CANADIAN NATURALIST 



AND 



^uiutcvly ^ouvnul of <f deuct 



ON THE ORIGIN OF SOME AMERICAN INDIAN 



TRIBES. 



By John Campbell, M.A., 



Professor of Church History, Presbyterian College, Montreal ; Delegud Regional 

 de I'lnstitution Ethnographique ; Correspondant de la 

 Societe Americaine de France, «fec. 



SECOND ARTICLE. 



In the former paper I indicated the existence of a broad line 

 of distinction dividing the aboriginal languages and peoples of 

 this continent into two well-defined groups, the one Malay-Poly- 

 nesian, the other Turanian in origin. It is with the latter that I 

 now propose to deal. The Turanians of America stand in geo- 

 graphical relation to Canada chiefly through the Wyandot- 

 Iroquois family, two important divisions of which, the Hurons 

 and the Six Nations, occupy no inconspicuous position in the 

 early history of the country. Originally this family extended as 

 far south as the Carolinas, and the isolation of the northern 

 Iroquois in the midst of an Algonquin area is due to that intru- 

 sive character and love of conquest which made the warlike 

 Mohawk and his fellows the terror of other Indian tribes. The 

 Assineboins or Stone Indians, whose name is Algonquin, are 

 also Canadian, dwelling upon the banks of the Red River and 

 its tributaries, but they are Dacotahs belonging to the great 

 family commonly known as Sioux, most of whose tribes are 

 found west of the Mississippi. Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, who has 

 investigated many questions relating to the aboriginal population 

 of America, maintains that the Wyandot-Iroquois and the Daco- 

 tahs are branches of the same original stem, and all that I know^ 



Vol. IX. N No. 4.. 



