1S92.] "-^ IBrinton. 



With, cnaha. Work, to, ta. 



Wizard, Ian. Year, gni. 



Woman, mui, cha-mui. Yes, xa,jna, ma (iba = it is). 



Word, j?i; cnaju, "one word " 



On the Mazatrc Language of Mexico and its Affinities. 



By Daniel G. Brinton, M. D. 



{Read before the American Philosophical Society, January 75, i8g2.) 



In the northeastern corner of the State of Oaxaca lies a moun- 

 tainous tract, watered by numerous streams, known from earliest 

 times by its Aztec name Teutitlan, the Divine Land, or The Land 

 of the Gods, and officially now as the district Teutitlan del 

 Camino. It has about 26,000 inhabitants, a large proportion of 

 whom are of native blood. These speak three radically different 

 languages — the Cuicatec, which is probably a dialect of the Zapo- 

 tecan stock ; the Chinantec, which stands alone, and the Mazatec, 

 of which nothing whatever has been known, and which it is my aim 

 to examine and, if possible, classify in the present study. 



The material I have for the purpose is an unpublished vocabulary, 

 collected by a Danish officer, who was in the service of Maximilian, 

 and which has been obligingly furnished me by Mr. Alphonse 

 Pinart, whose extensive researches in American linguistics are well 

 known. The only published materials in existence are two trans- 

 lations of the Lord's Prayer into different dialects of the tongue. 

 These have been reprinted by Pimentel, Bancroft and other writers. 

 Their precise provenance is unknown ; as for the vocabulary, it was 

 obtained at Huantla, northeast of the town of Teutitlan. 



Names. — The name Mazatecatl— plural, Mazateca — means " Deer 

 People" in the Aztec or Nahuatl language. It may have been 

 given them by their Nahuatl neighbors on account of their land 

 abounding in deer; or, as some say, because they worshiped the 

 figure of a deer— that is, had a deer totem among them. There 

 were other Mazatecas living in the present Stale of Tabasco, and 

 yet others in the State of Guerrero ; but we have no reason to sup- 

 pose that those "Deer Peoples" were at all related to these in 

 Teutitlan. What they called themselves, if they had a collective 

 tribal name, we do not know. 



