366 Sir R. Schomburgk on the Natives of Guiana. 



Although a difference in language is not an argument 

 against the descent from a common stock, where similarity 

 in form and structure exists, it may safely be concluded that 

 tribes speaking allied languages were earlier or later related. 

 In the language of the Northern and Southern Indians, the 

 greatest uniformity prevails, which is particularly exemplified 

 in that of the Wapisiana and Delaware, or Lenape tribes. M. 

 Du Ponceau has called attention to the compound words in 

 the North American languages, by which means they can be 

 increased to any extent. The same remark may be applied 

 to the Wapisiana language. The language of the Northern 

 Indian is remarkably copious ; so is that of the Wapisiana. 

 The words for brother and sister are manifold ; and their sig- 

 nification shews whether the brother or sister is older or 

 younger than the speaker, whetlier married, and in possession 

 of one child or children. For every case in this respect the 

 Wapisiana have a word, the abstract of which is brother or 

 sister, but which points out the comparative age and domes- 

 tic history of the individual spoken of. The adjective in the 

 language of the European becomes a verb in that of the De- 

 laware and Wapisiana, and passes through moods and tenses. 

 The verbs to have and to be do not exist ; they are compound 

 with the possession and existence of a thing, and expressed 

 according as the noun is animate or inanimate. An example 

 of this peculiarity in the Cherokee language is recorded in 

 the Massachusetts Historical Collection, Examples of the 

 analogous, and frequently identical structure of the Delaware 

 and Wapisiana languages might be proved point for point, 

 according to the peculiarities which Du Ponceau, Pickering, 

 and other philologists have remarked.* 



I now come to the question of origin. To guide the inquirer 

 through the intricacies of this labyrinth, to give him a notion 

 from whence came the nation of America, there is not a 



* Blumenbach, Prichard, and Moi'ton, are of opinion, that tlie Aborigines 

 of Nortli and South America have descended from a common stock. In the 

 faithful portrait, remarks Humboldt, which an excellent observer, Mr Volney, 

 has drawn of the Canada Indians, we undoubtedly recognise the tribes scattered 

 over the meadows of the Rioapure, and the Coroni, 



