34 EEADB ON BASQUES 



who classes it with the Mongolian family, says that it still exists in the Basques as 

 well as in the Indians of North America. 



In an essay on " Indian Migrations, as evidenced by Language ", read at the Montreal 

 Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Mr. Hale cites Sir 

 William Dawson's work as confirming his belief in the kinship between the Iberians and 

 the Americans. " It will be noticed ", he writes, " that the evidence of language and to 

 some extent of tradition leads to the conclusion that the course of migration of the Indian 

 tribes has been from the Atlantic coast westward and sotithward. The Huron-Iroquois 

 tribes had their pristine seat on the lower St. Lawrence. The traditions of the Algonquin 

 seem to point to Hudson Bay and the coast of Labrador. The Dakota stock had its older 

 branch east of the Alleghanies, and possibly (if the Catawba nation shall be proved to be 

 of that stock) on the Carolina coast. Philologists are well aware that there is nothing in 

 the language of the American Indians to favor the conjecture (for it is nothing else) which 

 derives the race from eastern Asia, but in western Europe one community is known to 

 exist, speaking a language which in its general structure manifests a near likeness to the 

 Indian tongue. Alone of all the races of the old continent, the Basques or Euskarians of 

 northern Spain and south-western France have a speech of that highly complex and 

 polysynthetic character which distinguishes the American languages. There is not, 

 indeed, any such positive similarity, in words or grammar, as would prove a direct affi- 

 liation. The likeness is merely in the general cast and mould of speech ; but this likeness 

 is so marked as to have awakened much attention. If the scholars who have noticed it 

 had been aware of the facts now adduced with regard to the course of migration on this 

 continent, they would probably have been led to the conclusion that this similarity in 

 the type of speech was an evidence of the unity of race. There seems reason to believe 

 that Europe, at least in its central and western portions, was occupied in early times by a 

 race having many of the characteristics, physical and mental, of the American aborigines, 

 The evidences which lead to this conclusion are well set forth in Dr. Dawson's recent 

 work on Fossil Men. Of this early European people, by some called the Iberi.au race 

 who were ultimately overwhelmed by the Aryan emigrants from central Asia, the Basques 

 are the only svirvivors that have retained their original language ; but all the nations of 

 southern Europe, commencing with the Gi-reeks, show in their physical and mental traits 

 a large intermixture of this aboriginal race. As we advance westward, the evidence of 

 this infusion becomes stronger, until in the Celts of France and the British islands, it gives 

 the predominant cast to the character of the people. ' " 



Mr. Hale goes on to say that this theory alone accounts for the marked contrast 

 between the Aryans of the East and those of the West, — the former being submissive, 

 while with the latter, especially where the so-called Celts predominate, " love of freedom 

 is a passion." ^ 



From the passage above quoted it will be seen that Mr. Hale's theory does not depend 

 for proof on any discovered verbal similitude between Basque and any form of American 

 speech. How vain such comparisons are, it is almost needless to point out. Chance coinci- 

 dences of sound occur in languages that cannot possibly have any relationship, and even 



' Note F, Appendix to the Iroquois Book of Rites, pp- 187, 188. 



' On thi.s point Mr. Hale's argument is hardly convincing. It is among the fairer northern races in which, 

 the Iberian element is small, that love of independence abounds most. 



