_leg_ ewith'l misith'l.
_to-day_ enyat'l ----
_to-morrow_ matinyat'l ----
_bread_ meyut'l ----
_ear_ hamat'l smyth'l.
_neck_ ---- n'yeth'l.
_arm_ } selh iseth'l.
_hand_ }
_friend_ ---- nyet'l.
_feather_ ---- sahwith'l.
I cannot conclude without an expression of regret that the great work
of Adelung is still only in the condition of a second, or (at best) but
a third edition. There is Vater's Supplement, and Jülg's Supplement to
Vater. But there is nothing that brings it up to the present time.
Much might be done by Buschmann and perhaps others. But this is not
enough. It requires translation. The few French writers who treat on
Ethnological Philology know nothing about it. The Italians and Spanish
are, _a fortiori_, in outer darkness as to its contents. The Russians
and Scandinavians know all about it--but the Russians and Scandinavians
are not the scholars in whose hands the first hand information falls
first. The Americans know it but imperfectly. If Turner has had easy
access to it, Gallatin had not: whilst Hales, with great powers, has
been (with the exception of his discovery of the Athabaskan affinities
of the Umkwa and Tlatskanai, out of which Turner's fixation of the
Apatch, Navaho, and Jecorilla, and, afterwards, my own of the Hoopah,
seems to have been developed,) little more than a collector--a
preeminent great collector--of raw materials. Nevertheless, the Atna
class is his.
However, the Mithridates, for America at least, wants translation as
well as revision. It is a work in which many weak points may be (and
have been) discovered. Klaproth, himself a man who (though he has saved
many an enquirer much trouble) has but few friends, has virulently
attacked it. Its higher classifications are, undoubtedly, but low.
Nevertheless, it is not only a great work, but the basis of all others.
Should any one doubt its acumen let him read the part which, treating
on the Chikkasah, demurrs to the identification of the Natchez with
that and other forms of speech. Since it was written a specimen of the
Natchez language has shewn its validity.
I think that the Natchez has yet to take its full importance. If the
language of the _Taensas_ it was, probably, the chief language of
_Tennessee_. But the Creek, or Muscogulge, broke it up. Meanwhile the
fragmentary Catawba, with which I believe that the Caddo was connected
had its congeners far to westward.
I also think that the Uche represents the old language of Florida--the
Cherokee being conterminous with the Catawba. If so, the doctrine
of the fundamental affinity between the Pawni, Caddo, Catawba, and
Cherokee gains ground.
The Uche demands special investigation. The Tinquin and Timuacana
should be compared with it. Then why are they not? Few works are more
inaccessible than a Spanish _Arte_, _Diccionario_, or _Catecismo_. The
_data_ for these enquiries, little known, are still less attainable.
Without these, and without a minute study, of the first-hand
authorities we can do but little but suggest. All that is suggested
here is that the details of Florida (in its widest sense) and Louisiana
must be treated under the doctrine that the aborigines are represented
by the congeners of the Woccon, Catawba, Uche, Natchez, Tinquin, and
Timuacana, inordinately displaced by the Cherokees and Creeks; who (for
a great extent of their present area) must be considered as intrusive.
* * * * *