Section IL, 1884. [ 17 ] Tkans. Eoy. Soc. Canada. 



IL — The Literanj Faculty of the Native Races of America. 



'By John Eeade. 



(Read May 21, 1884.) 



What have the research and learning that have been brought to bear on pre-Colum- 

 bian America disclosed as to the literary faculty in any of its populations ? Before attempt- 

 ing to answer this question it will be well to seek a reply to another. "Were any of 

 the American languages suitable for employment in literary composition ? The common 

 notion regarding them would, perhaps, imply a negative answer, and this notion is sup- 

 ported by some great names. M. Ernest Renan, in his work on the Semitic languages 

 pronounced a judgment which was, by implication, so indiscriminately adverse to the 

 native tongues of America that Abbé Cuoq felt himself called upon to stand up in their 

 defence. In an able pamphlet he claimed for the Algonc^uin and Iroquois languages all 

 the excellences that his antagonist attributed to the Aryan tongues, while he put them 

 far above the Chinese and even those of the Semitic group. M. Cuoq does not lack 

 followers ; neither does M. Renan. The elaborateness, which the former so highly recom- 

 mends as a prominent feature in the American languages, Dr. Farrar looks vrpon as childish 

 excess. On that point Professor Whitney says : " Of course, there are infinite possi- 

 bilities of expressiveness in such a structure, and it would only need that some native 

 American should arise to fill it full of thought and fancy and put it to the use of a noble 

 literature, and it would be rightly admired as rich and flexible, perhaps, beyond any- 

 thing else that the world knew." But as it is, he considers it " cumbrous and time- 

 wasting in its immense polysyllabism." Professor Whitney, in fact, seems to think of 

 the languages of the West as Byron thought of the Land of the East, that " all save the 

 spirit of man is divine," and that, if only those who speak them were as gifted as they are 

 expressive, the harmony would be fruitfully complete. 



Professor Max Muller on this as on some other points is at variance with Professor 

 Whitney. As we know from his writings, the great Grerman-English philologist loses 

 no opportunity of profiting by intercourse with such foreign students as he may come in 

 contact with at the university which benefits by his services. Among them there 

 happened some time ago to be a Mohawk and to him, as we learn from a note in Mr. H. 

 Hale's interesting work, " The Irociuois Book of Rites," Professor Miiller said one day: 

 " To my mind the structure of such a language as the Mohawk is quite sufficient evidence 

 that those Avho worked out such a work of art were powerful reasoners and acute 

 classifiers." [Book of Rites, p. 99, note). In a letter to Mr. Hale, Professor Miiller has also 

 given the following emphatic testimony to the value of the American tongues to the 

 philological student : " It has long been a puzzle to me why this most tempting and pro- 

 mising field of philological research has been allowed to be almost fallow in America^- 



Sec. II., 1884. 3. 



