_head_ okheh hut-se it-se.
_forehead_ hotsintah hut-tah pin-nay.
_face_ haunith hun-ne ----
_eye_ huanah hunnah pindah.
_nose_ huntchu hutchin witchess.
_teeth_ howwa howgo egho.
_tongue_ sastha hotso ezahte.
_ear_ hotcheweh hutchah wickyah.
_hair_ tsewok hotse itse.
_neck_ hosewatl huckquoss wickcost.
_arm_ hoithlani hutcon witse.
_hand_ hollah hullah wislah.
Here the initial combination of _h_ and some other letter is (after
the manner of so many American tongues) the possessive pronoun--alike
in both the Navaho and Hoopah; many of the roots being also alike. Now
the Navaho and Jecorilla are Athabaskan, and the Hoopah is probably
Athabaskan also.
The Tahlewah and Ehnek are but little like each other, and little like
any other language.
Although not connected with the languages of California, there is a
specimen in the volume before us of a form of speech which has been
already noticed in these Transactions, and which is by no means clearly
defined. In the 28th Number, a vocabulary of the _Ahnenin_ language is
shown to be the same as that of the _Fall-Indians_ of Umfreville. In
Gallatin this _Ahnenin_ vocabulary is quoted as _Arapaho_, or _Atsina_.
Now it is specially stated that these _Arapaho_ or _Atsina_ Indians
are those who are also (though inconveniently or erroneously) called
the _Gros Ventres_, the _Big Bellies_ and the _Minitares_ of the
Prairie--all names for the Indians about the Falls of the Saskachewan,
and consequently of Indians far north.
But this was only one of the populations named Arapaho. Other
Arapahos are found on the head-waters of the Platte and Arkansas.
Who were these? Gallatin connected them at once with those of the
Saskachewan--but it is doubtful whether he went on better grounds than
the name. A vocabulary was wanted.
The volume in question supplies one--collected by Mr. J. S. Smith. It
shows that the two Arapahos are really members of one and the same
class--in language as well as in name.
Upon the name itself more light requires to be thrown. In an
alphabetical list of Indian populations in the same volume with the
vocabulary, from which we learn that the new specimen is one of the
_southern_ (and not the _northern_) Arapaho, it is stated that the word
means "_pricked_" or "_tattooed_." In what language? Perhaps in that
of the Arapaho themselves; perhaps in that of the Sioux--since it is
a population of the Sioux class which is in contact with _both_ the
Arapahos.
Again--if the name be native, which of the two divisions uses it?
the northern or the southern? or both? If both use it, how comes
the synonym Ahnenin? How, too, comes the form _Atsina_? Is it a
typographical error? The present writer used the same MS. with Gallatin
and found the name to be _Ahnenin_.
To throw the two Arapahos into one and the same class is only one step
in our classification. Can they be referred to any wider and more
general division? A Shyenne vocabulary is to be found in the same
table; and Schoolcraft remarks that the two languages are allied.
So they are. Now reasons have been given for placing the Shyenne in
the great Algonkin class (_Philolog. Trans., and Transactions of the
American Ethnological Society_, vol. ii. p. cxi.).
There are similar affinities with the _Blackfoot_. Now, in the paper
of these Transactions already referred to, it is stated that the
affinities of the Blackfoot "are miscellaneous; more, however, with the
Algonkin tongues than with those of any recognized group[38]." Gallatin
takes the same view (_Transactions of American Ethnol. Soc._ vol. ii.
p. cxiii.).
[Footnote 38: No. 28. vol. ii. p. 34. Jan. 24, 1845.]
This gives as recent additions to the class in question, the
Blackfoot--the Shyenne--the Arapaho.
The southern Arapaho are immigrants, rather than _indigenæ_, in
their present localities. So are the Shyennes, with whom they are
conterminous.
The original locality of the southern Arapahos was on the Saskachewan;
that of the Shyennes on the Red River. Hence, the affinity between
their tongues represents an affinity arising out of their relations
anterior to their migration southward.
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