ABORIGINAL AMBRICAlSr POETRY. 25 



classification, entirely linguistic, adopted by Major Powell, of "Washington, the name of 

 every group terminates in the syllable an. Thus we have the Shoshonian, the Coahuil- 

 tecau, the Yumau, the Atticapan, and so on. The races or groups common to Canada and 

 the United States are the Algonquin or Algonquian, the Huron-Iroquois, Wyandot- 

 Iroquois or Iroquoian, the Dakotan or Siouan, the Tinné or Athabascan, the Hyperborean, 

 and the Columbian. In fact, there is not a single great family or group pertaining 

 exclusively to Canada, — the Hyperborean and Athabascan, which might be deemed entirely 

 ours, crossing the border at several points, while some of the Columbian races extend into 

 Washington and Oregon. 



Of the great families found only in the United States, the poetic capabilities have 

 been fairly inrestigated, especially during the last half century. Some of them offer 

 features of great interest, such as the Zunis, of the Pueblo group ; the Indians of the Grila 

 and Colorado Rivers, of the Yuma stock ; the Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and others 

 of the Appalachian race ; and the Klamaths, Modocs, Shastas, and other tribes of the 

 Californiau family.' 



The traditions, beliefs, dances, and songs of the Zunis, a typical tribe of New Mexican 

 Pu.eblos, have been carefully collected by Mr. Frank H. Cushiug, the story of whose 

 experience in that oasis of semi-civilisation, I had the pleasure of hearing from his own 

 lips in Montreal. His description of his initiation into the Priesthood of the Bow, the 

 most perfectly organised of thirteen Zuni orders, reads like a romance. Song and dance 

 form a prominent feature in all the ceremonies. Even their ordinary language, under the 

 influence of strong emotion, has a perceptible tinge of the poetic, and some of their 

 terms and phrases are quick with startling imagery. For instance, when Mr. Cushing 

 was explaining to them that the earth moved round the sun, one of his hearers exclaimed : 

 " Listen ! the Medicine Flower is right. If you gallop past Thunder Mountain, Thunder 

 Mountain moves and you stand still, and besides I have noticed that in summer the great 

 Hanging Snow-bank (the Milky Way) drifts from the left of the Land of Daylight (N.E.) to 

 the right of the World of Waters (S.W.) and in winter from the left of the World of Waters 

 to the right of the Land of Daylight." ' Mr. Cushing gives as an almost literal translation 

 from a Zuni folklore tale of winter, the following lines : — 



" The rattled-tailed serpents 



Have gone into council ; 



For the god of the ice-caves, 



From his home where the white down 



Of wind in the Northland 



Lies spread out for ever, 



' For the ethnology, physical characteristics, social usages, religion and traditions of the Hyperborean, 

 Columbian, Californian, and ^ew IMexican groups, and of the wild tribes of Mexico, Central America and the 

 Isthmus of Panama, see H. H. Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. i, passim. Under the desig- 

 nation of New Mexicans he comprises the nations of Nevi^ Mexico, Arizona, Lower California, Sonora, Sinaloa, 

 Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila, Nuevo Loon, Northern Zacatecas and Western Texas. See also J. R. Bartlett's 

 Personal Narrative of Exploration and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora and Chihuahua. 

 Mr. Stephen Powers has industriously collected many of the myths, traditions and songs of the California Indians. 

 Some of them are given in the Native Races, vol. iii. 



'"' Now this is the very way in which early barbaric man, not for poetic affectation, but simply to find the 

 plainest words to convey his thoughts, would talk in metaphors taken from nature." Tylor's Anthropology, p. 290. 



Sec. ii, 1887. 4. 



