May 7, 1886.] 4^1 [Gatschet. 



THE BEOTHUK INDIANS. 



By Albert S. Gatschet. 



Second Article. 



{Read before the American Philosophical Society, May 7, 1886.) 



ROBINSON'S VOCABULARIES. 



Since the publication of the first article on the Beothuk Indians (Proc. 

 Amer. Philos. Soc'y, 1885, pp. 408-424), I was so fortunate as to obtain 

 two further vocabularies of their language, which yielded a number of 

 terms not contained in the collections previously used. Both were writ- 

 ten down by Capt. Hercules Robinson, of the vessel "The Favorite." 



One of these is contained in R. M. Martin's History of Nova Scotia, 

 Cape Breton, etc., London, Whittaker & Co., 1837. 16mo (364 pages); 

 a book which forms volume sixth of the same author's: "The British 

 Colonial Library, etc.," published by Bohn in 16mo. Mr. Martin ex- 

 tracted this vocabulary of ninety words, which stands on pp. 299-301, 

 from the journal of Captain Robinson, and to Mr. Martin the original, 

 from which he copied, had been loaned by the "late Secretary to the 

 Royal Geographical Society;" cf. pp. 238,269. In Martin's text, Robin- 

 son states "that he gathered a vocabulary of Beothuk from Mary March 

 after her capture in 1818," and that in his "paper" he inserted only "the 

 most prominent words collected from her." In this statement are con- 

 tained at least two falsehoods. Mary March was not captured in 1818, 

 but in 1819, and Leigh's and Robinson's printed vocabularies are either 

 copied from a common source, or Robinson, who never saw Mary March, 

 copied from Leigh, which is more probable. The ending -ue (in one nume- 

 ral and elsewhere) is incorrect, Leigh showing the correct form in -uc, 

 -uk ; cf. nine, wind, rain, body. An incorrect form is also contained in 

 Robinson's terms for eye, watch, teeth (there is no / in Beothuk) and per- 

 haps in arrow. But he may be more correct than Leigh in terms like 

 chin, iron, tickle, shoulders, although both are rivalizing in their lack of 

 philologic accuracy. Many terms of this list agree with those in my 

 alphabetic list previously published, and in that case have been omitted. 

 Whenever they agree with the first, but not with the second or third in 

 order of the terms in the previous list, they were omitted also. Enumer- 

 ated in the alphabetic order of the Beothuk terms in my previous list, the 

 excluded words are as follows : cat, feathers, leg, singing, to bite, to lie 

 down, duck, man, egg, oil, knee, to sleep, mouth, eyebrow, tongue, arms, wolf, 

 elbow, ear, ice, nails, I thank you, to swim, salmon, to kiss, husband. At 

 present, no trace can be found of Captain Robinson's manuscript in the 

 library of the Royal Geographical Society, as I have been informed by its 

 courteous secretary, Mr. Clements R. Markham. Concerning the list of 

 terms Mr. Markham writes substantially as follows : "From 1830 to 1836 



