CHAPTER I. 



SYSTEM OF RELATIONSUIP OF THE GANOWANIAN FAMILY. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS, TOGETHER WITH AN ANALYSIS OF THE SYSTEM. 



Evidence of the Unity of Origin of the Indian Family— Name proposed for this Family— Their System elahorate 

 and complicated— Opulence of Nomenclatures— Usages tending to its Maintenance— American Indians, when 

 related, salute by Kin— Never address each other by Personal Name— Manner of Procuring their System of Rela- 

 tionship-White Interpreters— Indians speaking English— Tlieir Progress in this respect— Many Languages now 

 accessible— Others which are not— The Table— Dialectical Variation— Less than has been supposed— Advan- 

 tages of a Uniform Notation— Of Using same Pronominal Forms— Etymologies of Terms lost— Identity of the 

 System throughout the Family— Deviations from Uniformity— Their Uses— The Tribal Organization— Prohibi- 

 tion of Intermarriage in the Tribe— Descent in the Female Line— Exceptions— Two Great Divisions of the 

 Family— Roving Indians— Village Indians— Intermediate Nations— Three Stages of Political Organization— 

 The Tribe, the Nation, and the Confederacy of Nations— Founded upon Consanguinity, Dialect, and Stock Lan- 

 guage-Numbers of the American Aborigines overestimated— Analysis of their System of Relationship. 



The recognized families of mankind have received distinctive names, which are 

 not only useful and convenient in description, but serve to register the progress of 

 ethnology as well. Up to the present time the linguistic evidence of the unity of 

 origin of the American aborigines has not been considered sufficiently complete 

 to raise them to the rank of a family, although the evidence from physical charac- 

 teristics, and from institutions, manners, and customs, tends strongly in the direction 

 of unity of origin. Altogether these cuiTcnts of testimony lead so uniformly to 

 this conclusion that American ethnologists have very generally adopted the opinion 

 of their genetic connection as the descendants of a common parent nation. In the 

 ensuing chapters additional and independent evidence, drawn from their system 

 of relationship, will be produced, establishing, as we believe, their unity of origin, 

 and, consequently, their claim to the rank of a family of nations. The name 

 proposed for this family is the Ganowanian ; to consist of the Indian nations 

 represented in the table, and of such other nations as are hereafter found to 

 possess the same system of relationship. This term is a compound from Gd'-no, 

 an arrow, and Wora'^io, a bow, taken from the Seneca dialect of the Iroquois 

 language, Avhich gives for its etymological signification the family of "the Bow and 

 Arrow."! jj. follows the analogy of "Aryan," from anja, which, according to MiiUer, 

 signifies " one who ploughs or tills," and of" Turanian," from tnra, which, according 

 to the same learned author, " implies the swiftness of the horseman." Should the 

 family thus christened become ultimately merged in the Turanian or Indo-American, 



' Ga-no-wa'-ni-an : a, as a in father ; S, as a in at; a, as a in ale. 



( 131 ) 



