Tinneh, Chipweyans or Athabascans, a large family, extending from the Saskatchewan northwards to the area of the Esquimaux, and westward to the Rocky Mountains; the Thlinkeets or Koljuches on the borders of Alaska; and the Innuit or Esquimaux, stretching along the entire northern part of the Continent. Then, in British Columbia, we find the Haidahs of Queen Charlotte's Islands, the Chimsyans of Observatory Inlet and Princess Royal Islands, the Hailtzukhs and Nootkans of Vancouver Island, and some tribes of the Tsihaili-Salish family on the opposite mainland.

 

Three of these families I must for the present pass by, as I have no sure and reliable data for their origin. These are the Thlinkeets, the Esquimaux, and the Salish. The eight remaining families I classify in two great divisions, according as their derivation is insular or continental. The four families of British Columbia, and the Algonquins I hold to be of insular derivation; while the Iroquois, Dacotahs and Tinneh are emigrants from a continental home. The tribes of insular origin are Malay-Polynesian, with some Papuan admixture; those of continental origin are Tungusic and Koriak-Japanese respectively.

 

Many writers, whose opinions it would be a tedious and unprofitable task to specify, have asserted the autochthonic nature of the American Indians, and have demonstrated to their own satisfaction the impossibility of deriving them from any Old World population. But the school of Agassiz with its system of faunal centres, which gave no fewer than six American Adams to the Western hemisphere, has been superseded by that of the Evolutionists, which throws not only faunal centres, but species and genera, to the winds. According to this modern school, American man must be a product of the Old World, inasmuch as there are no remains of manlike apes in the New from which he could be developed. In this connection I must confess that, while I have endeavored to carry on my investigations on the principles of pure inductive science, free from any preconceptions which might vitiate my procedure, I have ever retained my faith, as a Christian minister, in the doctrine of the unity of the human race. I have not met with any facts that have led me even to doubt this unity, while the theories tending to destroy it have, on fuller investigation, been proved to be based on faulty generalizations.

 

It has been said that the American Indians differ from all other peoples in physical appearance, character, language and arts, in all of which features they agree among themselves. Is this true ? Dr. Morton, the famous craniologist, asserted that the physical structure of the American Indian, from the Arctic North to the Fuegian South, is one; but this view has been controverted and completely set aside by many investigators, and among others by one of your honorary members, Dr. Daniel Wilson, of Toronto. The result of their investigations has been to establish the existence, on the American continent, of as great divergences in the form of the skull, whether in a normal or artificial condition, and of the rest of man's bony structure, as are to be found in any continent of the Old World. It is but the other day that I asked that well-known missionary and writer upon Algonquin and Iroquois subjects, the Abbé Cuoq, if there were any similarity between the Algonquins and the Iroquois. His answer was to the effect that in physical characteristics as in language they were entirely different, and evidently belonged to separate divisions of the human family. The persistency with which observers, who have noted a single American type, set this forth as the type of our aborigines in general, is really a sign of the small amount of attention that has been bestowed upon the subject. Sometimes we are told that the Indians are of medium stature, or even below that of the average European or white American. This is from one who has made a study of the Algonquin, and notably of the Cree. Again we hear that they are large, robust men, of commanding presence. This is from the observer of the Iroquois and the Dacotah. In one case the face is flat, and in another it is prominent in its features, or half-moon shaped, as Catlin calls it. The former is the peculiarity of the Algonquin, the latter of the Dacotah. Small sunken eyes, low forehead and short hair characterize the American Indian in one description, and in the other we find large eyes, arched forehead and long hair. Here again the Algonquin furnishes one portrait, and the Iroquois or Dacotah, the other. A third and totally different type is presented by the Athabascan. In regard to character, we find Chateaubriand characterizing the Huron as gay, witty, flighty and chivalrous; and Catlin, speaking of the Dacotahs as, with all their native dignity, garrulous and fond of humour; while many writers upon the Tinneh or Athabascans point out features of character that are peculiar to them, and describe them as inveterate grumblers, unreliable, undignified and laughter loving. The fact is that “the Stoic of the woods, the man without a tear,” the taciturn, undemonstrative, grave and deliberate savage, who has given an ideal character to the whole of our Indian population, is the Algonquin. He is totally unlike the other aborigines on this side of the Rocky Mountains.

 

It would be absurd to deny that there is some ground for the common opinion which recognizes a family likeness among the tribes of the continent. In their arts and appliances and in their mode of life there is much in common, but this community has its origin not in the unity of the tribes, but in the similarity of their conditions, and in the fact of their mutual intercourse. Yet, allowing this, there are still wide diversities. The Spartan-like national life of the Iroquois, described by Chateaubriand, the Hon. L. H. Morgan, and Dr. Parkman, finds no counterpart among the Algonquins. The large handsome lodges of the Dacotahs are quite unlike the huts of Algonquins and Tinneh. The Algonquin was no potter as were originally both Dacotahs and Iroquois. Iroquois, Dacotahs, and Tinneh are essentially inland and land loving tribes, while the Algonquins with few exceptions are fluviatile and lacustrine, men of the water. We, in Canada, are familiar with the manly sports of the Indian, and especially with that game which has become almost national in Canada, the ball play or lacrosse. This is no Algonquin game, nor is it Athabascan. It is common to Choctaws, Iroquois and Dacotahs. The Algonquin is no lover of manly sports, but prefers to spend his spare time in idleness, while the Athabascan developes under similar conditions the spirit of the trader. And, finally, in point of religion there is wide diversity. Iroquois, Dacotahs and Choctaws were originally sun worshippers, while among the Algonquins the worship of the heavenly bodies was unknown till the Delawares became women and formed part of the Iroquois confederacy. In seeking to discover the origin of the Indians, we have thus before us a problem not of one origin but of many.

 

The learned Humboldt in his Views of Nature characterized the discovery of the relations between the populations of the New World and the Old as “one of the most brilliant to which the history of the human race can hope to attain.” I confess it has never struck me in that light, nor as anything but a simple task, requiring a good deal of patient research and minute investigation. The key to the relation must be found in language. Resemblances in religion and traditions, in manners and customs, in arts and exercises, such as those set forth by Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Tylor, may be useful adjuncts to philological research, but, until a community of language is proved, they can be nothing more. Numberless attempts have been made to find the Old World languages whose vocabularies are most in accordance with those of the Indian dialects. Even before the present century, comparative tables were drawn up, but many of these contained such scant and widely scattered materials as made them practically worthless. The examples could easily have been mere coincidences instead of illustrations of genuine relationship. This style of comparison has been carried on to the present day, and by its unscientific character has naturally created a prejudice among philologists and ethnologists against all comparisons of mere words. A good deal of bigotry, however, has disgraced the writings of scientific men in their arguments against the possibility of an Old World connection for the languages of the New; and they have resolutely refused to weigh the evidence presented in coinciding vocabularies or to attempt to account for the phenomenon thus presented. On both sides, it appeared to me, that ignorance was the obstacle to agreement, an ignorance namely of the languages of the two hemispheres, both as regards their grammatical and verbal forms. I endeavoured therefore during several years to gain an acquaintance, imperfect, superficial, fragmentary to be sure, but still a general acquaintance, with all the known families of speech, so that I might have no temptation to form a theory and favor any one group of languages in such a way as to force a resemblance between it and others. Then proceeding to a comparison, the Indo-European and Semitic languages were necessarily counted out, as their structure is altogether different from that of the American. Then, in the great Turanian division, it was found unnecessary to compare the African languages pertaining to it, as their home is too remote from the region for which comparison was sought.[1] The Monosyllabic languages of China, India and Indo-China, although Turanian, were excluded, because only one American language, the Otomi of Mexico, is known to be Monosyllabic. What does this leave us ? In Europe we have the Basque of the Pyrenees, and, on the borders of Europe and Asia, many Caucasian dialects, both of which have much in common with some American forms of speech. Besides these, the two great divisions of the Asiatic Turanian languages call for attention. In the Southern, comprehending the Dravidian and other groups in Hindostan, Thibet and Indo-China, the American analogies are few, and, where they do appear, seem to rise into greater prominence in the Malay dialects which are sometimes classed as Turanian, and, of course, as belonging to this division. The Northern Turanian division includes the Finnic, Turkish, Mongolic and Tungusic classes, to which some writers add the Samoyedic of Archangel and Siberia. Many verbal resemblances appear between this group and a number of American languages, but so far as grammatical forms are concerned, it is only as its languages present exceptions to Turanian order that they coincide with American grammar. It is true, therefore, only of some Mongolic and Tungusic dialects, and, in particular, of the latter. There still remain two unclassified groups. One, in Central Siberia, is the Yenisei family; and the other, in the extreme East of Asia, extending from the Arctic Ocean to the Loo Choo Islands, may be termed the Japanese-Koriak. An isolated language is the Yukagir within the Koriak area. Of all the Asiatic languages, the Japanese-Koriak have the closest affinities to those of America. This I found for myself, but I need not have done so, for Dr. Latham long ago pointed out the fact. He says: "In the opinion of the present writer, the Peninsular (Japanese-Koriak) languages agree in the general fact of being more akin to those of America than any other." He also seems to think it easier to connect this family with America than with any other linguistic group of the Old World. The Caucasian dialects, the Basque, and the old Accad of Chaldaea have some of their closest analogies, however, with the Japanese-Koriak.

 

But here the present school of philology steps in, saying, and, within certain limits, saying rightly:—“You must attend to grammatical principles and not to mere forms of words, whose evidence is apt to be fallacious.” The languages of America, we are told, agree among themselves and differ from all others, in being polysynthetic. It was Duponceau who coined this bugbear of a word—“to denote the characteristic and peculiar complicated grammar of American languages.” Fr. Muller thus defines polysynthetism:—“While, in our languages, each of the ideas, whose order finds expression in the sentence, presents itself as phonetically distinct, they are generally, in the American languages, joined in an indivisible unity. Sentence and words are thus completely confounded. By this proceeding each word is abridged and summarily reduced to one of its parts.” This is true to a certain extent, but it has been grossly caricatured by the presentation of the most exaggerated examples. The Abbé Cuoq, for instance, illustrates this polysynthetism in the case of the Iroquois sentence I have money, which he says is more briefly and elegantly rendered by wakwistaien than by wakien owista. Here, however, the only case of abridgement is the rejection of the initial o of owista; for the pronoun wak and the verb ien retain their integrity; and, says the learned Abbé, the true radical after all is not owista but wist. There is no more difficulty in decomposing such a sentence than appears in any Turanian language. Similar abbreviations in the formation of compounds can be pointed out in all languages, not excepting those of the Indo-European family. In the American verb there is undoubtedly a singular wealth of ability to express variety of relation and shade of meaning, and many particles, the original value of which has in some cases been lost, are added to give diminutive, augmentative, locative, causative, progressive, frequentative, acquisitive and other powers to the verb. The latter is certainly not peculiar to America, for even that high Aryan language, the Sanskrit, has its causative, desiderative, and intensive verbs, similarly formed. Dr. Latham has wisely suggested that many examples of polysynthetism in American words are really instances of printers' polysynthetism, as, for instance, if we were to write as a single word, jelaime, the three French terms je l'aime. Professor Max Muller refuses to recognize a polysynthetic class of languages. He says: “The number of roots which enter into the composition of a word makes no difference, and it is unnecessary, therefore, to admit a fourth class, sometimes called polysynthetic or incorporating, including most of the American languages. As long as in these sesquipedalian compounds, the significative root remains distinct, they belong to the agglutinative stage; as soon as it is absorbed by the terminations, they belong to the inflectional stage.” In this connection I may be permitted to quote the opinion of a distinguished student of Turanian languages, and one whose apparent sympathies are not in favour of a connection between the languages of the Old World and the New. After an analysis of the grammatical systems of sixteen American languages, M. Lucien Adam says:—“In fact the preceding languages are all more or less polysynthetic, but this polysynthetism, which essentially consists in suffixing subordinate personal pronouns to the noun, the postposition and the verb, characterizes equally the Semitic languages, the Basque, the Mordwin, the Vogul and even the Magyar.” To illustrate this statement of M. Adam, we may compare the Magyar latlak I see thee, in which lat is the verb and lak a combination of the subject pronoun I and the object thee, with the Iroquois konatkahtos, in which atkahtos is the verb, and kon, a similar union of pronouns. Still, lest anyone should deem the character of polysynthetism, as it reigns in the domain of the American verb, to be unique, let me turn your attention to Old World parallels. The Rev. Edwin James is credited with the statement that the Chippewa verb has six or eight thousand different forms or modes. This is certainly a large number, and perhaps an exaggeration. But, in reading recently the “Annales de la propagation de la foi pour la province de Québec,” I came upon the story of a devoted missionary among the Coreans, who belong to the Japanese-Koriak, or, as Dr. Latham calls it, the Peninsular family. He says:— “The Corean language is not easy. The terminations of the verb are in infinite variety, a single verb numbers as many as eight hundred. I should never end if I attempted to enumerate all the different shades of this language, shades which I myself am yet ignorant of.” Santini, an old traveller in Siberia, states, in regard to the language of the Tungus and the Koriaks, that “their verbs are without number, and are increased according to the variety and quality of the action. For example, a Koriak does not use the same verb when he says he saw a bird or a tree." Now there is no room to doubt that the Japanese, which is not a polysynthetic language, belongs to the same family as the Corean and the Koriak, while the Mantchu, which again is not polysynthetic, is a Tungusic dialect. It appears, therefore, that not only polysynthetism, but that agglutination also of which it is an exaggerated form, are not separate forms of speech by which human families should be separated from one another, but, as Max Muller calls them, stages in the development of language, and thus accidents to which all languages are liable. Among the Malay-Polynesian tongues we find some in this stage, such as the Tagala: and such a language the Basque still remains in spite of its surroundings. It is, therefore, evident that no classification of peoples can proceed scientifically on the basis of such a mere accident as polysynthetism in language.

 

Is there then any grammatical peculiarity by which the languages of the Old World and the New can be connected ? There are several such peculiarities, which are not complex, almost indefinable, and ever varying like polysynthetism, but simple, easily observed and pertaining to syntax as illustrative of psychological phenomena. These have been pointed out, and my attention has been directed to them, by Dr. Edkins, of Pekin, in his suggestive book “China's place in Philology,” where he deals with them mainly as illustrating the diversity between the Turanian and Malay-Polynesian grammatical systems. The same diversity which Dr. Edkins illustrates in Asia finds the amplest illustration upon this continent. It consists primarily in a distinction, which may fitly give names to the classes, between Prepositional and Postpositional languages The former generally employ prepositions to denote relation; the latter invariably make use of postpositions. Thus Finns and Turks, Mongols, Tungus, and Japanese, who are at liberty to present great varieties of agglutination tending to complete incorporation and polysynthetism, cannot, until the laws of their thinking are changed, place the term denoting relation before the noun, or, in other words, by using prepositions put a determinative, abstract term before a concrete. In the case of Prepositional languages, the same difficulty does not appear. They can make use of postpositions occasionally. Such are found in German, in Latin, and to a large extent in Sanskrit. In our English word heavenwards, the latter part is the preposition towards abbreviated. A distinction, therefore, is to be drawn between languages, not as they make exclusive use of prepositions, on the one hand, and postpositions, on the other, but as they employ or do not employ prepositions. That this is a valid line of demarcation between forms of speech is evident from the fact that the two oldest languages known, the Egyptian and the Accad of Chaldaea, illustrate it, the former being a prepositional, the latter a postpositional language.

 

Standing alone this distinction in syntax would be important, but it does not stand alone. The mark of tense, or temporal index, bears the same relation to the verb that the mark of relation (preposition or postposition) bears to the noun. In the Turanian or postpositional languages this mark of tense is placed after the verbal root invariably, in some such form as the ed of the English past tense loved or the rai of the French future aimerai. But, in such prepositional languages as the Malay-Polynesian, the temporal index invariably precedes the verbal root, as in the shall of the English I shall love. Here again we have a psychological phenomenon, the preference by one branch of the human family of the temporal and determining, and by the other of the assertive and undetermined. Still a third distinguishing feature is the position of the object or direct regimen of the verb relative to that which governs it. The postpositional languages place this regimen invariably before the verb, as is the case so frequently in Latin. Thus Deum nemo vidit, or the English Paul I know exhibit the postpositional order. But the prepositional languages follow our English order by placing the verb before the regimen. To these three important distinctions I add two others, which are perhaps less universal than those mentioned. The postpositional languages place the genitive before its governing noun, as in German and largely in English, while the prepositional follow the French order, placing the genitive last. Thus the former would say Peter's hat, and the latter, the hat of Peter. Finally, the place of the adjective is generally in postpositional languages before the noun, and in prepositional, after it. To sum up the elements of grammatical distinction between the two classes we have found that :—

 

POSTPOSITIONAL LANGUAGES

place the mark of relation (postposition) after the noun,

the temporal index after the verbal root,

the active verb after its regimen,

the nominative after its genitive,

the noun after its adjective:

 

While PREPOSITIONAL LANGUAGES

place the mark of relation (preposition) before the noun,

the temporal index before the verbal root,

the active verb before its regimen,

the nominative before its genitive,

the noun before its adjective.

 

This I hold to be a natural and philosophical classification of languages, as much superior to that which rests on mere forms of agglutination as the natural system of Botany is to the old artificial system of Linnæus. I do not propose, however, to apply this system beyond the limits of the so-called Turanian languages, taking that term in its widest sense as including all that are not classed as Indo-European and Semitic. It is thus applicable to all the American languages.

 

Of the languages now under consideration two, the Algonquin and the Chimsyan, are known to be prepositional. They exhibit at least three of the peculiar features of such languages in the use of prepositions, the preposition of the temporal index to the verb, and of the verb to its regimen. Other languages on the Pacific coast agree in these respects with the Chimsyan, but, in the East, the Algonquin dialects stand alone as the only representatives of the prepositional class. The Maya-Quiche family of Central America is preposing and so are many languages of South America, such as the Kirriri of Brazil and the Mbaya-Abipone family of La Plata and Paraguay. To suppose that the Algonquin and Chimsyan languages are derived from Northern Asia, because, like the Koriak and Corean languages, they are polysynthetic, would be to make the Asiatic immigrant completely invert his order of thought. Their grammar is that of the great Malay-Polynesian stock and thus of the Asiatic languages with which this stock is related. If, therefore, the Algonquins and Chimsyans are Asiatic colonists on American soil, they must belong to the Malay-Polynesian family.

 

On the other hand the Wyandot-Iroquois, the Dacotah, and the Tinneh languages are postpositional. They invariably employ postpositions; they place the temporal index after the verbal root, the verb after its regimen, and the nominative after its genitive. In these respects they cut themselves off from fellowship with the Malay-Polynesian and Algonquin dialects, and claim kindred with the Finnic, Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Dravidian and Japanese-Koriak languages. It is desirable, however, to reduce if possible so large an Asiatic element in the comparison, and to do so by means of grammatical forms. The position of the personal pronoun supplies the desideratum. In the Finnic, Turkic, Dravidian, and in most of the Mongolic languages, the pronoun is terminal, as it is in the languages of Peru ; but, in a few Mongolic dialects and in the Tungusic and Japanese-Koriak families, it is initial. Now in the Wyandot-Iroquois, the Dacotah, and the Tinneh it is initial, so that there is reason in connecting these languages with the Eastern Mongolie, the Tungusic and the Japanese-Koriak. Grammatical forms, therefore, lead to the same conclusion as that reached by Dr. Latham and myself from a comparison of words. This, however, I claim as original, the discovery of the totally diverse origin of the Algonquin and allied prepositional languages. There are certain minor features of language to which I merely allude, but of which a great deal has sometimes been made; these are the distinction of nouns into animate and inanimate, the use of the plural of the first personal pronoun in an exclusive and in an inclusive form, the employment of separate terms to denote elder and younger brother, &c. These and similar peculiarities find abundant illustration in America, and are also common to the Malay-Polynesian and Turanian languages of Asia.

 

It would be a simple matter, did time permit, to prove that the Wyandot-Iroquois and the Dacotahs belonged originally to the same family, but this on my part is unnecessary as the Hon. L. H. Morgan has already asserted the fact, showing, at the same time, that the Wyandot-Iroquois were of the two by far the earliest offshoot. To them, did the limits of my lecture permit, I would add the Cherokees and the Choctaw family, in doing which I should find myself in accord with Dr. Latham. The grammatical forms and the vocabularies of these tribes coincide with those of the Japanese-Koriak family of Eastern Asia. This family embraces the people of Japan and the Loo Choo Islands, the Ainos, Coreans, Kamtchatdales, Koriaks and Tchuktchis. To connect these peoples with our Indian populations is nothing new. Dr. Barton did so towards the close of last century, and Dr. Pritchard, favouring his views, found relations between the Indian tribes and the Koriaks, Tchuktchis, Tungus, Voguls, Kamtchatdales and Japanese. Von Matiushkin, the chief authority upon the Tchuktchis, says:—“They are distinguished from the other Asiatic races by their stature and physiognomy, which appears to me to resemble that of the Americans.” Again Mr. Baldwin, in his “Ancient American,” asserts that —“our wild Indians have more resemblance to the nomadic Koraks and Chookchees, foud in Eastern Siberia, throughout the region that extends to Behring's Strait, than to any people on this continent.” The Tchuktchis, as described by Martin Sauer in his account of “Billing's Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia,” are of tall stature and stoutly built, brave warriors and skilful workmen, living in large houses, the floors of which are excavated to the depth of several feet, and in which there are hearths, raised seats and beds. In all of these features and possessions they resemble the Dacotahs, as their portraiture is given by Catlin. Martin Sauer also directs attention to the manly sports of the Tchuktchis, and, in particular, to what he calls their game of prisoner's bars, which is that species of ball play common to Dacotahs, Iroquois and Choctaws and known in Canada as lacrosse. The same game is played in Japan. Japan indeed has been associated with American populations since the time of Dr. Barton, who discovered striking affinities between the Peruvians and the Japanese. Humboldt also pointed out important resemblances in the Japanese system of government and that of the Muyscas of New Granada, whose religion was identical with the Peruvian. And, in the narrative of “Commodore Perry's Expedition to Japan,” it is asserted that the Muyscan and Japanese astronomical systems are identical. The umbrella also in Peru was used as a mark of dignity as in Japan and the Loo Choo Islands. Also some Peruvian tribes flattened the head like the Koriaks; and others mummified their dead like the Ainos; while they all agreed in the worship of the sun, like the whole of the Japanese-Koriak family. The same artificial compression of the skull prevailed formerly among the Choctaws and several Dacotah tribes, thus linking them with the Koriaks. The Dacotahs, Iroquois and Choctaws agree likewise with the whole Japanese-Koriak family in being originally sun-worshippers. The Huron chiefs, indeed, like those of the Natchez and the Incas of Peru, professed to be descendants of the sun, as did the princes of Japan, whose very name Miko is identical in form with the Choctaw word for prince. The war god of the Iroquois, called Areskoui, is almost identical in name as he is identical in functions with the Koriak Arioski. There is thus sufficient evidence for the fact that from an early period the Japanese-Koriak family has poured a tide of population into the American continent in waves which represented the civilization of the Japanese and the barbarism of the other tribes. The Peruvians, Muyscas, and probably the Mound Builders, (for mounds similar to those of this continent have been found in Japan) exhibited the civilized type of the Japanese; while the Araucanians of Chili, the Cherokee and Choctaws, the Iroquois and Dacotahs represented the savagery of Koriaks and Tchuktchis. As the Koriak Arioski is the Iroquois Areskoui, so the Istla of the Tchuktchis is the Hostahli of the Choctaws; and the very tribal names, Cherokee and Choctaw, are American reproductions of Koraeki and Tchekto, the names by which Koriaks and Tchuktchis know themselves. The Iroquois' names for man, nenekin, eniha, connect them with the Japanese, whose form is ningen, and with the Ainos, who call themselves ainuh: while lookque, another Iroquois form, is the Tchuktchi luka. The Dacotah name for man is wica, in which we find the Aino oikyo and the Tchuktchi wika. Both the Wyandot-Iroquois and the Dacotah languages have miscellaneous Japanese-Koriak affinities, so that there is no one branch of the latter family with which they may be respectively associated. Thus in the Wyandot-Iroquois vocabularies there are many words which are pure Japanese, and others which as plainly attest their Koriak-Tchuktchi origin; while, in the Dacotah dialects, we find an abundance of verbal forms that appear most prominently in Loo Choo, and others which are best represented by the Kamtchatdale.

 

The average brain capacity of the Dacotahs and Iroquois, according to Schoolcraft, is from two to five cubic inches greater than that of the Algonquins. Mr. Slight, a Wesleyan Missionary, in his “Indian Researches,” bears testimony to the uniform superiority in personal appearance, intelligence and the arts of the Wyandot-Iroquois to the Algonquin. Many of the oldest writers on Indian subjects have referred to the same fact, and have characterized the Wyandot-Iroquois as stationary and semi-civilized populations. Such a distinction appears in Siberia, between the stationary and the roving Tchuktchis; and, on American soil, Catlin has illustrated it in a comparison of the Mandans with other Dacotah tribes. In all the features in which the Iroquois and Dacotahs differ from the Algonquins, they resemble the Tchuktchis and other members of the Japanese-Koriak family.

 

There are great analogies between the Dacotah and Kamtchatdale vocabularies, and especially between the latter and the Assiniboin, in both of which the verbs in their simplest form end in tsh, just as the Sioux or Dacotah proper and the Loo Choo verbs equally terminate in ng. The Dacotahs and Kamtchatdales agree in their unseemly dances, in the general structure of their houses, in river worship, in a belief in a subterranean Hades, and in a superstitious dread of touching a fire with steel or any metal implement, as has been set forth by Mr. Tylor in his Primitive Culture, and other writers. While, according to Catlin, the Osages, a Dacotah tribe, flattened the skull artificially in infancy, like some Koriak tribes described by Abernethy, the Konzas, who are closely related to the Osages, shaved part of the head and gathered the hair that remained into a knot upon the crown, through which they passed an ornamental pin, like the people of Loo Choo. The majority of writers who have attempted the foolish task of characterizing the features of the American Indian, have given him a broad flat face and a diminutive but spreading nose. Now the face of the Wyandot-Iroquois and of the Dacotah is neither broad nor flat, but oval and prominent, and in general the nose in these tribes is a most distinctive object, forming in many cases a decided arch; in which particulars they agree with the Koriak features. It is not, therefore, too much to say that the Dacotahs and Wyandot-Iroquois find the counterpart of their physical structure and appearance, their character and religion, their arts and recreations, their grammatical and verbal forms, among the tribes of the Japanese-Koriak family, and that there is thus no reason to doubt the derivation of these American peoples from that eastern Asiatic stock. I am not aware of the existence of any Iroquois or Dacotah legends attesting such a derivation, but, among the Choctaws, who are undeniably of the same extraction, there is one which states that:—“a long time ago the Choctaws commenced moving from the country where they then lived, which was a great distance to the west of the great river and the mountains of snow, and they were a great many years on their way.” It is not at all likely that the tribes mentioned reached America by a long sea voyage, as none of them are lovers of the water, although Japanese junks have been frequently cast ashore on the Pacific coast. Dr. Pritchard says:— “There is no difficulty in supposing them to have passed the strait which divides the two continents. The habitations of the nearest Americans are only 30 or 40 leagues distant from the dwellings of the Tchuktchis. These people carry on a trade of barter with the Americans. They employ six days in passing the strait, directing their course from island to island, the distances between which are so short that they are able to pass every night on shore. Such was the information obtained by persons sent into the country of the Tchuktchis by the Russian Government in 1760. See Coxe's account of the Russian discoveries in the North. In winter the two continents are joined by ice and the people pass over in one day with their rein-deer.—Cook's last Voyage, vol. 2, page 509.”

 

North of the Saskatchewan appear tribes of the great Tinneh family, so called from the word denoting man in many of their dialects. One of the best known tribes is that referred to by Mackenzie and other travellers as the Chipweyan or Athabascan. Their grammatical forms are virtually those of the Iroquois and Dacotahs, but their vocabulary is quite different from those of the Japanese-Koriak family; and the appearance and habits of the Tinneh show no less divergence. Yet, if Asiatic colonists, they must have passed into America from some northern part of the Eastern Hemisphere, and thus from a region which is occupied almost uninterruptedly by the Japanese-Koriak family. Now Dr. Latham, in speaking of the latter family, which he calls the Peninsular, draws attention to the fact that its continuity is broken—“by Tungusian tribes whose area has certainly been an encroaching one.” Their national appellation, and, at the same time, their name for man, is Tungus, Donki, and they are called Tung-chu by their Chinese neighbours. The Loucheux tenghie and the Kutchin tingi are two Tinneh names that answer perfectly to the Tungusian words; and the whole Tinneh vocabulary offers similar instances of verbal relationship with the Tungus. We have already seen that the polysynthetism of the Tinneh characterizes equally many Tungusic dialects, although some of them, such as the Mantchu, have attained a higher position or one of more simple agglutination. The Tinneh traditions, as reported by Mackenzie and Father Petiot, state that their enemies, who were very wicked men, (probably the Yakut Turks), dwelt to the west of their nation; that fleeing from them, they crossed a shallow sea, passing from island to island in a bitterly cold climate; and at last found the sea to the west of them and their enemies to the east.

 

The small eyes, high cheek-bones, low forehead and coarse black hair of the Tungus are alluded to by Santini and Sauer, and identical features are ascribed to the Tinneh by Hearne, Mackenzie and later writers. Although both peoples are in the habit of depilation, it is not universal among either the Tungus or the Tinneh. Some of the Tungus tribes, such as the Tshapojirs, tattoo their faces after the prevailing Siberian fashion with bars or straight lines on the cheeks and forehead, and so, according to many authorities, do the Chipweyans and other Tinneh tribes. In character the Tungus lacks the dignity of the Iroquois and the taciturnity of the Algonquin. He is docile, demonstrative, mirth-loving, good natured, communicative, but full of deceit. Now the docility, the childishness, the jocularity, the talkativeness and the craft and cunning of the Tinneh have been a fruitful theme of remarks by all who have had dealings with them. The same resemblances appear in the domestic and social relations of the two peoples, in the form of their dress and the shape of their houses and canoes, in their ornamentation with the colored quills of the porcupine, in their games, and their religious rites and ceremonies. Some very peculiar customs connect them. They agree in a species of divination by means of the shoulder blades of the deer thrown upon embers, in the practice of demonolatry, in placing their dead in wooden boxes above the ground, in eating the undigested food in the stomach of the deer, and in other practices that it would be difficult to find a parellel for in any other community, Asiatic or American. I might occupy your attention for a long time with such proofs of relationship, but must hasten to consider the position of the Algonquins, in whom we are more interested.

 

Shall I describe the Algonquin. Let me say then that “his hair is invariably black and straight; that his face is nearly destitute of beard and his limbs are free from hair; that his stature is always considerably below that of the average European, his body robust, breast well developed, feet small, thick and short, and his hands small and rather delicate. The face is a little broad and inclined to be flat ; the forehead is rather rounded, the brows low, the eyes black and very slightly oblique; the nose is rather small, not prominent, but straight and well shaped, the apex a little rounded, the nostrils broad and slightly exposed; the cheek-bones are rather prominent; the mouth large, the lips broad and well cut, but not protruding; the chin round and well formed.[2] In this description there seems little to object to on the score of beauty, and yet, on the whole, they are certainly not handsome. In youth, however, they are often very good looking, and many of the boys and girls up to twelve and fifteen years of age are very pleasing, and some have countenances which are in their way almost perfect. I am inclined to think they lose much of their good looks by bad habits and irregular living. At a very early age they chew tobacco almost incessantly; they suffer much want and exposure in their fishing and other excursions; their lives are often passed in alternate starvation and feasting, idleness and excessive labour; and this naturally produces premature old age and harshness of feature.”

 

“In character he is impassive. He exhibits a reserve, diffidence and even bashfulness which is in some degree attractive and leads the observer to think that the ferocious and blood-thirsty character imputed to the race must be greatly exaggerated. He is not demonstrative. His feelings of surprise, admiration or fear are never openly manifested and are probably not strongly felt. He is slow and deliberate in speech, and circuitous in introducing the subject he has come expressly to discuss. When alone he is taciturn; he neither talks nor sings to himself. When several are paddling in a canoe they occasionally chant a monotonous and plaintive song. He is cautious of giving offence to his equals. Practical joking is utterly repugnant to his disposition, for he is particularly sensitive to breaches of etiquette or any interference with the personal liberty of himself or another. The intellect of the race seems rather deficient. They are incapable of anything beyond the simplest combination of ideas and have little taste or energy for the acquirement of knowledge.”

 

Now I ask any one acquainted with the appearance and the character of the Cree, the Ojibbeway, the Micmac, the Montagnais, imperfectly influenced by our civilization, if this be not a true portraiture of the Algonquin. And yet it is no Algonquin who sat for this portrait, but the Malay whom Mr. Wallace thus describes. Dr. Pickering was right, therefore, when he said:—“If any actual remnant of the Malay race exists in the eastern part of North America, it is probably to be looked for among the Chippewas.” The Chippewas hang together with the whole Algonquin family. Physical appearance then and character tell the same story as grammatical constructions. Of the dress and implements of the Algonquin I need not speak, because these he has borrowed from other tribes in order to adapt himself to the wants of a new country. But, in contrast to all the eastern tribes, he is essentially a man of the water, having changed maritime habits for the fluviatile and the lacustrine. His story of the creation of the world is of an island drawn up out of the water, in connection with which, as Mr. Tylor has shewn, Manitou is the counterpart of the Polynesian Maui. His heaven, as the Abbé Maurault says in his “Histoire des Abénakis,” was no continent of happy hunting grounds, but “une île du grand lac (l'Océan Atlantique).” The Pacific Ocean and not the Atlantic must have been the original great lake. Like the Malay-Polynesians, the Algonquins did not worship the heavenly bodies; and, like them, they never practised the art of pottery. Their tradition of the creation of mankind out of trees and reeds is the same as that of the Islanders of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. They were originally idolaters and had idols of carved wood. They agreed with some Polynesian peoples in identifying the soul with the shadow, and Mr. Tylor draws attention to “the conception of the spirit voice as being a low murmur, chirp or whistle, as it were the ghost of a voice,” a conception common to the Polynesians and the Algonquins. The extraordinary stretching of the ears that prevailed among the Shawnoes is a Polynesian and Malay practice, and appears in Sumatra and in Easter Island. Their very copper colour is that of the people of the Philippines and Friendly Islands, the Ladrones and the Carolines. Sir John Lubbock finds the tree worship of Crees and Abenakis among the people of the Philippines, of Sumatra and of Fiji. The veneration of many Algonquin tribes for the turtle is an indication of a Polynesian origin, for in the Tonga Islands and elsewhere the turtle plays an important part in mythology. It is also worthy of note that decapitation, not scalping, is the Malay-Polynesian's method of securing a trophy, and that, according to Dr. Gilpin of Halifax, the Micmacs, who had little opportunity of studying the Iroquois' arts of warfare, by similar procedure attested their Malay ancestry.

 

The Algonquin word for man appears in the designation of the Lenni Lenape or Delawares. It is the Delaware linnon, the Miami lenno, the Missisagua linneeh, the Illinois illini, the Micmac alnew. In other dialects the I, either as initial or preceded by a vowel, becomes n, th, r or y, giving such forms as inini, ethini, renoes and eyinew. So in the Malay-Polynesian dialects we find the Javanese lanan, the Malagasy ulun and the Bouru umlanei, with the nonan of Tidore, the tane of Tahiti, the Malay oran and the Tongan ohana. Such tribal designations as Oran-Benua, Oran-Malaya among the Malays explain the Lenni-Lenape of the Delawares. Almost the whole of the Algonquin vocabulary may be found in the Malay dialects. What I have said regarding the Algonquins refers also to the British Columbian tribes, the Haidahs, Chimsyans, Hailtzukhs and Nootkans. In the Haidahs we find the Ahts of the Philippines, and the relations of the Moluccan inhabitants of Ahtiago, whose Papuan intermixture the Haidahs evince by their shock heads of hair, and the appearance of Papuan terms in their language. The masks of the Nootkans find their counterparts among the Kanakas of the Sandwich Islands.

 

When did these Malay-Polynesian elements find their way into the American continent ? It appears that from the thirteenth century onwards great emigrations took place from the Malay archpelago in an eastern direction, prior to, and consequent upon the Mahommedan invasion of these islands. Passing from one group of islands to another, the wanderers would at last fall into the currents which set in towards the American coast. “In attempting from any part of Polynesia to reach America,” says Dr. Pickering, “a canoe would naturally and almost necessarily be conveyed to the northern extreme of California; and this is the precise limit where the second physical race of men makes its appearance.” At some point in Oregon, therefore, or, it may be, further to the north, the ancestors of the Algonquins must have landed, for their own traditions bring them from the far west, Moving south-eastwards they came at last to the Mississippi, and there met the Allighewi, a powerful and cultivated people, who allowed some of their bands to cross over and form settlements. Then, according to joint Iroquois and Delaware traditions, war broke out between the Algonquins and the Allighewi. The Iroquois who had come from the north made common cause with the Algonquins, and the result was that the Allighewi were exterminated, or expelled to the south. This is supposed to have taken place about five hundred years ago, or at about the time that seems to have marked the end of mound-building in the valley of the Ohio.

 

During their period of separation from the parent stock in the Indian Ocean, the language of the American immigrants does not appear to have undergone any very radical change. Its forms and words were probably at the beginning more Moluccan than Malay or Polynesian, as now the chief resemblances to Algonquin grammar and vocabulary are found in the Moluccas. Thus the Ojibbeway weewan and the Mohican weewon are virtually the same word as the wewina of Teor, denoting a woman. The Micmac epidek, a girl, is just the opideka of Galela. And even that strange word pickaninny, applied to a child in the Southern States, for which so many derivations have been proposed, probably came in with some southern Algonquin tribe, as it appears in all its integrity in the pigineneh of Salibabo. The same laws which govern the permutation of letters in the different dialects of the Malay-Polynesian are found among the dialects of the Algonquin, as has already appeared in connection with the name for man. One might as well deny the unity of the Mai ay-Polynesian stock as to refuse a place in it to the Algonquin languages.

 

Many other American families have the same Oceanic origin. Not only the Haidah, Chimsyan, Hailtzuk and Nootkan families of British Columbia are of Malay-Polynesian descent, but also the Kalapuyas and other Oregon tribes; the large Maya-Quiche family of Central America; the equally extensive Carib family of Guiana and adjacent states; the still larger Guarani family of Brazil, which, with the Carib, but in greater degree, exhibits much Papuan intermixture; the Kirriri of the same empire; and the Mbaya-Abipone family of La Plata and Paraguay. In appearance and language, in manners, character, religion, pursuits, and arts, these tribes and families are well differentiated from those of Continental origin, such as the Dacotahs, Tinnehs, Iroquois, Choctaws, Natchez, Aztecs, Muyscas, Peruvians and Chileno-Patagonians. The two diverse stocks have almost equally divided the American continent between them, although the Continental has ever exercised domination. In Yucatan, however, and in Guatimala a genuine Malay civilization, different in many respects from those of Mexico and Peru, long flourished.

 

In becoming an American or, at least, a North American, the Malay was forced to become a borrower and a learner, as I have elsewhere stated. “A fisherman he still remained, but to this he must add the pursuit of wild beasts unknown in Polynesia, and thus he became a hunter. His scanty clothing which answered all purposes under a tropical sun (and which is still sufficient for the Haidahs), was found insufficient in his new northern home, so he assumed the skin dress of neighbouring tribes, and with all a Polynesian's love of finery did not disdain the ornamentation with the coloured quills of the porcupine in which his Turanian brethren indulged. His dug-out canoe became too serious a burden to carry over river portages, and was discarded for the light and elegant shell of birch-bark, whose model had been brought from Northern Asia. No palms or bamboos appeared in the forests of America to furnish materials for house-building, so that once more he had recourse to the birch tree, and coated his structure of saplings with its bark. He found the snow-shoe, the calumet, the scalping art and many things beside in his new continental home. Thus he changed all the accidents of his condition with his change of sky, but as “cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt,” so he preserved unalloyed his language and his character. The Iroquois and the Dacotah taught him the art of American warfare, but all the arts of peace he learned from the feebler Athabascan in the North, for the skin dress, quill ornamentation, the bark canoe and lodge, the snow-shoe and almost all the accessories of North American Indian life seem to have been introduced by that originally Asiatic people. One has but to read the narratives of Martin Sauer, Abernethy and Santini, in order to see that birch-bark canoes, houses and baskets, skin dresses and lodges, snow-shoes and calumets, quill work and moccassins were, and are probably still, in use among the Tungus, who must have invented them ages before they appeared in the Western Continent; so also scalping, a practice unknown among Malays or any Old World people at the present day, was an accomplishment of the ancestors of Asiatic Koriaks and American Iroquois in the far off days of Herodotus.”

 

I trust that I have not unduly depreciated the Algonquin intellect and character, in what I have said concerning the difference between them and those of the Iroquois. It is far from my intention to do aught but justice to any of our Indian brethren. The Iroquois have given us great names in Logan and Red Jacket, Norton and Brant. But it must be remembered that Canonicus was a Narraganset and King Philip a Wampanoag, Pontiac an Ottawa, Captain Pipe a Delaware, Little Turtle a Miami, Tecumseh a Shawnoe, and Black-Hawk a Potawatomie, all Algonquin tribes. On the other hand there are no Iroquois or Dacotahs so low in the social scale as the Scoffies of Labrador, who are also Algonquin; nor in civil government, domestic life or military prowess can we place the Algonquins in general on a par with these more cultivated and warlike nations. After all, my subject is one not of culture and character, but of origins, and of the former only in so far as they tend to shed light on the latter. That there is a path from the Old World to the New, which has long been open, from the Asiatic continent and the islands of the sea, has I hope been demonstrated. What this demonstration may yet add to our store of historical knowledge who can tell ? The writer of the Old World's ancient history may yet be compelled to find the illustrations of his fragmentary notices of ancient populations on American ground, and to see in the Indian tribes who dwell under the shadow of a flag they have learned to honour, and under the protection of that paternal policy which is one of Canada's glories, the descendants of races long grown old, who once played a great part in the annals of history, when no paddle ruffled the surface of our waters, and no human voice echoed through our pathless woods.

 

Your President has done me the honour to ask my opinion on that much discussed subject, the origin of the names Canada and Quebec. This subject has lately been re-opened by Father Arnaud in a communication published in the June number of the Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, where I first saw in print the peculiar views of that excellent missionary, of which I had previously heard more than once from those who had enjoyed the pleasure of a conversation with him on Indian topics. Historicus, in a letter to l'Evénement, has championed these views. Father Arnaud contends that Canada is a Montagnais and thus an Algonquin word, its true forms being Kanata, Kanatak, Kanatats, bearing the obscure meaning “celui qui va voir, visite, explore,” which the correspondent Historicus makes equivalent to “stranger.” The proof offered is that the whole region visited by Jacques Cartier was inhabited by Algonquins. Hochelaga, however, was certainly not Algonquin, nor have we any reason to believe that the Isle of Orleans was inhabited by any other than a Huron tribe. The strong leanings of Father Arnaud in favour of the Montagnais, and at the same time the doubtful value of his derivations, appear in his attempts to explain the names Hochelaga and Cataraqui by words in that language. Both these names are certainly Wyandot-Iroquois. It is impossible to explain Cartier's geographical names by the Montagnais or any other Algonquin language, so that many writers from Charlevoix onward have supposed that between the time of Cartier and that of Champlain a great change took place in the population of the Lower St. Lawrence. The Huron traditions explain this change. According to these, as given by Peter Dooyentate Clarke and others, “the Wyandots (or Hurons) once inhabited a country north-eastward from the mouth of the St. Lawrence, or somewhere along the Gulf coast, before they ever met with the French or any European adventurers.” The same traditions inform us that the ships of Cartier were first seen by the Algonquins whom the Hurons of Quebec had sent “to look out for the strangers and guard the shores.” Clarke also speaks of a portion of the Bear clan returning from the west to their ancient home near Quebec. The facts, that the Huron and Algonquin nations were contiguous or intermingled, and that they were allies from an early period, are patent to every reader of Canadian history. To the west of the Hurons in the neighborhood of Montreal the Iroquois dwelt, and some of the oldest Huron traditions are those which relate the causes of the warfare between these kindred peoples, which ended so disastrously for the former. These traditions make the Seneca tribe the first to commence the war which drove the Hurons into the west. As a geographical term the word Canada connects with the Senecas, and with hardly any other people. Thus we read in the “Description of the Country between Albany and Niagara in 1792,” of the Canada-saga or Seneca Lake, and, near it, or Canada-qua or Cananda-qua. Again, in Wentworth Greenhalgh's Journey from Albany to the Indians in 1677, the Seneca towns are given as Canagora, Tiotohatton, Canoenada and Keinthe. And, in Sir William Johnson's Report on the state of the Indians in 1763, the Seneca villages mentioned are Kanada-sero and Kanade-ragey. The name for village or town in many savage languages is either the same as that for house, or is simply derived from it. The Iroquois word for house is Kanonsa, and that for village Kanata. In some Huron dialects the word for house is the same as the Iroquois, so that, while it is probable that the French discoverer may have obtained his name Canada from the Senecas, he may also have found the same term in use among the Hurons. The Montagnais' etymology cannot stand against such a weight of evidence. The derivation from Kanata, a village, is that of all the old writers, and is accepted by the Abbé Cuoq, whose knowledge of the Algonquin and Iroquois languages better fits him for expressing an opinion than if he were but a specialist in the Montagnais.

 

With the word Quebec it is different. The Wyandot-Iroquois languages are destitute of labials, and could not therefore furnish such a word. The argument drawn from the name Quebec in favour of a similar origin for the name Canada is however, not just, because Quebec belongs to the time of Champlain, Canada to that of Cartier. A change in population had meanwhile taken place. Pressed upon by the Iroquois, the Hurons had lost their supremacy. The old writers agree that it is an Algonquin word, not necessarily Montagnais, signifying rétrécissement, a narrowing or contracting. To this view I can see no valid objection. The view of Father Arnaud, who makes it mean débarquez, descendez à terre, is not complimentary to the intelligence of Champlain and his followers, who had ample opportunities of discovering the true meaning of the word, and would not have been likely to perpetuate such a misconception. There is another etymology possible from an Algonquin standpoint, namely, that Quebec is an abbreviation of the common geographical term Kennebec, whether that word designate a serpent originally or, as the Abbé Maurault suggests, “the great water.” There was anciently a route from the West to the Atlantic coast of Maine, and Quebec was a stage in this route connecting with the Kennebec river. It is not necessary to find an etymology for proper names, which are often taken from tribal designations, the origin of which lies in the remote past. The French geographical name, if of Indian origin, is most probably borrowed not from a chance Indian expression, but from a similar geographical term by which the place was previously known. Thus the States Massachusetts, Illinois, Iowa and Dacotah take their names, the two first from Algonquin, and the two latter from Sioux tribes. So Quebec may have taken its name from the Kinnipiaks of the Abenaki family. The Portuguese aqui nada and the French que bec are etymologies of equal value with those of Father Arnaud and equally uncomplimentary to those who adopted the words. Everybody knows that Paris derived its name from the Parisii, a Gaulish people, and Kent from the Celtic Cantii. No other derivation can be given for these names, nor is it necessary to be more exacting in America. The Abbé Cuoq associates the name Canada with the Canadaquois of the older writers, who are said to have dwelt along the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We may thus find a tribe giving name to a region as the Angles did to England and the Franks to France. That tribe must have belonged to the great Wyandot-Iroquois race, and was in all probability a division of the Senecas, who seem to have exercised chief authority in the East. It is probable that the name Quebec may be similarly accounted for. Geographical names of the same character are often found at great distances from each other, and thus afford a means of tracing tribes in their migrations. While it is true that savages occasionally coin new names for places arising out of some natural feature, it does not seem that this is even their usual procedure. The geographical like the tribal name is generally of ethnological as well as of philological value.

 

In concluding, permit me to appeal to the members of this learned Society on behalf of our great unexplored field of aboriginal antiquities. No better starting point for the study of our native races could be found than this ancient city of Quebec, on whose site the great French navigators first gained a true acquaintance with them, and no more worthy agency for collecting the materials of their history could be employed than the oldest, and at the same time, most active and useful of Canadian Scientific Societies. The materials are at your very doors, but how long they may remain there it is hard to say. The Hurons of Lorette should be better known to the world of science. I am sure that there are some among you able to add to your valuable Transactions, unique and invaluable information which will win for this Society the gratitude of scholars in every land. A sketch of Huron grammar, a full and trustworthy vocabulary, a collection of Huron legends and traditions, would mark a new era of scientific research in Canada. You have nobly justified your motto in the important additions made year by year to our knowledge of historical events and personages belonging to the period of European colonization. Is it too much to hope that under the same auspices the facts of aboriginal history may struggle into the light of day, that Canada's ancient Capital may add fresh laurels to the Canadian name, and the first page of American history be written in your Transactions ?