OF THE HUMAN FAMH-V. 507 



Tt now remains to present a snmmary of the argument, which the facts contained in 

 the Tables appear to sustain, togetlier with the final conclusion to which it appears to 

 lead, so far as the classiiicatory system is concerned. It has been seen that this system 

 was transmitted, with the terms of relationship, to the several dialects of the Iro- 

 quois stock language from a common original source, the terms having been changed 

 dialectically like the otlier vocables of the language ; but that tlu; system, as well 

 as the terms, remained constant, and its forms identical. Next it was shown that 

 in the Dakota stock language corresponding terms for the same relationship existed, 

 entirely unlike the former, and that these were changed dialectically like its other 

 vocables, thus showing that it was a transmitted system in each dialect from a com- 

 mon parent nation ; and yet the system in its radical forms, and in the greater 

 part of its subordinate details, was identical with the first. Its propagation into 

 two stock languages from some other lying back of both was thus rendered appa- 

 rent. The Algonkin, the Creek, the Cherokee, and the Pawnee, four other dis- 

 tinct and independent currents of Indian speech, were then examined in their 

 several dialects, and were found to deliver, respectively, the same concurrent testi- 

 mony as to the identity and mode of transmission of the common system to each 

 from a common source. A further examination of the system which prevails in 

 several other stock languages tended to the same conclusions. The prevalence of 

 the system in upwards of a hundred Indian nations not only furnished a sufficient 

 basis for their classification together as one family of nations, but it also appeared 

 to show conclusively that the system was coeval, in point of time, Avith the first 

 appearance of the Ganowanian family upon the North American Continent. If, 

 then, this family came in fact originally from Asia, they must have brought the 

 system with them from the Asiatic continent, and have left it behind them amongst 

 the stock from which they separated ; and further than this, its perpetuation upon 

 the American continent rendered probable its like perpetuation upon the Asiatic. 

 "We next entered the area of the Turanian family, and traced their system of 

 relationship through its several branches, by the same chain of facts and inferences, 

 to a common original form, which gave to the system in Asia an antiquity equally " 

 great. Up to this point the argument appears to encounter neither difficulty nor 

 doubt. Whether the proposed solution of the origin of the system is accepted or 

 rejected, it was made apparent that, instead of a constantly reprodiiced, it had 

 been a transmitted system from the earliest epoch of the separate existence of the 

 Turanian and Ganowanian families ; and if the solution is accepted, then from the 

 period of the introduction of the tribal organizations in the Turanian family. 

 Having ascended, by a chain of facts and inferences, from the several systems of 

 the several branches of the Ganowanian family to a common original form ; and, 

 by a like chain, from the several systems in the several branches of the Turanian 

 family to a common original form, the two ultimate forms Avere then placed side 

 by side and found to be identical in their radical characteristics. From this ascer- 

 tained identity the final induction follows as a necessary consequence, namely, that 

 if the preceding facts and inferences are true of each form and of each family 

 separately, they are equally true of both forms and of both families unitedly ; and 

 thus the two ascend to a common fountain and source, from which both were de- 



