CANADA, A TYPICAL EACE OF AMEEICAN ABOEIGINES. 61 



of one iguoraut of the science of language, and gives no adequate idea either of the gram- 

 matical structure or of the variety and richness of the Huron tongue. 



The languages or dialects sx)oken by many native Indian tribes have undoubtedly 

 perished with the races to which they pertained ; but the numerous Huron-Iroquois 

 dialects still existing, not only in written form, but as living tongues, afford valuable 

 materials for ethnical study. The history of other Indian tribes abundantly accounts for 

 the multii^licatiou of a minute diversity of languages so specially characteristic of the 

 American continent, with the endless subdivisions of its indigenous poiiulation into 

 petty tribes, kept ap-Avt by internecine feuds. The niunber of native American languages 

 is estimat(>d by Vater, in his Linguarum Totivs Orbis Index, at about five hundred. But 

 the question forthwith arises : What shall be regarded as constitiiting a language ? For, 

 in the wanderings of little bands of Indian nomads, dialects multiply indefinitely. Nearly 

 six himdred of such are catalogued by Mr. Bancroft, in his " Native Eaces of the Pacific 

 States,'' as spoken between Alaska and the Isthmus of Panama. 



Here then is a field for much useful research, with the promise of valuable results. 

 The subject is rendered more attractive owing to the fact that, of nearly all the nations 

 of the North American continent, their languages are the only surviving memorials 

 of the race. Already, under the efficient supervision of tin; Ethnographic Bureau of the 

 United States, systematic contributions are being secured for this imi)ortant branch of 

 knowledge, so far as their own geographical area is concerned. A no less important area 

 is em])raced in the Dominion of Canada, and it is peculiarly incumbent on the Royal 

 Society to urge on the attention of the Grovernment the necessity for timely action in this 

 matter. In our own Northwest, and in British Columbia, langviages are disappearing 

 and races becoming extinct. Mr. Hale recently contributed to the American Philosophical 

 Society's transactions, a vahrable monogram on the Tutelo tribe and language, derived 

 mainly from Nikonha, the last full-blood Tutelo, who survived till upwards of an 

 hundred years of age. He was married to a Cayuga woman, and lived among her people on 

 their Grand River reserve near Brantford. " My only knowledge of the Tuteloes," says Mr. 

 Hale, " had been deriA^ed from the few notices comprised in Grallatin's Synopsis of the 

 Indian Tribes, where they are classed with the nations of the Huron-Irocjuois stock. At 

 the same time the distinguished author, with the scientific caution which marked all his 

 writings, is careful to mention that no vocabulary of the language was known. That 

 which was now obtained showed, beyond c^uestion, that the language was totally distinct 

 from the Huron-Iroc[Uois tongues, and that it was closely allied to the language of the 

 Dakota family." ' But for this timely exertion of a philological student, this interesting 

 link in the history of the Huron-Iroquois relations with affiliated tribes would have been 

 lost beyond recall. 



Now or never, much work of this same kind has to be done ; nor would the requisite 

 organization be difficult to secure. A systematic cooperation of some sections, or of the 

 council of this society, with officers of the Indian Department and those of the G-eological 

 and Natural History Siirvey of the Dominion, would furnish workers available for 

 accomplishing results for the native tribes of Canada similar to the data now being so 

 efficiently accumulated in reference to the Indian tribes of the United States. Already, 



'The Tutelo Tribe and Language, p. 9. 



