76 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. ix. 



acquaiatance with these features in the American tribes under 

 consideration to the sketch of Malay physique and morale in 

 Mr. Wallace's Malay Archipelago, which T have transcribed in 

 part in my article on the Affiliation of the Algonquin Languages 

 in the Canadian Journal. It will, I think, be found equally 

 applicable to the American tribes of Malay-Polynesian origin. 

 Before quitting the field of language, however, I should mention 

 that the name of the Delawares, the most prominent originally 

 of all the Algonquin tribes, finds not indeed its counterpart, but 

 its parallel, in the Malay area. It consists in the prefix of the 

 word meaning man, Lenni, to the tribal designation Lenape. So 

 we find Malay tribes calling themselves Oran-Benua, Oran 

 Malaya. Let the Javanese Lanan take the place of the Malay 

 Oran, and the analogy is complete. Of manners and customs I 

 may select one, the Couvade, which Butler, in his Hudibras, 

 thus describes : 



" Chineses go to bed 

 And lie-in in tlieir ladies' stead." 



This singular practice prevails among the Abipones, but is so 

 far from being peculiar to them that it is found also in Beam, 

 Congo and Southern India. It is not, therefore, a distinctive 

 mark of ethnic relationship ; but, on the other hand, it can inter- 

 pose no obstacle to the origin which has been claimed for the 

 Abipones, inasmuch as the practice obtains largely among the 

 Mai ly inhabitants of Borneo, from whose stock the Abipones 

 may have received it. If it be asked whence the Maya-Quiches 

 derived their architectural knowledge and skill, the massive stone 

 structures of the Malay Archipelago, of the Marquesas, Naviga- 

 tors, Easter and Sandwich Islands may give reply. But if the 

 question be. Whence came the snowshoes, the skin dress, the 

 quill ornamentation, the birch canoe, the calumet and the scalp- 

 ing art of the Algonquins ? the answer must be, From Northern 

 Asia, where all of these now are or once were found. The Malay 

 immigrant became perforce a borrower and a learner by his change 

 of condition from the circumstances of a tropical and insular to 

 those of a cold or temperate continental home. Athabascans, 

 Dacotahs and Iroquois from Northern Asia taught him their 

 arts of peace and war ; but his character, his physical features, 

 his language and his religion he had no need to change, even 

 where he had the power, for they can flourish as well amid 

 the snows of Labrador as under the burning skies of the Indian 

 ocean. 



