494 michelson: notes on the fox Indians 



tion of linguistic assimilation does not come up at all. The 

 argument that the Foxes were not Algonquians because "they 

 spoke a language which could not be understood by an Ottawa 

 interpreter," is positively ludicrous. What use would an Ottawa 

 interpreter be among the Sauk, Kickapoo, or Delaware? He 

 could undoubtedly understand isolated words, but not whole 

 sentences. But what does that prove? Simply that Sauk, 

 Kickapoo, and Delaware are too remotely related to Ottawa to 

 be mutually intelligible. In precisely the same way an English 

 speaking person would be useless as an interpreter among Ger- 

 mans unless he had studied and mastered their language. Al- 

 lowing for the sake of argument that Iroquoian pottery has been 

 found in Wisconsin in localities where the Foxes have dwelt 

 for a long period, that does not prove the Foxes were Iroquoian 

 in a linguistic sense, for it could easily be accounted for by 

 acculturation. What have wars on other Algonquian tribes to 

 do with the problem of whether or not the Foxes linguistically 

 were Algonquian or not? The English and Germans fought 

 against each other in the Great War. Nor have political alli- 

 ances anything to do with linguistic relationship; the Japanese 

 to-day are the allies of the English. As to the statement that 

 they were mound builders thus resembUng the Iroquois in con- 

 trast with all Algonquian tribes, which I doubt, what has a cul- 

 tural phenomenon to do with a linguistic one? Or what have 

 temperamental differences, a psychic phenomenon, to do with 

 a linguistic problem? Nothing. The alleged original home of 

 the Foxes in an Iroquois country is shown in the section dealing 

 with their history to be nothing more than a misunderstanding, 

 to put it mildly. In any case this has nothing to do with the 

 question whether or not the Foxes were originally Iroquoian in 

 a hnguistic sense. Thus all the arguments crumble down, one 

 by one. 



